4. Keep the story going through continual stunts, brand depth and viral expansion networking.

"Controversy, controversy, controversy" is the "location, location, location" of successful online brands. The key, of course, is to control it, not to have it control you. Again, a seemingly obvious point, but one that many webrebrities have found falls frustratingly into the "easier said than done" camp.

Canned publicity stunts—like überproduced TV news segments—are too obvious for the Web, and just turn people off. Your stunts must have a hint of rawness—ideally, they shouldn't be obvious as stunts at all, instead serving only to get you a little attention and remind the viewer to come back into your fold, where you have the real attraction: your [whatever it is you do]. That—unlike the stunts—can be entirely genuine, although that's not a requirement (cough, cough, TMZ).

The depth comes with constant updating, working on your content. You can't have one video on your site and expect people to refresh constantly until you decide you'll upload another one—a week later. The Internet doesn't sleep. Nor do most successful bloggers. Why should you? You can hire someone for that. A cat, maybe.

In the meantime, all that time you spent getting to know the gatekeepers in your online communities should be paying off. The principle of viral expansion networking/marketing is simple: First one person blogs about you, then three more, then seven more, then 13, until you're an established presence. You know you've made it when people in other fields are referred to as the [your name] of [their field].