365 Days of Stormtroopers – One Guy, One Camera, Some Toys, and Over 1,303,022 views

-> This article contains 4 really nifty points

I wish I did this.

One guy (Stefan), with one camera and two action-figures of stormtroopers, managed to get a massive following.

Stefan called the project “Stormtroopers 365″, and set out to take one photo of the two toy stormtroopers, TK-455 and TK-479, each day, for 365 days. The last picture in the series was published on April 4, 2010. Each photo taken was creative and unique.

1) About Stormtroopers 365

This is taken from his website, http://stormtroopers365.com:

“Stormtroopers 365 is a photo project starring TK455 and TK479, Stormtroopers in the Galactic Empire Army.

The project spanned from April 2009 to April 2010. Each day during this year, a new picture was added to the series.

The pictures are posted to Flickr. This is where you need to go. You can also go to the Gallery page here but honestly that’s the same, you’ll eventually end up on Flickr. Face it, there’s no escape.”

You can view the Flickr steam here: 365 Days of Stormtroopers.

2) What he Accomplished

Throughout the year, as Stefan posted a new picture each day, his project gained in popularity.

He provided people with many ways to keep up with his project, such as with Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, RSS, email, and more. A method for each type of preference.

Before he knew it, his list of followers grew larger and larger. Why did this happen?

1. People love consistency
2. People love to be entertained
3. People love things handed to them

All his subscribers had to do was sit back and relax, and everyday they would get a little notification telling them a new photo was up. It involved no work at all on the user’s end.

Moreover, it took no time. People love to be entertained (hence why certain videos on YouTube will always be popular), however people do not like to offer up too much of their time; especially if it’s needed daily.

If you had to watch a 5-minute funny video right now, I bet you would. Though if you had to watch a 5-minute funny video, everyday, for a year, I bet you would lose interest.

Pictures are wonderful things. A person can look at one for 3-seconds or 5-minutes, it’s up to them. They are not forced to wait 5-minutes for a video to play out to see what’s funny, it’s presented to them immediately.

Also, pictures are sent around. They are put on blogs (like this one), they are emailed around (think of all those dog and cat pictures your mom sends), and they are constantly linked to. Especially when they are funny and unique.

Here’s a quote from Stefan he made at the end of the series:

“Thank you to everyone who followed this series. When I started one year ago, I would never have imagined that it would get so much attention. I’m glad you enjoyed it, it was a lot of fun to do.” – Stefan

The series gained enough popularity and respect, that some of his work will be at the Arty Gallery, in L.A., in April and May.

For far he’s had 1,303,022 views.

How awesome is that?

3) How to Make Money from Something so Simple

Now with all these followers, Stefan offers people the chance to buy signed prints of any picture in the series. And if you think hard enough, I’m sure he could think of other things to sell as well (maybe auction off the toys used).

Also, if he hosted the pictures on his website, he could have raked in some Adsense revenue as well.

Now he has plans to start up another 365 day series. And he already has a massive following to start with.

4) How you can Implement this

All you need to do to start something similar, is get a camera and take one photo a day of something entertaining, and make it a series. It would be best to toss a website up around it as well (a blog would work perfectly for this).

A few good examples which I know will work are:

• 365 cute pictures of your cat
• 365 pictures of a garden gnome in random places in your city
• 365 pictures of a building being constructed

Imagine the possibilities?

Good luck out there,
~ Corrado