Advertise on Perez Hilton’s Blog for $54,000 a Day!

If I asked you who Mario Lavandeira was, most of you probably wouldn’t know… But if I asked you who Perez Hilton was, the response would be almost immediate. Just like I did a breakdown of how Guy Kawasaki uses his name for branding power, Mario Lavandeira has done the same… but in this case, without using his “real” name.

Everywhere you look, you see Perez Hilton somewhere… in addition to his power house blog, he’s always on TV (whether it be his own show, or a guest appearance)… but now he’s moving his name into his fashion, cosmetic and music. So where did this Perez Hilton come from and how in just three years did his blog become so popular (and help make blogging popular in the process)? As reported by Wire Magazine… here’s how Mario Lavandeira went from an unemployed fame-obsessed loner, to a celebrity super blogger that can rake in over $50,000 a day!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The blogs-to-riches story of Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr. is the stuff of online legend. In 2004, during what he calls “the worst year of my life,” he was a fame-obsessed loner who had just been fired from a reporting job at Star magazine. (”It poisoned my soul,” he says.) Dreaming of becoming an actor, he moved from New York to LA, unemployed and broke. Too cheap to pay for Internet access at home, he set up shop at a local Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. There, enjoying the free Wi-Fi, he stumbled across a few personal blogs. He thought of writing an online diary of his own but concluded that his life was too boring.

Then he had what his idol, Ms. Winfrey, would call his a-ha moment: He realized that it was easier to be a famous blogger than a famous actor—all you needed was an oversize persona to stand out from the keystroking horde. In September 2004, he set up a free site using Blogger, chose a bland beige template, and began tapping out his musings. Over the course of a year, they evolved into what is now the hot-pink PerezHilton.com. (The site’s original name, PageSixSixSix.com, had to be changed after the New York Post, home to the “Page Six” gossip column, filed a lawsuit.) [Full article]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Now that we have a quick breakdown of the Mario Lavandeira to Perez Hilton background, let’s take a look at some of his growth and revenue numbers. Keep in mind… four years ago (PerezHilton.com launched in September, 2004), none of knew who Mario Lavandeira or Perez Hilton were!

Power Blogger Worth Millions
- Ads on the PerezHilton.com homepage fetch up to $54,000 a day, and his overhead is minimal—his only employee is his sister Barby, who fields emails and corrects typos. Which means he’s pulling down millions a year. The site now averages 198 million page views a month, according to the Web ratings service Quantcast. Nielsen Online estimates that while visitors to TMZ.com, one of his main competitors, stay only 15 minutes, those on Hilton’s site linger for 45 minutes. (Click here for ad pricing)

Making the Jump from Internet to TV
- In 2006, he pitched a reality show based on his day-to-day activities—blogging and bitching about celebrities—and VH1 snapped it up.

The Power of Your Voice
- When he announced on his site, incorrectly, that Fidel Castro was dead (Hilton’s family fled Cuba for Florida in the ’60s), the Huffington Post and the Drudge Report picked up the item (albeit with skepticism). When Bloomberg invited him to be its guest at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, he was seated next to Tracey Ullman, who gushed, “I read your site every day!” For his LA-based novel, Bright Shiny Morning, author James Frey interviewed Hilton and modeled the character of a flamboyant gossip monger on him.

New Content Keeps them Coming Back for More
- Perez Hilton makes on average 24 posts per day day, but can post as many as 40 on a day depending on the craziness of the celebrity gossip world, and who might have flipped a switch that day.

To Mario Lacandeira, the past few years have been nothing short of a “rags to riches” dream come true… not only by the power of the internet, but by the power of motivation and doing what you do best. Mario took Perez Hilton to what it is today, despite all of his set backs and criticism by others. Not only does he now has the fame, the money and the life style… but he’s doing what he enjoys and does best… being the Queen of all Media!

Popularity: 10% [?]

33 Comments » subscribe to my feed

The Branding of Guy Kawasaki

Now more than ever, personal branding is becoming more and more valuable. As an internet marketer, you already know the importance of being able to establish yourself and get your name out there. Not on does the exposure give you credentials, a ton of new networking contacts, possible advertisers, but also puts you in the spotlight… whether it be for positive or negative.

Let’s take a look at how one well known blogger/marketer/entrepreneur, and see how his name is generating millions! I first met Guy Kawasaki at Elite Retreat earlier this year, and will probably run into him again at BlogWorld next month. If you want to learn more about Guy Kawaski, you can do so here… but let’s instead look at the branding power around his name.

Google Search Results
As I was started to pull this post today, I headed over to Google to check out some recent search results and news on “Guy Kawasaki“. Of course Google already recognizes the name as a powerful search, but look how many other searches there are focused around his name. How many search results (suggestions) come up for your name or business? Just in these few search terms below, you will see over 3.5 million results.

Google has Over 3,500,000 Searches Related to “Guy Kawasaki“!

Bring on the Bad Press!
Guy Kawasaki’s latest project has been his AllTop.com web site, which he managed to throw together and staff for something in the area of less than $10,000 and with minimal hosting / management costs each month. Before creating AllTop.com, Truemors.com was another of his previous sites, which was estimated at a cost of $13,000 to create. The point here, is that these are somewhat simple/low cost sites. (keep that in mind)

On May 8th, TechCrunch wrote a post on the first screenshots of Truemors.com, then another post on May of 2007 about the launch of the site. Fast forward to March 11, 2008, TechCrunch makes another post on Guy Kawasaki going live with AllTop.com (saying the site is a “big pile of nothing”).

In addition to TechCrunch making SEVERAL posts about Guy Kawasaki and his “nothing” sites, take a look at all of the “ping backs” from other blogs that then wrote something about the same thing!

Because of Guy Kawasaki’s high profile and name, he was featured by TechCrunch multiple times… if anything else created these sites, TechCrunch probably would not have cared. Also, Guy spent under $25,000 to create both of these sites… the amount of exposure he got from the posts and “bad press” dwarfed is actual costs… making both sites a success! (Trumors was recently acquired by NowPublic)

Guy Kawasaki’s Twitter Entourage
Like Guy or not… he is here and making the most of his name and branding power. Just head over to his Twitter account and you will see that he had over 18,000 followers… many of them helping him with ideas, comments and suggestions for improving AllTop.com. Now, in addition to his onslaught of “free press exposure”, Kawasaki is now able to get free feedback and contacts from the thousands of users following him on Twitter and using his web sites.

Are You Following @GuyKawasaki? 18,519 Others Already Are!

Blogs, Books, Videos & YouTube
In addition to everything else going on, Guy also has a blog of his own, several books written and you can find videos of his keynotes, presentations and interviews all of the net and YouTube.

To finish it off… the name and branding power of “Guy Kawasaki“, also got him featured in today’s post. Now that you have seen just a small sample of how important your name and branding power can be, take a look at your current marketing/branding efforts and see if you are focused on the right path.

Popularity: 11% [?]

19 Comments » subscribe to my feed

Affiliate Marketing and Blog Design Contests

Last I held a contest promotion with MarketLeverage and the referral with the highest earnings, would go on to win a new Apple iPod Touch. I’m happy to announce that, Michael Heinz was the referral with the highest earnings during July.

Even though the ZacJohnson.com/ML contest promotion has come to an end, you can still take advantage of Triple Rewards this month over at MarketLeverage.

I’d also like to point out that UniqueBlogDesigns is celebrating their 1-Year Anniversary. I first met with UBD last year at BlogWorld, and since then they have created some of the most popular blog designs in the internet marketing /blog space… including mine! All you need to do to enter their contest is comment on their blog or write a post on their contest! One winner will receive an Apple iPod Touch and a copy of their New UBD Citrus WordPress Theme. Three additional winners will receive the Citrus WordPress Theme.

To finish things up, I thought I would throw in a few prizes as well. Simply comment on this post on what you think of Unique Blog Designs or Market Leverage and three random winners will be selected for a free MoneyReign tshirt. This contest runs til the end of the month, so leave your comment today! Winners will be selected by email.

Lastly, I might be working on a new blog design from UBD soon… feel free to leave any comments on what you would like to see on the new design.

Popularity: 9% [?]

28 Comments » subscribe to my feed

Cashing In on Your Own Niche Market Ideas

Whoever would have thought there was a whole niche market for funny pictures of cats with crazy misspelled captions! What started out as just some funny pictures of cats, has massively grown into a very profitable blog and business. How did it get this way? User generated content and being different, led the way. How many times have you seen a LOL Cat, yet haven’t been to icanhascheezburger.com? They are everywhere!

The blog was launched less than two years ago, back in January of 2007 and is currently estimated at earnings of around $5,600 a month (Businessweek, July 2007). The site was then acquired by Pet Holdings, Inc. in late 2007 for $2 million. With massively increased traffic to the site, I’m sure these numbers are much higher now.

So what makes ICanHasCheezburger stand out from the rest? Taking a niche market and running with it. Instead of creating ICanHasCheezburger.com, they could have easily focused on creating a video web site or a general funny pictures site, but the competition is so fierce and broad, targeting something completely different and niche is where the money is at! To further support the blog’s growth, a community was built around the web site where thousands of their loyal followers can upload their own funny pictures to the site.

The group over at Pet Holdings, Inc. and ICanHasCheezburger understand how to conduct business, as they are now on their seventh web site focusing on funny niche areas, their latest being EngrishFunny. Other network sites include Ihasahotdog, Failblog, Totallylookslike, Punditkitchen and Graphjam. After visiting the sites, you will see they all focus in on tight niche areas…instead of having one big super site.

As reported by TechCrunch, “the family of sites is generating 3.3 million daily page views, and around 5 million unique monthly visitors. Total revenue per page is north of $0.80, he says.“.

What’s the next big niche market to come out of nowhere? They are happening everyday… is your idea next?

Popularity: 11% [?]

19 Comments » subscribe to my feed

IzeaFest Blogger Networking Conference

Affiliate Summit East 2008 may have come to a close, but a whole new line up of conferences and expos are still underway. Next month I will be attending IzeaFest (September 11-13th) in Florida, then BlogWorld a week later in Las Vegas. For anyone interested in attending IzeaFest, use coupon code “zacjohnson” to save $15 off your registration.

Here are just a few of the speakers lined up for IzeaFest next month:

At first I was hesitant on attending IzeaFest, just for the fact that I’ve been so busy and it’s a week before I have to head to across the country to Las Vegas for BlogWorld. However, it’s been a year since I last visit Florida, and in addition to a nice networking/learning opportunity, I’ll get to visit a few places and relax. I’ve already met and become friends with many of the speakers at the event, but there are a few on the list I’m looking forward to meeting for the first time, along with any interesting attendees that might show up.

Anyone else heading to IzeaFest? If you are in the Florida area, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try and attend the event, and the tickets are pretty cheap.

Popularity: 11% [?]

20 Comments » subscribe to my feed