Whether you call them "Sneezers" (Seth Godin), "Connectors" (Malcolm Gladwell) or "Linkerati" (yours truly), there is clearly a subset of individuals on the web who are responsible for helping to push content into the collective consciousness. Making your Mom happy is nice, but it won't bring the results you desire - if you want links and tweets, you need to go to the source.

Making this crowd appreciate your work requires research. You need to know what they like, what they talk about and what they spread. Having your finger on the pulse of sites like Reddit, Techmeme, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and Tweetmeme can provide that insight, but it's not enough by itself. You'll want a good few weeks or months of paying careful attention before you can "get the feel" of what the Linkerati have on the brain.