Digital Marketing Specialist, Social Media Consultant,
and Tech Geek at Heart

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jason calacanis

How to Get an Influencer’s Attention

March 24, 2010

Influence is everywhere, but it’s up to you to spot it. As information flow is infinite, many find that it is of utmost importance to capture the attention of the select few who serve as influencers — these are the people who can actually stop their followers in their tracks to help spread your message. Perhaps this might serve as the start of a real relationship. If nothing else, these influencers will help to share your story with their own audience.

I contacted a number of influencers to see what grabs their attention. I selected influencers in all different “walks of life” and areas of influence, from the blogosphere to the power users of Digg to founders of successful startups and authors of bestselling books. The question I asked, simply, was “how do you recommend people grab your attention?” The question was purposely left open-ended; I wasn’t necessarily seeking out attention in the form of a product pitch, despite the fact that many of those asked are prominent bloggers. As such, the responses are varied — just the way I wanted it. Here’s what they told me:

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The Thing About Friends and Digg: Hit up the Big Guns

June 19, 2007

Here’s the deal. If you’re real life friends with Kevin Rose, you have a new product website to launch, and Kevin submits the story for you, expect that the submission will make the Digg front page within hours of its submission.

There’s preferential treatment to young Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and their close-knit circles are pretty exclusive.

Many have contested the launch of Jason Calacanis’s newest venture, Mahalo. The discussion pretty much revolves around the same concept: 1) “old is new again”; 2) this is Wikipedia and About.com; 3) it’s just not scalable.

Many believe that Mahalo, by itself, would probably not gain popularity. Guy Kawasaki’s Truemors seemed to have been big for all of a week but many seem to have already forgotten about it. However, once you have a rockstar Digging your site, you’re bound to make waves and get popular.

Once upon a time, Jason whined that SEOs were snake oil salesmen. Jason said: “SEO is BS, if you generate a web page with good content Google will rank the page properly.?? I personally don’t have anything against Jason’s very candid opinion.

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Fatblogging: I Follow the Zawodny Hacker Diet

March 14, 2007

Diet MeasurementsJason Calacanis, entrepreneur and tech dude, who incites Internet riots, started a trend a little over a month ago called “fatblogging.” This was at a time when I was in the middle of a diet but didn’t want to call attention to it, since most of my diets have never been quite successful. Now, with some newfound success that I will share in this blog post, I’ll announce that I have joined the fatbloggies. I won’t be fatblogging in the true sense of the word, because Calacanis actually wants us to post our weights (every day!), and well, that’s a secret, my friends. :)

Regardless, the fatblogging trend has been extremely powerful and has seriously been a big hit in the blogosphere. People are writing about it, and it’s catching on. I’m going to jump on the bandwagon for a brief period to announce that since I started my “diet” on January 8th, a diet that was inspired by Jeremy Zawodny (I keep that spreadsheet open on my desktop all the time), I’ve lost about 20 pounds. This was an incredible thing for me. After all, about a year ago, I had a pretty major surgery and never got active thereafter to lose that dead weight that I accumulated, nor did I have any intention to (though I did set a goal to exercise, but I simply never did). The Hacker Diet variation by Jeremy was a real simple thing for me, and the results have made me quite happy.

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Twitter is Really Only an AIM Away Message for an Older Generation

March 8, 2007

Twitter LogoI was well before my time when I began using AIM (according to Gaim, I’ve been a member since June 25, 1997). It eventually caught on as more and more people realized the value of “instant” communications online, but there’s a line that was drawn and not many people above a certain age group were really into it as much as I was.

I happen to find myself frequently surrounded by a select few individuals who consider IM a distraction. For me, while not as much a high priority as it was previously, IM is not a distraction — it is a necessity for communication. Similarly, I find that determining one’s status (whether they’re available or away) is also pretty important, and I put emphasis on reading “away messages” if the situation warrants it.

Interestingly, as I look at the 66 people who are online right now on my buddy list, the average age of these users (and I’m shocked that I know this) is 24.64. Of those, 23 have away messages, and the average age of these 23 individuals is 22.618.

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Successful Verbal Link Bait from the Mouth of Jason Calacanis

December 6, 2006

Jason CalacanisSEOs worldwide were shocked by the Search Engine Strategies Chicago Keynote of earlier today given by Jason Calacanis, who said “SEO is BS, if you generate a web page with good content Google will rank the page properly.”

Despite the fact that many SEOs did get offended, I’m beginning to wonder if Calacanis had other intentions by making that statement. Really, the content of his speech was worth “linking to” and discussing. His name is getting out there. He essentially is “attacking link attention with controversy” (thanks, Rand) and giving himself a lot of publicity as a result. I think Graywolf is really proving the point.

If you have “good content” or something that’s worth talking about, people will refer to you. People will talk about you. That’s how you build reputation. On the Internet, that may very well be called SEO. And I bet that Calacanis cleverly orchestrated his speech with this exact intention.

I wonder how many searches in Google/blogsearch will yield an exact result for Calacanis’s quote. I bet there are quite a few thus far.

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