Bring out your straight rule and unpack the measuring tape because today I am going to tell you how to build a soapbox; more importantly, I am going to show you how to scream from it. If we’re lucky, you will be interesting enough by the end of this that the neighbors won’t call the cops.

This isn’t a marketing article, sorry.

I’ve written a lot of those and some are really good (you should read them) but frankly, that’s not what I want to do today. This is an article about saying things and being heard. It’s about having an idea and maximizing the distance that it will travel. It’s about the how and why people care.

Let’s begin.

People want something, anything to believe in. They want a flag to bear and a torch to carry. Why then is it so hard to get people to care about anything you say? Cynicism and inertia. We are way too “smart” for our own good and way to lazy to take risks. The result is that for the most part, unless I have a firm reason to believe in you, your flag isn’t the right size and your torch might as well be filled with jello pudding. How do you get around these two Gorillas? A little bit of luck and the right combination of these tips.

Find a few friends. By yourself, it’s hard to accomplish anything. Not that you can’t do it, you clever reader you, but while the power of the individual is vast, the sea of noise is even moreso. Impossible projects can become simple if you find one more person to buy into it with you. While one of you is doing the grunt work (coding, writing, organizing) the other can be evangelizing. When one person falls down, the other can carry the weight. It’s stunning how much more intelligent and effective you can be if you have the right person in your corner.

The rule of threes. Pick three points of contact for your message. Too many people rely on their personal blogs or Twitter or Facebook or email to get their idea across. Unfortunately, forcing your message into a single channel will exhaust that channel. No matter how good your cause is, people don’t want to hear you preaching about saving Eastern European orphans all day and all night.

Find a benefactor. I want to help shove interesting ideas into your brains. A strange number of people read this blog (go figure), so wouldn’t it be nice if you could find someone like me to help spread your message? Right, benefactors. There are a lot of people in Social Media who have taken a good amount of time to build up their platforms. Many of these people are extraordinarily nice, and most of the time you don’t have to burn incense and sacrifice a herd animal to get their attention. If you want people to hear about something, don’t be afraid to send out a few emails to the “Internet known.” The trick is the same as if it were a press release, the less it feels like a shill the more likely it is to be picked up. Be frank, be honest, respect your benefactors time and make it easy for them to help. Do that and half your battle is already won.

Be interesting. Come up with a snappy title, write some interesting copy, add some pictures, make a video, take your idea and craft it into a narrative, sell it like you would a product (wait, I thought this wasn’t a marketing post). It might sound gimmicky, but people love gimmicks. We love to read otherwise “old” ideas packaged lovingly in a basket of weird. Don’t be afraid to unleash your inner carnival barker, especially if the message is important. It would be a shame if your idea fell through the cracks of intellectual ADD because you were too shy to present it with flair.

Stop giving up! Push ahead. Sometimes a message falls flat because you presented it at the wrong time a day. Sometimes the title was too long or too short or too dry or too snappy. Sometimes the difference between raising thousands of dollars and pocket change is whether one person decided to take a nap for an extra 30 minutes instead of hopping on Twitter. If you have a goal, keep at it until you reach it. Don’t get discouraged because you think no one is listening. You don’t need to spam the world but don’t be afraid of being a little obnoxious. People love a skelliwag, as long as he is shilling with a side of charisma — ask Jason Calacanis.

Tell a story. To reach the hearts and minds of a mostly uncaring public, you need to be the one with the best story. What you need from people isn’t as important as what you give them in return. If you tell a good story, if you make people really feel it, they are a lot more willing to put down the time and effort to help you. More importantly, people remember stories and when they are considering spreading your message — they will be a lot more likely to do so if it’s backed by a fantastic tale.

I’m telling all of this to you, my dear readers, because many of you are doing wonderful things (like this) with the web but are at a loss for how to get anyone to see them. I don’t want to see ideas die because you just didn’t know how to plug them into the right socket. Whether you are fighting for social change, raising money, creating art or looking to launch a product, understand that there exists a path for your message — a path that is waiting to be found by anyone with the patience to look.

To start the ball rolling, tell me something you want the world to know. You can leave a comment here, or shoot me a line on Twitter or Friendfeed.

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If you enjoyed that why not find a job or read our guide to working in the 21st century. You can also join our Kiva team or hire me for your project.