How to get social proof leverage and establish image?

Cold applications seem highly ineffective as the leverage is toward them as opposed to them coming to you. Someone once said it takes about 1000 applications at entry level. That's a lot of time with no guarantee of anything to show.

I'm asking here of elsewhere believing there is higher level thinking because looking up information on this topic seems parasitic. Snippet articles and videos void of content or experience (influencers), masquerading as insights, self promoting.

Something that is longer term thinking, maybe a year, perhaps organic traffic -- you have enough CVE, blog articles, talks, packages, or something somehow planned out -- perhaps something might be probable to work? What is a long term methodology, perhaps a year or more, to establish social proof for a technical role?