New ways of Self-promotion using the web
While free-to-consumer web services struggle with ways to capitalize on the enormous and costly traffic their properties are generating, a few industrious people are capitalizing on these free services. They are using Web 2.0 services to actively promote themselves and their own services to gain enormous profit and fame. Here are two such success stories
Christine Dolce a 24-year-old cosmetologist who until a few months ago worked at a makeup counter in a mall has aggressively used MySpace’s free hosting and tools to promote herself and her own commercial website properties and offline businesses. Her MySpace page boasts of nearly one million friends, making her arguably one of the most connected people on the Internet. She now has a manager and a start-up jeans company and has won promotional deals for two mainstream consumer brands!
Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz are the creators and actors in the video clip viral sensation – ‘The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments’ which was posted in ‘Revver’ and garnered over 4 million views. Revver is a website that lets video uploaders earn revenue from advertisements. The massive exposure and viral success of their video clip has reportedly yielded approximately $25,000 in ad revenue share from Revver.
While such stories of successful entrepreneurship are inspiring, they are undoubtedly few and far between. In the vast sea of blogs and vlogs it is difficult to catch the attention of your target group. Are blogging sites emerging as a new medium of advertising? You may ponder on this question in the future.