Josh Rimer dot Com
How I'm getting famous and how you can too!

My mother made a comment the other day about how I’m getting to an age where I need some stability in my life because I’ve been aspiring actor for years and can’t just keep on doing that for the rest of my life.  And it’s not the first time I’ve heard that kind of thing by any stretch. It seems that in our society we accept that teenagers and young adults can pursue their dreams and put aside regular priorities, but when they become full fledged adults they need to essentially accept defeat and just do those things as hobbies while having a “normal” life with a “regular” job.

And maybe for some people that’s true.  But not for me.  Being “famous” is something that I’ve wanted since I was a little kid, so thinking I can just turn that off at some point is silly.  If you really love apples and are passionate about them and think about them every day, and get a taste every now and then and want more, then at what age would you finally decide to stop looking for apples and just be content with oranges?

There are people who get famous much later on in life then where I’m at now. Greg Benson for example is a man in his 40′s who was a nobody until getting famous on YouTube (now with 230,000 subscribers!).  He just recently made a video on the topic of whether or not he’s too old to be doing this kind of thing.

An even better example on YouTube is the 81 year old man who has over 50,000 subscribers.  He was completely unknown in his 70′s and now he’s an online celebrity.

So, I think it just goes to show that you can really do whatever you want at any age. Never think that you’re “too old” to try something or to pursue your dreams.  Never settle for the norm.  As long as you’re happy and you’re achieving some of your goals then just keep on doing what you’re doing.  Persistence really is the key to success and since I’ve been at this for so long, success really just has to be right around the corner for me… right? 

What do you think? Is there an age limit on chasing your dreams?  At what point should something become a hobby instead of a sought after career?

You may have noticed something when it comes to all of the different social media web sites that I’m on.  They all have my name in them.  Twitter.com/JoshRimer, Facebook.com/JoshRimer, YouTube.com/JoshRimer, etc.  I’ve managed to get that name for every site that I’ve wanted to have a profile on so far.  And it’s not like there aren’t other Josh Rimer’s out there.  Just searching in Facebook shows that there are 7 others.  But why do I have the username “JoshRimer” on all of the most popular sites?  Because I make it a priority to get them.

I’m treating my endeavours for getting famous online as a business.  And in any good business you have to brand yourself.  With what I’m doing, I myself, and my name, are my brand.  So I feel it’s important to make efforts to get everything with my name in it before anyone else.  When Facebook allowed people to start picking usernames last month I put it in my calendar and set my alarm to be sure I’d beat out the other 7 guys.  I had thought about choosing something else like “Comedian” or “CanadianActor” or a number of other things, but in the end I think it’s really important to you stay consisent.  Even with this blog I thought about other url’s to use like www.gettingfamousonline.com or www.iamfamousonline.com, but again I decided to keep everything the same.

Today I saw someone tweet about Josh Rimer passing away. I Googled my name and sure enough, a Josh Rimer in Pennsylvania was killed recently while on duty in Afghanistan.  And that may explain why there was a recent spike in people finding my blog through Google using Josh Rimer as their search term.  They were quite possibly looking for news about the Josh Rimer from Pennsylvania and instead found my web site since I’m first on Google for my name.

This is unfortunately a very sad case, but reminds me about why it’s important to have my name connected to everything I do.  If I want to make myself famous online then I need to get my name in front of as many people as I can, in as many different ways as I can, and as often as I can.  And I need to be sure that when they’re looking for me by searching for my name that it’s easy for them to find me.  If you want to be found more often online as well then I recommend you do the same for yourself.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be your own real name that you use, but if you create a distinct username for yourself on one site, try to keep that consistent and use it again on everything else. It will really help get that username into people’s heads and make it easier for them to find you and tell others about you as well.

The fact that my latest YouTube video is just over a month old breaks one of my own rules that I’ll talk about later on about the importance of keeping your online presence regular.  Like bowel movements, dumping videos into YouTube is healthy… for keeping your subscribers happy  (it’s Friday and I’m in an extra silly mood so bear with me).

But, regardless of that, my most recent video did manage to get 10,000 views in it’s first month.  And it wasn’t just luck that got me there.  If you upload videos to YouTube then you know how hard it can be to even break a hundred views in a month sometimes.  But there are some things that you can do to change that.  Let’s take a look at the main things that worked for this video, which I called “The Comfortable Stick”.

First of all, I made a video based on something that was already popular and being talked about. I had seen the “Comfort Wipe” commercial on YouTube (I think in the Most Viewed section of the day) and a couple friends on Facebook had posted it on their profiles.  Those things, all happening on the same day, were clear indicators to me that this was something that was popular and was probably just at the beginning of it’s rise in popularity.

Now, myself, I really like to do spoofs of things in my videos.  I’m an actor and a comedian and I have good video shooting and editing skills so those work well for me.  Other options could have been to review the commercial, or to record myself make a prank call while trying to order one, or something else along those lines.  But since I knew I wanted to do a parody, I sat down and thought about what I could do to make it even more ridiculous of a product than it already was.

But beyond picking a “hot” video to spoof, I also did what a lot of unsuccessful YouTubers don’t do – I put a lot of time and effort into my video.  As I’m sure you can tell when you watch it, this wasn’t just thrown together haphazardly.  I actually transcribed the original video word for word and wrote out a full shot list of everything they showed as well.   I then altered the script to make it work with my concept and make it funnier, and then planned out my own shots to again make it work best with what I wanted to do.

After all the planning was complete, I had to head out to a second hand store to find some stuff that I needed for costumes and props (although the main props only required me to go searching under the trees along my street).  Then I spent the rest of the beautiful, sunny day shooting the video in my apartment while my friends were at the beach.  I didn’t have anyone to videotape me so it took a while to get the shots right and I had to do most of them multiple times to get them to look like I wanted.  Then I recorded the voiceover a few times and finally began the editing process, which took hours to put the shots together just like the original and add all the graphics and effects.

And finally, after a complete full day of working on the video from early in the morning until late at night, it was finished and ready to be uploaded.  But it’s not like my efforts were done there.  Next came the marketing.  I’ll get into marketing yourself online more in a future post, but the long and short of it is that you have to do it, despite what some people think.  Nothing that I’ve ever done online that’s had any success happened without me spending hours (and usually days) finding ways to spread the word and create hype about it through email, facebook, twitter, news releases, on other blogs, etc.

So, the long and short of it is, I picked a hot topic, I devoted a full day to making the best video I could, and then I spent hours over the following days and weeks getting the word out about it.

I’ll get into even more ways to get your videos more views on YouTube in future posts, but for now here’s The Comfortable Stick for your viewing pleasure… at10,000 views (as I write this) and counting.

I love YouTube. It’s a great way to share videos with people and an amazing resource for anything you could want to watch.  Whether it’s how-to videos, the latest music videos, news segments, comedic sketches, or anything else that strikes your fancy, chances are you can find it quickly and easily on YouTube… and maybe even best of all, for free.

And let’s not forget the obvious reason I’m so deeply in love with my sweet, wonderful YouTube:  It’s the main contributor to my online fame. Two years ago when I opened my YouTube account I thought it was just a temporary way to get myself some exposure and a step toward bigger and better things.  Now I realize what a great tool it is for being able to create my own content and share it with the world in an interactive and engaging way.

And YouTube loves me too. I bring them in viewers when I post the links to my YouTube videos in my blog, on Facebook, on Twitter, and send them out by email.  And when I get media attention on my YouTube videos then they get even more traffic thanks to me.  And more traffic means more money that they can get from advertisers.

So it was only natural that YouTube & I would take the next step in our relationship.  One year ago I became an official YouTube Partner which means that I get a portion of the revenues made by the advertising that appears on or next to my videos on their site.  It’s a win-win because I have more incentive to push people to watch my videos since more people clicking on ads means more money for me (and that also makes me want to continue using their site more for sharing my videos over using other similar sites) and YouTube wins by getting all of the extra traffic I’m sending over.

Now, this isn’t a monogomous relationship.  There are thousands of other YouTube partners out there.  And even you can become one if you meet their requirements.  But YouTube is picky in who they’ll enter into this commitment with, and here’s what they like to see:

• You never use copyrighted material (ie. music or video footage)
• You consistently get thousands of views on each of your videos
• You regularly upload videos and have a high amount of subscribers
• You don’t provide too much “questionable” content.  YouTube has to like your stuff or it’s a no go.

And don’t think that I’m getting rich off this or anything.  In fact, at this point, I’ve spend a lot more on my videos than I’ve ever made off them.  But the amounts that I’m getting do increase each month and eventually if I get really big on YouTube it could actually start to make me a decent amount of income.

In the end though, a good relationship is never about the money anyway. As a partner YouTube also lets me have some special privileges like additional branding options for the look and layout of my channel, adding extra banners and links, and having the featured video on my channel automatically start playing.  All these things help me to do more of what’s really important to me – get noticed on YouTube and become more famous online!

So to my dear, sweet partner, YouTube: thanks for all you do for me and I look forward to continuing our beautiful and mutually beneficial relationship for a long time to come!

My brother and I both picked usernames on Twitter about 6 months ago.  I read blog posts and subscribe to newsletters about trends in the online world and when I started to see how Twitter was getting a lot of mention and really growing in popularity I decided I better grab my name and advised my brother to do the same.  My brother never used his account – he had written one tweet and was following 2 people.  Then a couple months later his account was suddenly suspended.  He emailed Twitter support twice to find out why try to get it fixed so when he did want to use it it would be available to him, but so far he’s still waiting and his account is still suspended.  No idea why and no word for months from Twitter about whether or not it’ll ever be reinstated.

I didn’t get suspended, but I did get slapped with something that’ll be very detrimental to getting found online. Twitter has removed me from their search.  You can’t search for me by name and you can’t search for anything I’ve written.  Apparently they’ve done this because I’ve broken a rule in their “Best Practices” by posting duplicate content (tweeting multiple times about my latest YouTube videos with the same links to them each time). They say this conflicts with a positive Twitter experience and as such I needed to be removed from the search with no chance of being reinstated.  You can read more about it here in the twitter help section.

Why is this so bad?  Well, besides the obvious fact that people who know of me will search for my name and not find me, what’s much worse is that people who search for words and topics that I’m tweeting about won’t see my tweets.  See, Twitter is actually turning into one of the biggest search engines on the internet.  So as long as I’m talking about topical stuff, a lot of the time I’ll show up in people’s searches.  Or at least I would have until they removed me from it. Just posting my blog titles in Twitter for example would have got the attention of people who were searching for things like “getting famous online” or “3D videos on YouTube” or “giving away $100″.

I can understand why Twitter needs to put rules in place and have automated systems to deal with potential problems, but what I can’t understand is why they say it can’t be undone.  I honestly had no idea I was breaking any rules by tweeting multiple times about my videos.  I just wanted to get the attention of more people who might have missed my previous Tweets.  Why didn’t Twitter make a warning system? I would have certainly stopped at that point.  And why now that I’ve been removed, can’t I apply to have my searches reinstated?  At least on YouTube if you break copyright they give you warning before they take any drastic action (well, most of the time anyway) and if they do take measures against you, you can apply to have them removed and everything reinstated.

I guess it just goes to show that you have to be careful with Social Media and realize that it your Social Media profiles don’t really belong to you. Even though you can say it’s your account, it’s on their site, and that means they have total and complete control over it, not you.  I guess I’m lucky Twitter didn’t just suspend my account like they did to my brother.  But as someone who’s on Twitter to get noticed, I have to wonder if I shouldn’t close down the account and start again with a new username so I can get myself and my tweets back into the searches.

What do you think? Is it fair for Twitter to have such stringent rules with no chance of appeal when action is taken against you?  Is being removed from their searches a big enough deal to start a new account?

A couple days ago YouTube very quietly released 3D capabilities on their web site. As I learned when touring Google headquarters on a trip to San Francisco a few months ago, employees get to spend 20% of their time working on their own ideas for projects. And this appears to be the result of one of them.

So, what does this mean for you and me and how can it help us get more exposure online? Well, right now it’s the “new” thing. And jumping on the new thing when it’s still new is often a great way to stand out. The 3D videos are rare (for now anyway), they’re different, and they’re the latest thing. As people hear about it they’ll be searching for 3D videos to see what they look like and test them out. So getting a video of yourself up on YouTube in 3D in the next few days could be a smart move.

But the tricky thing is actually making your video in 3D. How to go about that is another story altogether.   WikiHow shows you how to do it including editing so that you can actually show it on any site as 3D, but with this new feature on YouTube it seems that you just need 2 cameras and the proper angles/techniques.  You can check out an example of a 3D video here.

What do you think? Is the 3D thing cool enough to stick?  Do you think this be become a popular thing for people to do with their videos on YouTube?  Or is it just a silly experiment that will likely disappear before most people even find out it ever existed on the site?

Every Sunday evening at 8pm PST / 10pm EST I host a live show. I’m not talking on a stage in a theatre production or in a bar doing standup.  I’m talking in front of my laptop on a web cam.

If you’re like me, you probably used to think of web cams as either ways to communicate online with friends & loved ones or as something you pay to watch because there was nudity (and who knows what else) being shown on the other end.

But now sites like BlogTV are making it possible for people like me to have another powerful way to entertain and get exposure online, and most importantly connect with my viewers.

See, one of the things that I love about YouTube is the commenting.  People who watch my videos can essentially “talk” to me one comment at a time and I can reply to their comments and they can reply to each other’s comments.  It’s interactive and one of the things that in my opinion make it way better than a TV show.  But my BlogTV show takes it even further. A chat room full of people can write all the comments they like talking to each other and to me, and I can of course respond and engage with them speaking to them live as it happens.  Real conversations and continuous communication that’s not broken down by hours or days of waiting for a response like it is with YouTube video comments.

Nothing that I’ve done online helps to create connections and foster relationships like my BlogTV show. I only started doing them a couple months ago, but I already have some of my strongest supporters ever come out of it.  People who come every single week to “hang out” with me, chat and be goofy, and just have a good time for an hour (or hour and a half if I really get into it).    Those people have turned out to be my biggest cheering squad who tell their friends to come check out my show each week as well and help spread the word about what I’m doing.

Luckily for me, Michael Buckley from the super popular What Buck Show on YouTube co-hosted my first BlogTV show with me which really gave me a great start into it with a lot of new viewers.  Yesterday’s show gave me another big boost when the site featured me on their homepage and tweeted about my show in their Twitter feed.  We got up to 150 people watching at one point and a bunch of new people got to see and interact with me live who had never even heard of me before.

Do you have a BlogTV show or a live web cam show with another web site?  Do you have a regular show or just go on whenever the mood strikes you?  Do you like watching other people’s live shows?  Or is this all completely new to you?

I saw the movie Brüno today.  And as sad as this is to say, I can relate to the main character. Not because he’s into fashion or because he’s gay or because he’s just so misunderstood.  But because his goal is to become famous.

Now, I’m using this blog as a tool to show you what I’m learning about how to become famous online, but if you watch Brüno, you can learn a thing from him as well.  According to him, there are really two main things that you need to be famous:  A black baby and being straight.

Luckily here in my blog I’m going to hopefully give you some more practical ideas on things you can do to get more exposure online and get yourself noticed.  But if none of them work for you then maybe you’ll want to try out Brüno’s advice.  Or maybe try both his and mine and see what works best for you.

Speaking of the movie though, I really enjoyed it. Lots of laughing and putting my hands over my face, which always makes for a good time in my books.  Sacha Baron Cohen certainly knows how to push the envelope and get himself and his work a lot of attention because of it.  Oh ya, and gratuitous full frontal male nudity for no reason other than the shock value doesn’t hurt for getting attention either.  Hmm, maybe that’s the one thing that my YouTube videos are missing…

What do you think? Did you like the movie too?  Or are you avoiding it all together?  Is there something else that we can actually learn from Bruno about how to become really famous?

So, as you probably noticed in the top right corner, I’m giving away $100 to one of my newsletter subscribers when I get to 1000 of them.  Why would I do that?

Well, here’s the deal.  You can’t get famous online without a following.  And that following needs to know when to check out your new video or find out about your latest project.  And what’s the best way to keep in touch with the people and let them know about these things?  By email.

You can subscribe to my YouTube videos, but if you’re subscribed to a lot of people or if you don’t check the front page of YouTube very often you’ll likely miss mine.  I can tweet about it on Twitter, but same things apply there.  And again for Facebook status updates or posts.  And unless you really like me or are really interested in how to become famous online, you probably won’t check my blog every single day either and will likely miss some posts.

But with an email list I’m able to actually get in touch with everyone, at once, with a summary of what’s been going on in the blog over the past couple of weeks, or a special event/video coming up that I’m doing, etc.  It’s a simple and effective way to spread the word when I need to.

So that’s why it’s important.  And the money is the incentive to get everyone to do it. Because let’s face it, a lot of sites ask for your email address and unless there’s a good reason for you to do it, you probably won’t.  I’m hoping the chance at $100 is a good enough reason (beyond the obvious of being interested in keeping updated on the information I have to share).  And of course there will be other contests after that one too.  I did afterall start out on YouTube by giving away $1000 (more on that in a future post).

Have you signed up yet? Remember, you can unsubscribe at any time and your email address will never be shared with anyone.  And no, it won’t be monolopy money that I’m giving away.

Ok, so there’s some debate about whether or not anyone should ever say they have fans until they’re a big time celebrity.  And I get it.  I see people say on YouTube or in their blogs say they have fans and it often makes me cringe at how egotistical it sounds.

But what would you call someone who watches all of your videos, favorites them and comments on them saying how much they like you, comes to all of your live BlogTV shows, tells all of their friends about you (who then add you on Facebook and tell you so), shares your videos on Facebook and Twitter, and gets excited when you acknowledge them?  There are people who “can’t believe” Josh Rimer watched their video and commented on it.  I have people sending me gifts in the mail, offering to help me out with anything I might need, etc.   If I can’t call those people fans then I don’t know what a fan would be!

What do you think? At what point is it ok to say you have fans?  Or should it just never be said unless you’re living in Hollywood and getting over a million bucks for your next gig?