

Ask HN: How do you get tech bloggers to review a startup? - flexterra

For the past few weeks I tried to get bloggers to review my startup http://www.s3mer.com with no success. Is there something I can do to improve my odds?<p>Thanks for the advice!
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alain94040
We debated that question (of how to get coverage) at the latest TheFunded
event. I'll give you a quick summary. Issuing a press release will not be
picked up by anyone. Writers will write about you if you contact them and
manage to actually interact with them. Phone is best.

Everytime geeks hear the word phone, they revert to sending a shy email
instead. If really you can't be bothered to pick up a phone, then maybe paying
thousands of dollars to have a PR agent do it for you makes sense. Just think
of much you are paying for phone calls...

Shoot high and have a human angle, a story, some kind of connection (I do get
Guy Kawasaki to reply to my emails, but that took 6 months).

Bottom line: if you haven't done any of the ground work and you need your news
to come out today, you're out of luck. But if you have two months, plan ahead
and establish those contacts starting TODAY.

Hope this helps.

~~~
critic
How much do those PR agents charge exactly and what do they do for you,
specifically?

~~~
socialtistics
PR companies can charge anywhere from a couple hundred to thousands of
dollars. It all depends on what you are looking for and the services you
require. If you just want a simple press release and it distributed to the
major wires you are looking at a few hundred (the wire services charge a fee
based on the length or number of words in your release). Contrary to popular
belief you do not need a PR company to get your press release on the wires.
Where a PR company can be helpful with press releases is to get major
reporters to cover your story. They do this typically through preestablished
connections with those reporters.

While press releases are not the only service PR companies offer they are a
good part of it. Many PR companies offer additional services such as website
review (functionality & design), copy editing for your website, media
training, and help with your overall marketing efforts.

As I said before costs can range from a few hundred to several thousand, but
most PR companies will want you to engage them with a monthly retainer. The
retainers for reputable firms can run from $10-20K a month.

For startups I would highly recommend against engaging a PR company.
Everything you will need as a startup you can do yourself or by hiring a
college student to handle for you. Your main concerns in a startup environment
typically will be to make sure your website makes sense and is clear, building
connections with bloggers who have an interest in your space, and utilizing
those connections to get the word out. The wire services are a waste of time
really. Your story is not going to make it in the NY Times are Washington Post
by releasing a press release on the wires.

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Maro
Even after browsing the site, it's not clear what it's about. It has to do
with playing ads on a screen, but what's the concept? Do I get payed for
playing someone else's ad? Is this a piece of software for creating ads for
myself? You mention a downloadable application, but in the movies everything
is happening inside a browser running something on localhost. It's all very
confusing to me.

~~~
sh1mmer
I got it within seconds. They provide software to run those "homebrew" bill
boards in Coffee shops and such which just run off a computer and an LCD
monitor.

~~~
robotrout
I actually had to check back to the site to make sure we were on the same
website.

On my quick scan of the site, when I read "dynamic digital signage solution"
it never even occurred to me that it wasn't talking about PGP document and
email signing.

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raffi
Rather than beat up your site, I'll take a stab at answering your question:

I highly recommend reading: <http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/?p=198>

Peldi's advice and the links he give are dead on. I pitched bloggers before
reading this and got a zero response rate.

Then I adjusted tactics. I added a phone number to my website and a mediakit.
Some of the articles Peldi links to talk about having a media kit.

I also added the ability to give out codes for people to try the service for
free. This is important as it takes replying to me out of the equation. The
blogger can try things out (if they choose) at their leisure. The code also
makes it easy to tell who is looking.

I started looking for bloggers via Google Alerts, Technorati, etc.). I then
sent tailored messages to a few and included the "try it" code. I also tried
to say something to show my site added to the dialog of something they already
wrote.

Overall I kept my pitch short (unlike this reply :))

I mentioned nothing about writing a review or any such thing. I merely asked
for their opinion. Some folks reviewed my service, others sent me their
opinion. Still, I had responses :)

My mediakit is at: <http://www.feedbackarmy.com/about.slp>

And my welcome page for people with a code is:
<http://www.feedbackarmy.com/tryit.slp?code=theircodehere>

Good luck!

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damienkatz
I had no idea what your site or product page did until I found this link, then
it instantly made sense.

<http://www.s3mer.com/tour.php>

I suggest you change your homepage to be a lot more like the tour page.

~~~
Hexstream
Oh. I thought "digital signage" had to do with cryptography.

------
flexterra
I'm overwhelmed by the amount and quality of responses. After reading them I
realized that most of you are right. In the homepage is not clear what problem
we fix. That's mainly because we were aiming the digital sigange industry and
they already know what "ds" software is. Now we are aiming small businesses
and they need to get a simple explanation right there in the homepage.

What s3mer is? \--------------- s3mer is a piece of software that helps people
and businesses create and maintain digital signs using flat screens, computer
monitors, TVs, projectors or even giant digital billboards as a display
surface. Digital signs can display still images, animations, video and even
live data from the web like weather, stocks, sports and even twitter activity.

With s3mer you can build a custom in-store TV network just like Walmart TV.
s3mer was designed with small businesses in mind. Its affordable, easy to use
and powerful. Business owners can sign up for a s3mer account and in a matter
of minutes start displaying their own digital sign.

For the technical folks: \------------------------- The s3mer system has 2
components: Admin website and Player application. The player application is
built on Adobe AIR technology so it works offline after it has downloaded the
media files from our servers. The player app is remote controlled from the
website and you can manage as many Players as you like.

Thanks for the tips I will make sure they get implemented.

~~~
johns
Are you going to be at the Digital Signage Expo in February? If so, we should
meet up. Email john at treefort dot com

------
racerrick
I think it's best to focus on one site/blogger that you really really want to
get a review from and then create a campaign to get some coverage.

This takes weeks or months, not days.

Start by commenting as much as you can. It's best to be one of the very first
commenters and make thoughtful comments. Always make sure to link to a page
that might be most helpful to the people who visit your site.

After you've spent some time being a contributor to the site, it's time to
concentrate on getting attention from a writer/editor/blogger. Target one of
the writers and provide some information that might be helpful to him/her but
not about your product/service. Example: "I saw this new feature running on
gmail" etc. Also, you might want to target a less prominent writer at the
publication. Mike Arrington is swamped with stuff but Serkan Toto probably has
less in his inbox.

If you still have trouble getting to them, follow them on twitter and figure
out when they're in front of the computers. Sometimes it's easiest to reach
busy people late at night or early in the morning.

Finally when you 'pitch' your product, make it one paragraph description.

Also potentially offer to demo your software to them in person at their office
or near their home, etc. Make it stupid simple.

Good luck.

------
aditya
Peldi has some good advice on this, (Startup Marketing Advice from Balsamiq
Studio) <http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/?p=198>

------
enra
If you can't get big guys talk about you, try to contact some smaller and
local ones. Atleast we at ArcticStartup are happy to know about new startups
but actually very few contact us directly.

And if you contact them use some to explain what the startup does, why and how
are you etc.

~~~
sh1mmer
This is great advice. Most of this stuff is a snow ball. The bigger
bloggers/new agencies keep an eye on smaller bloggers/new agencies to source
material from. If you get some good local success you are much more likely to
be able to approach/get approached by someone with a bigger audience.

~~~
enra
And I can confirm this, occasionally we get picked by TC etc. If you're a
small startup and not counting on some huge PR-effort and launch event you
probably have nothing to lose if you contact some smaller bloggers. That way
you usually atleast have coverage and might gain some interest in what you're
doing.

(btw. ArcticStartup covers Scandinavia/Baltic startups so we in the local
category)

------
madlid
About PR firms - just take care when selecting one if you decide to go that
route - simply because a lot of them still send out e-mail blasts which are
annoying and tend to be dismissed quickly. So I'd hate to see you throw away
good money and not get great results. Ask them what how they work and what
they can do for you before they do it; you don't want your startup associated
with the ratfinks.

Overall I agree with what Mystalic wrote but wanted to add a couple of things
- note my disclaimer, I write for ReadWriteWeb.

Make sure your product is relevant to to the sites audience - this is soooo
important. Take a look at this post Richard wrote some time ago - it's worth a
read -
[http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_not_to_pitch_a_blog...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_not_to_pitch_a_blogger.php)

Also, if you do want to target bloggers - make it easy for them to write about
you. For instance - make sure the site covers all the things we'll want to
know - the basics - who, what, where, when, why and how - you'd be surprised
how many people forget that blogs have made it super important to write stuff
up quickly; if we have to spend an hour just working out what your product is
about, chances are we won't bother.

Sorry that sounds harsh, but it is the reality.

Hope this helps a bit and good luck!

------
sanj
Have you considered working with someone in PR?

I used to be dead-set against that advice, but _good_ PR folks act as a
quality filter to many of the big-name tech bloggers.

------
gravitycop
_For the past few weeks I tried to get bloggers to review my startup_

Show it to people they trust, who are easier to access. The reason is: startup
bloggers get flooded with nearly-identical requests. They are more likely to
pay attention to you if you first pass the screening test of a trusted friend
of theirs. If your startup is interesting, a recommendation from the friend
will be passed along.

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webwright
Be worth talking about and it'll happen. Not saying that PR effort isn't worth
it, but it gets a lot easier if you're interesting/clear.

Read the book "Made to Stick" and ask yourself how sticky your story is (you
don't HAVE a story-- that's the problem).

Look at Balsamiq-- that guy had a STORY that people wanted to read, so people
wrote about him.

Nobody wants to read about a product with no angle. What's your twist? How are
you surprising? What you can say about your product that blows people away?
Have you changed someone's life? How are you going to effect the reader of
this story?

Clarity (and speed) of the site is a problem, but I think your bigger problem
(from a PR perspective) is that you just aren't telling an interesting story.

------
pclark
I'll give my thoughts. I'm a nobody though.

* very slow to load

* Awesome logo - did you make it?

* I don't know what it is. "s3mer is a complete dynamic digital signage solution designed to be easy to use, cross platform and feature rich."

Does this mean digital code signing or advertising signs? The image with the
reflection doesn't indidcate _what_ it is.

* your sign up form is too long. Which fields are required?

* there isn't an "other" field for the industry.

* Why is there a captcha?

++++ for not having email verification

I stopped here because I still have _no_ idea what it does.

------
Harkins
Who is the audience for your homepage?

People without offline advertising experience don't know the phrase "digital
signage". If you're _lucky_ they will leave through the Wikipedia link and
learn the term, but that page only tells them "Ah, this is something I don't
care about" so they won't return.

People with offline advertising experience won't learn about s3mer from your
homepage. It doesn't explain why s3mer is better than other products. The only
information is a few bullet points about video encoding, and that's selling
features instead of benefits.

------
Mystalic
You simply have to have a compelling product. You have to have an easy-to-
understand product, You have to have a very simple two line pitch.

I throw all the press releases away. I care a lot more about a good two
sentence pitch.

Butt really, you need to email them that quick pitch to the appropriate email,
or get in contact with the right people. It's about connections and promoting
a solid product.

Maro's right, though - I'm still not sure what it's all about. Your
description's bad.

*Disclaimer: I write for Mashable

~~~
gravitycop
_I write for Mashable_

Do you ever blog about startups/sites/apps based on recommendations from your
friends? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=462326>

~~~
Mystalic
I think simply the fact that if a friend mentions it, we're going to be aware
gets you a step ahead. Most bloggers _don't_ have a giant flood, and they're
receptive to covering ideas. Making them aware by any means helps.

You still have to have a compelling product or pitch in the end, though. No
way around that.

~~~
gravitycop
Thanks for the feedback. I stand corrected regarding the blogger request
flood. I agree with the need for compellingness and a simple, short pitch. I
believe if one cannot shorten his pitch, he doesn't understand his product:
[http://socalbuzz.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/getting-
from-8-wor...](http://socalbuzz.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/getting-from-8-words-
to-funding)

 _The bottom line is that you really need to understand your opportunity so
well that you can reduce to 8 words and still have people understand what you
are trying to accomplish. It really makes you focus. Save all the flowery
language for when you have investors attention and can afford to use more
words._

------
arthurk
Here are my thoughts:

* Slow load time (I'm located in Europe)

* It's not clear what your startup does. At first, I thought it would be something using Amazon S3 because of the name "s3mer". The "What is s3mer?" section is also very unclear to me.

* Why the Adobe Air, Mac, Windows XP and Windows Vista logos? If it runs on Air wouldn't it also run on Linux?

* The "Change Language" overlay is blinking when the site is loading and displayed by default (WebKit nightly ;-))

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bendtheblock
If this is what I think it is, I like the general idea of the product. It's
for big screens in train stations, taxis etc. right?

People usually understand things better with examples, so I would try and get
some images of it in action (on an actual screen, in an actual public place)
on the front page.

Kudos to Harkins point - the front page should show benefits rather than
features, and be targeted to a specific audience.

~~~
flexterra
Yes, our software is for big screens like plasmas, tv, projectors, digital
billboards, etc.

You are right we need pictures. We are getting some great photos from client
installations.

------
RiderOfGiraffes
You need to tell me what problem it solves, and only then tell me how
marvellous it is. Don't give me loads of buzzwords - the "Ginger Factor" is
very large. Tell me the situation where it is useful. I, like others here,
don't really know what you're providing.

And again, the video is too small, and it all takes too long to load.

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riklomas
I immediately clicked on the video because I didn't understand what the
concept was. You should make the video larger (I don't want to full screen)
and maybe do a commentary soundtrack with it to help get across what you're
doing

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markessien
Start of by explaining what the software does. It's not explained on the
frontpage. Secondly, people don't cover technology, they cover human interest
stories. You have no angle at all. Create and angle and retry.

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mrtron
Digital signage is a pretty unique industry in terms of the sales cycle. There
are some industry blogs that you could probably get on.

(I used to work in the industry and sold a few of my own solutions)

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jhickner
The demo video takes a long time before you see what the end result actually
looks like. It's sort of a how-to video, and I think you need a straight demo
video that lets you see the goods up front.

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jtuyen
Question, do you guys support h264 with AAC? I'm in the DS industry myself and
tested over half a dozen apps based in the NA market.

~~~
flexterra
YES, we support H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, AAC and HE-AAC (a.k.a AAC SBR), MP4 file
format. All this formats are parts of the ISO MPEG-4 standard.

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ryanwaggoner
Is this software that's designed to run on flatscreens in coffee shops and
retail stores? Who is the audience for the site?

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ahoyhere
Being exceptional and interesting is the way to getting covered. (Read Purple
Cow. Seriously. And then read every other Seth Godin book.)

Being famous/well-known is another. (Sounds tough, but you can really reach
people by teaching.)

Before you redesign your front page which -- I agree with everyone else -- is
confusing, you have to get clear on why YOUR service is so special that
journalists would love to write about it. If it isn't, you have to make it so.

Remember that "the media" isn't there to be a mouthpiece for your product, but
they are always hunting for interesting stories because that's their job.

My app launch got covered on RWR and LifeHacker the next day (not to brag,
this was unintentional). Apparently they follow what I launch because of
personal projects I've done before that captured a lot of interest
(<http://www.twistori.com>).

Since then I've also been interviewed for WebWorkerDaily and th Startup
Podcast. Those came from the interestingness of our approach with the product,
and respect for one of our marketing efforts (<http://jumpstartcc.com/>),
respectively.

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ssharp
Spit in their face.

I deserve the down mod.

