To earn merits, you actually have to embrace the community and learn from it. Become part of the community. Ask the right questions and read up on multiple posts. Take note of the ranks of authors and look at how they post and take note of the content they write. Here you have to put in work. This is not going to be as easy as a creating a popular Myspace page or garnering likes on Facebook or Twitter. So get ready to work and spend some quality time here and be active. Then can you watch your merits increase, increase, increase!