"How does someone with a relatively small following such as myself make them self heard amongst the billions of other voices out there?! "
I think if comes down to having a fundamentally remarkable/awesome value proposition (rewards, pitch, mission, etc). We tend to want to share things that surprise us with how awesome they are. Tips on social media viral components:
http://www.crowdcrux.com/viral-marketin ... h-peretti/I also think it's a lot easier to raise yourself above the noise if you tap into a pre-existing community or fanbase. For example, 3D printing is a growing community and if you create a ridiculously awesome 3d printer at a low cost with some kind of new technology, the members of that community are more likely to recognize it and help spread the word.
If your product doesn't have an established community, it can be harder to get that critical mass of interested parties needed to rise above the noise. This is a good topic for a blog post, I'll think about expanding on it in the future.