how do I get the hugelkultur article into the brains of 50 million people

Somebody suggested that I needed to put this at the top ...

Link to the hugelkultur article: http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/

Although lately I've been trying to create links with the anchor text "raised garden beds", like this: raised garden beds

I'm guessing nobody here has a clue.

I know I don't have a clue.

This is what I spend a huge part of every day pondering. I should stop pondering this and get on with other things. And yet my brain won't leave it alone.

Anybody have a crazy idea? Maybe if we have some crazy ideas, that will give somebody else a crazy idea, which will give somebody else a crazy idea which will give somebody else an idea that ends up actually working.

??

I have it listed in my "link to my stuff" thread

I have three videos on youtube that say "go look at the article".

People have been doing lots and lots of articles using my images and making links.

Hugelkultur is something that a lot of people will do once they know about it. It takes organic matter out of the waste stream. It reduces the desire for chippers. It cuts way back on water needs. It makes it far easier for people to grow gardens and be a little closer to self sufficient. This simple thing has a huge impact on the world - once it is in enough brains.

So, how do we get it into more brains?

At the bottom of the article are the numbers for social networks. 1127 su; 2243 fb; 22 reddit; 163 twitter 7 g+.

That's okay. And it does change the world a little. But my brains are compelling me to try and figure out "50 million".

Checking .... according to GA, total pageviews of all time is 69,680. My video about the $15 house is newer and has had 250,000 views.

Just a hunch here...

Maybe the question shouldn't be "50 Million [web] People" but "1,000 specific people".

Maybe there are certain people who are in positions of power when it comes to dealing with massive amounts of dead tree debris and if they can be swayed toward Hugelkultur, not only will their work produce more Hugelkultur in the world, but would also lead more people to your article (simply because they have seen it in the real world and want to learn more about it).

Is there a journal of waste management you could get an advert into? A mailing list you haven't thought of?

Just throwing out ideas here.

If the goal is 50 Million web people, you might get hits out of something light and entertaining, as those things seem to make their way around the web faster than serious things. Why not make a video of you burying someone alive under a Hugelkultur? Or "10 odd things you can do with a Hugelkultur". Again, I would caution about the quality of the hits. Quantity does not always mean Quality, especially on the web.

I am often very suspicious about the web in general. I [supposedly] had 1,000 people coming to my site a week, when I offered 50$ for one lame how-to article, 1 person sent an e-mail of enquiry. You have to wonder how many "hits" are just robots talking to robots. Sorry if that puts a pin in your balloon in any way. I know doing web stuff is tough work, you should be commended for how productive you actually are.

William

Wow. An ad in a waste journal. Interesting.

Maybe that's the thing. An advertising campaign.

I know that I could scrounge up a couple hundred dollars .... maybe I should put together another kickstarter thing. Maybe I should find some sort of PR company that will be able to figure all that out and then I just need to do a kickstarter for the fundage .... but .... wait, that won't work. Kickstarter stuff is all about pre-selling artifacts. An advertising campaign has no artifacts.

As for robots: yes, there are quite a few robots - but look at the number of people we have talking to Toby this week. A lot. And the number of people that have put the rocket mass heater page on their facebook page - about 8000. So there may be bots, but I think there are a lot more legit people.

How about an advertising campaign that reminds people that the world is ending next December and asks if they are ready to grow their own food? Something like, "Are you going to starve to death when the markets close?" You could use the image I've made (if you aren't afraid of Porky Pig's owners, that is).

Probably the most effective thing to do would be to start a business that creates hugelkultur beds for people, grows crops for them, harvests them, and then maybe cooks for them.

I could see an ad saying something like "Want fresh from the garden fruits and vegetables, but don't have the time or a green thumb? Call Wheaton's Gardens today! You'll get fresh strawberries (or whatever) straight from your garden without any of the work."

Or maybe "Why spend another minute in a grocery store? Call Wheaton's Gardens today and have fresh food grown and delivered straight to your kitchen!"

Raise funds using a different tool than kickstarter maybe. Like gofundme.com.

There is a farmer in my area that installed 2 huglebeets and was so happy he was working on a third. The message might be more prevalent than you think.

Paul,

Along the lines of advertsing how about getting a site that has millions of people visit it do an article on the hugelkultur article. There is a site called earth911.com that might want to do something.

John Taylor

It is up to us to get two people we know interested in hugelkultur and get those two people to get two more people each etc.

25 doublings ad you have 67,108,864 people interested in hugelkultur.

simple

aman

Contact a local school (or church or community center etc) and volunteer to get a hugelkultur garden started there with the help of the students after school or as a class. The school may have enough debris from usual landscaping to provide a bit of the supply, and other businesses locally like tree trimmers would be more likely to donate if they can just stick their name on it for a good community cause (education as opposed to someone's backyard). Once you have a model, with happy principal, teachers, students, parents.. other's will want to jump on the bandwagon. As this is happening, it may spread to student's homes as they get excited about it and their parents observe. AND, (this is KEY) have one of your students in the group take videos of the process, and then get them posted to YouTube. Have this linked to your article, and whatnot. Internet is great, I love it, but I believe that human to human connection is so powerful and meaningful.

Wow. The earth911 site is huge.

Anybody know their way around that one?

Or write something for Mother Earth News?

aman inavan wrote:It is up to us to get two people we know interested in hugelkultur and get those two people to get two more people each etc.

25 doublings ad you have 67,108,864 people interested in hugelkultur.

simple

aman

Okay.

So maybe the thing we need to do is to craft an email that does this? Then I could send it out via my daily-ish email and then ....

So there would need to be something in the email that makes it clear to do the "forward to two people" thing?

Paul,

On the Earth911 I get weekly email from them and they provide an email to send tips or responses to articles.

Here is the email address:

Please respond to "Earth911.com" <greentips@earth911.com>

I don't have any direct contacts, but that email address might help.

John Taylor

Not sure if this is an acceptable answer, but the lady on this youtube video: tells about writing press releases and then using this site: http://www.prweb.com/ to get exposure in the media. It's a service that you can pay for or use free on a minimal basis.

Paul,

I did find this in one of the earth911 emails I get:

Get Featured in Next Week's Edition!
Next week we're talking about how to reduce your household waste. Are you an expert? Email your tips, ideas, photos & feedback to greentips@earth911.com (or just hit the reply button) & maybe you’ll be a featured Eco Warrior!

John Taylor

Steph Michelle wrote:Or write something for Mother Earth News?

I've tried to submit to MEN in the past, but was told that my "voice" is not mother's voice. Suzy Bean has taken some of my stuff and tried to massage it into something that would fit for MEN. I don't think anything has come of it.

I've told Suzy Bean that if she can get it into MEN, she can use my images and my text and pay me $1.00 and keep the rest of the money. I did ask that the article needs to mention permies.com. (stacking functions - need to make people aware of permaculture)

If somebody wants to write for ANY other magazine or blog or whatever, I hereby give permission for you to use one image from my article as long as the article meantions richsoil.com/hugelkultur

I would be willing to work out similar arrangements with others that I've made with suzy bean: to use the full article and a bunch of my images, and you can keep all the money (well, pay me one dollar). I just want to make sure that the same thing is not getting double submitted to the same place.

John Taylor wrote:Paul,

On the Earth911 I get weekly email from them and they provide an email to send tips or responses to articles.

Here is the email address:

Please respond to "Earth911.com" <greentips@earth911.com>

I don't have any direct contacts, but that email address might help.

John Taylor

John,

Any chance that YOU can submit that tip?

William is on the right track, so i'll ask a similar question ..... do you really want 50 million people clicking a link, reading 14 words, then saying "naaaaaahhhhhhhh" and clicking out to some other link where they will be forced to watch that "Jumbaco" commercial for the 4,897th time? Or do you really want 4,897 people of Passion and Action watching, then actually DOING something with said knowledge? or, do you really want to make money from your posting? or do you ...... geez, I could be asking questions all day to narrow down what you really want.

Allow me to ask a different way ..... do you really want to attract/trap 50,000,000 people to watch a "Bat Guano 101" video, or would you rather interest 5,000 to engage in a "Build a Bodacious BatHouse to help control Insects and Pollinate your Permaculture Habitat at the same time" short series of video to further inSpire them in Action?

Here's another question ..... Is it better to "get" 50MM people to read some article you are passionate about, or is it better to inSpire and compel 1,000,000 to build a 21st Century version of a Victory Garden in their own yards? (hint ..... if done nicely, with a "Whats in it for THEM" message about hugel loggin' in their new Victory Garden, they might even go and read your article)

John Taylor wrote:Paul,

Along the lines of advertsing how about getting a site that has millions of people visit it do an article on the hugelkultur article. There is a site called earth911.com that might want to do something.

John Taylor

Maybe HuffPo?

I recommend "Share, Retweet, Repeat" by John Hlinko http://www.amazon.com/Share-Retweet-Repeat-Message-Spread/dp/0735204616/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326392445&sr=8-1

"In Share, Retweet, Repeat, John Hlinko shows readers how to take their ideas, causes, and products, and craft marketing campaigns around them that create buzz. In the world of constant communication, the average consumer of information has transformed into a publisher of information as well.
"With easy to follow steps, Hlinko teaches readers how to create spreadable messages to optimize return on investment on any communications budget. This book is for anyone who wants to learn how to stand out, be noticed, and get others talking about them. "

press release stuff: excellent point. I did press releases in the 90's and had excellent success. I did a series of press releases for the missoula area about a year ago and they really did very little. Almost nothing.

It's an icky job that I really don't want to do, and suspect it will all be ignored, but now that you bring it up, I'm thinking it is something that just needs to be done. It is now on my "to do" list (unless, of course, somebody else wants to give it a whack).

Here is a quick thought. The rocket mass heater article has a little facebook thing at the bottom that shows .... shares (I think). It was at 700. I overhauled the article and then posted it to facebook. The numbers went up about 800 a day for ten days as it got reshared and reshared. Maybe if one person did a share of the "hugelkultur" article with the text "I think re-sharing this will save the world" then .... maybe it will take.

I'm going to try this real quick.

paul wheaton wrote:Here is a quick thought. The rocket mass heater article has a little facebook thing at the bottom that shows .... shares (I think). It was at 700. I overhauled the article and then posted it to facebook. The numbers went up about 800 a day for ten days as it got reshared and reshared. Maybe if one person did a share of the "hugelkultur" article with the text "I think re-sharing this will save the world" then .... maybe it will take.

I'm going to try this real quick.

Done.

The fb number at the bottom of the hugelkultur article is 2244. Let's see what happens.

John Taylor wrote:Paul,

I did find this in one of the earth911 emails I get:

Get Featured in Next Week's Edition!
Next week we're talking about how to reduce your household waste. Are you an expert? Email your tips, ideas, photos & feedback to greentips@earth911.com (or just hit the reply button) & maybe you’ll be a featured Eco Warrior!

John Taylor

Household waste .... does twigs and stuff count as household waste?

paul wheaton wrote:
Maybe that's the thing. An advertising campaign.

I know that I could scrounge up a couple hundred dollars .... maybe I should put together another kickstarter thing. Maybe I should find some sort of PR company that will be able to figure all that out and then I just need to do a kickstarter for the fundage .... but .... wait, that won't work. Kickstarter stuff is all about pre-selling artifacts. An advertising campaign has no artifacts.

You can get creative with the tangibles. A food truck in my area did a kickstarter to redo their truck. People who pitched in a little got invited to a catered party and people who pitched in a lot got their name on the truck.

As for getting the word out, I think you have to find out the audience you are appealing to. Is it all of America? Is it farmers? Is it suburban homeowners? According to this article (http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=13107752), 57 million homeowners are under HOAs. I am. I can't even move a plant in my front yard without HOA approval. I can't replace grass with beds without approval. They definitely won't let me mound like a conventional hugelkultur bed. I can do a raised bed (wood framed inches high) in my backyard, which most people are used to seeing. If I could bury the wood under the raised bed that would probably be ok. They probably wouldn't let me put in a 5ft hugelkultur bed. I think you should define your audience, tailor your message for your audience, and then create material to get their attention (whether it is funded by a kickstarter or a moneybomb or some other method).

I personally think you are going to have to possibly back off the ideal hugelkultur concept for the HOA masses if they are your target. Maybe a conventional raised bed with a slight side of hugelcultur crazy (like burying the wood under the frame like Jack Spirko did), but the whole hugelkultur idea will just seem crazy to them. You have remarked often about your scale and how people more than 2 level up look crazy. Maybe you should create a Wheaton hugelkultur scale that transitions people from straight bed (flat garden) to Sepp style bed sloooooowly

Tim

Paul,

For starters, I would put a link to the article in the very first post in this thread. Currently it is a pain to have to leave this thread to hunt around for it. Make the "end-user experience" fun an d easy -- not obscure.

Secondly, I would look to find ways to break down silos. Make a list of all of the ideas that are compatible with permaculture and then find leaders in each field and work with them?

Cheers,

Jock

paul wheaton wrote: .... does twigs and stuff count as household waste?

Depends on the Household, but yes, they should. Most cities/counties I know of have light-to-major restrictions on what can go into the "Green" recycling bins. In San Diego, we couldn't put palm fronds in with the glass clippings, they had to go in the garbage.

Help People solve their problems, and they'll want to help you.

paul wheaton wrote:Checking .... according to GA, total pageviews of all time is 69,680. My video about the $15 house is newer and has had 250,000 views.

Maybe a sexier headline? Apparently, "$15 house" resonates with way more people than an obscure term like "hugelkultur." I love weird and obscure stuff, but I'm kind of a weird and obscure guy, and you're looking to go mainstream.

Well, i'm building a series of hugel beds in the dirt parking lot behing a group house where i used to live. So far everyone i've mentioned it to doesn't think it'll work, or can't wrap their heads around the concept, but, i think the results will speak for themselves.

Admittedly i was even having doubts until i started limbing the christmas trees and piling them up on the contours back there. I can really see how it will turn what is now a seedy, dusty back-alley into an oasis.

So that will be about 30 or so youths, and all the nay-sayers whom i will show the results to, who will be exposed this technique through me in that situation. Plus I have another plan brewing to cultivate a piece of land above our university owned by our horticulture program.. so that will be a handful of horticulturists every year that will be exposed to hugelkultur.

I think if you keep doing as you have been, the numbers will expound themselves through word of mouth and examples.

That being said, i'll be sure to point them to your article. It has been useful tool for me to explain it to a few folks already.

Thanks Paul!

meetup.com has tons of groups with people interested in permaculture, gardening, bee keeping, eco..... and the list goes on. Post for each group - ask your readers to pick a town and do the posting and let you know on this forum which area they did. Get it on the Victory Gardens web site. Mastergardeners website. Here in San Diego, the community colleges are teaching gardening, farming, green energy and other courses. and also adult education programs. Get the instructors interested - every semester they reach many.... IRC (international Rescue Committee) started a community garden here (the one Michelle Obama visited) and they are working actively on educating people about growing their own, also roots farm- education center. This organizations reach lots of people. Also non-profits like Food justice organizations. Americore has a new end hunger mission. They have young people come into the organization to do projects like building school gardens http://foodcorps.org/about. reach centers like the Solana Center or Olivewood Garden who are dedicated to teach people about less waste, gardening and so forth http://www.solanacenter.org/about-solana-center, http://olivewoodgardens.org/ . Those kind of Organization must exist all over the world.
Get it published in online mags like this http://getextradirt.com or http://www.dirtdujour.com/
i volunteer to spread the meet up word here in San Diego.....

oh, and there is patch.com. it is powered by AOL and very community based - not every one has patch as of now, but those who have it can become bloggers and write about their own experience and also share links to whatever they want. I am almost sure anybody can post to their message board. Again, there are so many on this forum, if everybody posts in one, or blogs.... lots of communities are reached. And if you build one, blog about it and invite people over to check it out- powerful. Granted, it might take a while for the bed to look really good, so spreading the success stories might be more of a long term project.

Hi Paul,

I agree with others here that the article itself needs work. At the moment your article comes up #1 when I search on hugelkultur on Google. However, unless I knew what hugelkultur was there is no way I would search for it. You need need to come up with some other frequently searched for terms in the space that and drop those into the title (both h1 tag and page).

Also, you need to emphasize how important you think this article is, convince your readers of this and ask them to share it with everyone they know. Do this early on in the article so that if they only read part of the article they get the message.

If you are able to do this 50MM views will be easy.

Hugelkultur and the HOA:

1) well, for every home blocked by and HOA, there are probably a dozen that are not. I think the focus should be to those that don't block.

2) I've made podcasts on this topic. Basically, you can dig down and bury wood. Further, there is the "sneaky hugelkultur" where you start small and add a little every year.

You can get creative with the tangibles. A food truck in my area did a kickstarter to redo their truck. People who pitched in a little got invited to a catered party and people who pitched in a lot got their name on the truck.

Hmmmm .... not a bad point. If people put money in, there can be a thanks page - or mention/link right on the article.

Link to the hugelkultur article: http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/

Although lately I've been trying to create links with the anchor text "raised garden beds", like this: raised garden beds

two thoughts.

a. write a short ebook, with nice illustrations, etc... title it something like "Low water gardening" and post it on amazon for $0.99.
Then promote the $*!& of out it.

OR

b. create a 1/2 serious video, with lots of fun graphics and if possible rhyming phrases. Then get these guys to auto-tune it. Be sure to have an easy to remember link (like just richsoil.com) in the video too.
http://www.youtube.com/user/schmoyoho
(be sure to check out the Nascar Prayer with 3.8 million views.)

OR

C. (ok, that's three thoughts).
See if you can get this guy to interview you on his podcast.
http://www.gardenfork.tv/category/gardenfork-radio

I would approach it in the more general terms of Low water gardening. The name might not be the right thing to lead with.

Peace Flowers and Rainbows Y'all.
Boogity Boogity Boogity - AMEN.

Secondly, I would look to find ways to break down silos. Make a list of all of the ideas that are compatible with permaculture and then find leaders in each field and work with them?

Not exactly sure what you are talking about.

A leader in the field could be Toby. So what do you have in mind that work with Toby on?

Victor Johanson wrote:

paul wheaton wrote:Checking .... according to GA, total pageviews of all time is 69,680. My video about the $15 house is newer and has had 250,000 views.

Maybe a sexier headline? Apparently, "$15 house" resonates with way more people than an obscure term like "hugelkultur." I love weird and obscure stuff, but I'm kind of a weird and obscure guy, and you're looking to go mainstream.

Which is why the article is now titled "raised garden beds: hugelkultur instead of irrigation"

Perhaps team up with Frank Aragona, AgroInnovations (also a podcast): https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Agroinnovations-Podcast/146589258742129

He's a permaculture practitioner and activist and a great guy, and he's actively looking for podcast material right now.

Marianne West wrote:meetup.com has tons of groups with people interested in permaculture, gardening, bee keeping, eco..... and the list goes on. Post for each group - ask your readers to pick a town and do the posting and let you know on this forum which area they did. Get it on the Victory Gardens web site. Mastergardeners website. Here in San Diego, the community colleges are teaching gardening, farming, green energy and other courses. and also adult education programs. Get the instructors interested - every semester they reach many.... IRC (international Rescue Committee) started a community garden here (the one Michelle Obama visited) and they are working actively on educating people about growing their own, also roots farm- education center. This organizations reach lots of people. Also non-profits like Food justice organizations. Americore has a new end hunger mission. They have young people come into the organization to do projects like building school gardens http://foodcorps.org/about. reach centers like the Solana Center or Olivewood Garden who are dedicated to teach people about less waste, gardening and so forth http://www.solanacenter.org/about-solana-center, http://olivewoodgardens.org/ . Those kind of Organization must exist all over the world.
Get it published in online mags like this http://getextradirt.com or http://www.dirtdujour.com/
i volunteer to spread the meet up word here in San Diego.....

meetup: I've heard of it, but never really used it. My current daily-ish email goes to about 3100 people. Maybe the thing to do is to start a new thread here in the tinkering forum and see if meetup people can talk to meetup people and stuff can happen ??

Victory gardens .... tried to google and got unlikely matches. Link?

MG website: I can't get listed on my local master gardener website. Perhaps you have some suggestions? Maybe there are other resources that would be more open to me?

community colleges: Would this be something that I would do one community college at a time, or is there a network of sorts?

get the instructors interested: is there an easy way to reach them in one big gob? A newsletter perhaps? A mailing list?

http://getextradirt.com/ - I went and checked. Based on the pagerank and alexa ranking, I suspect that this site gets little traffic. I would think that I could contact them, spend about two hours exchanging emails with them and then have about a 10% that they will make some sort of link or put something up on their site which will then find its way to about six people. This is just my guess based on having done this about 500 times. On the other hand, if that person is led to the article by a friend, there is a good chance that they will write about my article and use an image and I didn't have to do anything. They still reach just six people, but then it is one of those things where if there are thousands of pages like that then, it all adds up!