

Demystifying the TechCrunch effect - paraschopra
http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/demystifying-the-techcrunch-effect/

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patio11
On the plus side, you are now As Seen In TechCrunch, and if you think your
customers care about that I would mention it on your front page and sales
pages. if in doubt, I suppose you could find some way to do an A/B test :)

Plus it goes in every solicitation for coverage from here out, until you get
better social proof (like a NYT article).

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paraschopra
Yeah, still recovering from TC effect. Now it is time to start leveraging it!

I don't have it on the homepage (yet), but should A/B test it for sure :)

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InfinityX0
I would suggest less text on the homepage too, or at least get some kind of
better image-text ratio going.

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snide
Since 2006 I've had four separate sites and two separate companies covered by
Tech Crunch, a couple of them with multiple stories. The effects of each
crunch were slightly different but I'd call almost all of them positive.

The biggest thing Tech Crunch provides is not traffic or users, but awareness
within the industry. In every instance the traffic that TC sent was fleeting
at best and our sites, while technologically impressive, had nothing to do
with a tech audience, so we never gained users from them.

Over the years I've noticed that the actual traffic sent is less than before.
This has very little to do with a change of influence with them, but in the
fact that they now have more writers and more blog posts. The stories don't
live as long as they used to. 3k uniques though is generally on the low side.

The awareness that TC provides though is great. In the first years especially
it helped provide some easy networking for a couple nerds that were very
unlikely to leave their code dungeons. Don't discount the ego boost of
attention which gives you the thought you're working on something that might
actually be a success.

Also don't forget the baffling amount of lazy biz-dev guys at VCs who have
very little in the way of drumming up new companies other than calling up
every company featured on TC with a decent design and idea. Never bet on these
kinds of calls, it's just something that is part of the business.

Concentrate on your product above all else.

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vaksel

       "No, we are a proof that the TechCrunch club is not
        hyper-exclusive and if your startup has a good product 
        or service, they will eventually cover you."
    

I actually got the opposite impression. You had to beg and plead to get
covered...made posts asking for community support and you only got covered
because you just became too big of an annoyance. And let's not forget that you
actually got yourself established with paying big name customers first.

Meanwhile the YC company got coverage just for launching.

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paraschopra
I wouldn't call it begging but demanding. There is a sea of difference between
these two terms.

That's why I said the club is not hyper-exclusive. Yes, it is difficult to get
covered if you aren't funded but not impossible.

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paraschopra
Hey guys, if any one else has other data points it will be great to know if
their experiences match mine (as far as getting covered by TC is concerned).

My key lessons:

* Sent less traffic than I expected

* Converted less than average site traffic

* Engaged with site more than average site traffic

* Generated some indirect interest in the company/product

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lukestevens
I got 5k visits for a little project (aggregator) which got covered in a
different time of the week, so I expect the traffic sent is about par for the
course. I was surprised there wasn't a bigger 'techcrunch effect' too; I guess
not many of those 4M subscribers are particularly engaged!

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lachyg
Wow, a lot lower than I would of thought it would be. Do you think the quality
of the article is also a factor of the amount of hits? Or just time of week?

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paraschopra
I think time of week could have been the greatest factor. But definitely if
the article included a video or a screenshot, that could have piqued interest.

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sosuke
The same thing happens with all major news sources, the benefit is in the
incoming links that don't have nofollow on them and the various sources that
then reblog and retweet about that post again sending more links back to your
site. The traffic boost is fun but it is the long term link back benefit that
is actually good.

I get traffic all day long from stumbleupon and that is useless traffic if you
want to talk about horrible conversions.

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swombat
You forget the rubber-stamp effect. "As seen on TechCrunch" is a good thing to
put on your site, for most businesses.

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bbuffone
We recently got our company posted on techcrunch and the numbers line up
almost exactly only off by 4% and our traffic has fallen off exactly the same
way.

Our post went up on a Monday so day mattered little in at least these two
instances.

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harscoat
Prepare a network effect before hand if possible. As one person pointed out to
me as a critic to our own project: "so what is the multiplier effect, once 1
person signs up? How many more can he invite or get to come?" so that the bump
gets feeded back. I don't have the answer yet. Anybody?

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niyazpk
\+ give some incentive to invite others, like the extra storage space dropbox
gives.

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patio11
I would be interested in hearing from startups who have used this to positive
effect. My experiment with it was a failure - total flop, got me less new
users than $5 of AdWords. This tracks with the experience of a couple
companies I have talked with. I am sure there are better ways to do it, and
would love hearing some.

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TamDenholm
<http://upload.imghostr.net/941stats.png>

For anyone interested this is the traffic on instantise.com from the last 2
days. Techcrunch and HN were the main contributors but as you can tell HN
kicked TC's ass completely.

Just based on me measuring the time that it happened i'd assign a good 80% of
the "Direct" hits to HN. The google referrer is google reader so thats mostly
TC.

My estimated breakdown: TC total uniques: 3.5k - 3.8k HN: 7k

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bl4k
You actually show much higher engagement from the TC audience than from the HN
audience. Highest time on site and lowest bounce rate you got was from TC.

The other note on TC is that it is a brand impression to a lot more readers
than what click through. ie. ppl read/scan Techcrunch and will remember
brands, only to recall them later. This is part of the '6 impressions' rule
that marketers talk about.

There are a lot more stories on TC now though, so your own share of those
eyeballs is lower, and is competing with the other companies and startups
featured.

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Zakuzaa
TC's 4 million feed subscribers gave you just 3k visits, much much much lower
than I'd have expected.

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steveklabnik
I've heard that explained by this: as more stories hit the front page, each
individual one stays on the front page for a shorter amount of time, meaning
that even though TC is more popular than ever, it actually sends less hits
through for each story.

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dasil003
Not to mention people can just hit reload and read a new story instead of
following a link.

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some1else
Interesting. I don't seem to find value in getting covered by TC. At least not
if it takes two months that could be spent increasing conversion and retention
rates.

Good luck though, looks like a decent tool.

~~~
paraschopra
The total time investment (over a period of two months) would be a couple of
hours. So, in my opinion it was totally worth it.

Thanks for appreciating the tool!

~~~
some1else
Oh :-)

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pclark
Its also simply quite cool to have Techcrunch - the leading Startup news site
- feature your service, if you think about how many startups there are ...
congrats!

