It may have taken 7 years to get into the NY Times, but it only took 9 months to get to Guy Kawasaki.

And, in this age of the “Ridiculous Reach of the Individual,” the two of them are roughly equivalent.

That’s right, Guy Kawasaki has about as much influence on driving traffic to my blog as the venerable ol’ Gray Lady in terms of raw traffic (thanks to his tweet and the re-tweets that he affected).

With over 100,000 followers, it’s obviously an honor that Guy would endorse my whitepaper on CDM. I’ve read a lot of his stuff and his blog for a while now (I’m a Raving Fan of his), but there’s another story here…

how you can get noticed and tweeted by the mega-influencers.

I’m far from a mega-success story, but once again, I see that the secret is not a secret. It’s as simple as it gets.

1. Create something Remarkable
2. Nurture your network because you like them…not to use them

So, here are is the story of how a whitepaper went from my “man cave” home office to Guy Kawasaki’s tweetstream.

Back in July, the friend of a co-worker of my wife gives me the opportunity to write an article for the American Society of Association Executives

’ Marketing Insights e-Newsletter.

Lindy Dreyer, the maestro of Association Social Media marketing blogs it as a “must read”. Of course, I reach out to Lindy, whom I’ve never met, and we begin a “social media-based” relationship (reading each other’s blogs, etc.)

Eventually, we do meet. She attends the DC Triiibes meet-up that I organized and the first two WOM Slams.

Next, Lindy, because she is a rockstar, is asked to join the prestigious Advisory Board for SmartBrief on Social Media and Mary Ellen, the editor of SmartBrief on Social Media solicits her board members for “3 bloggers she needs to read.” Lindy suggests Igniting the Revolution

Mary Ellen reaches out to me via Facebook (we’re friends) since we know each other from 6 years ago when she profiled my brother and me during our start-up on siblings who work together and gives me the heads up (as does Lindy).

<Magic Happens Here>

Next thing I know, Guy tweets out my whitepaper. So, I email Guy directly:

Just curious how you found it? [there’s a future blog post here on how ‘little guys’ get noticed by ‘influencers,’ just need the meat!)

His response:

I probably saw it on one of the SmartBrief daily email updates (which he did, sort of…the link was to a post…he dug around and found the whitepaper on his own).

So, what’s the lesson here?

I’ve called it “the ROI on Little People,” (not that Lindy is a ‘little person’), but if you really want your story to get out there (and assuming you are creating quality stuff), you are better off focusing on building a ‘Tribe’ of people who like and appreciate your stuff…then simply expressing appreciation when they spread the word on your behalf (which they will do).

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