

Ask HN: What are the best methods of publicizing/marketing a new web app? - nahcub


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mindcrime
Ideally, you build an audience ahead of time, but establishing some authority
and credibility in your field. Publish relevant, valuable content via G+,
Facebook, Twitter, a blog, etc., and start building your audience. Then, when
you want to publicize your startup, you have people waiting to hear about it,
who will - hopefully - become fans and help spread the word further.

Also, by putting legitimately valuable content "out there" you are, in effect,
doing what people call "content marketing". You want to draw eyeballs to your
site/blog/whatever when people search for keywords related to what you are
doing.

See, among other resources:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permission_marketing>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_marketing>

<http://www.startup-marketing.com/>

<http://hackermonthly.com/startup-marketing.html>

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MisterWebz
I'm wondering if some kind of startup advertising website exists, where people
would submit their new startup, side project or app and place a small
javascript snippet in their html which would automatically advertise other
startups that are part of the advertising website. Similarly, your project
would also be advertised on other people's projects who have also signed up.

Does something like that exist?

~~~
jfoster
LinkExchange did that. It was a bit broader, though.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkExchange>

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userium
There are lots of good resources online, here is one web marketing checklist:
<http://webmarketingtoday.com/articles/checklist/>

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orangethirty
Depends on the market/product.

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bayesianhorse
Post it to hackernews ;-)

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dylangs1030
_Publicizing:_

1\. Post to Hacker News at a strategic time. Be receptive to all feedback and
respond to any legitimate concerns.

2\. Contact tech reporters and news sources: TechCrunch, Mashable, TheNextWeb,
etc. Politely but assertively give them a reason to write about your new
product/service. Try to rehearse this pitch a lot.

3\. Offer a free demo to influential people. See: tech reporters, startup
founders relevant to your industry, etc.

4\. Network with favors, not by being annoying. This is hopefully done _prior_
to launch, but in any case the basic gist is that you should aim for quality
networking, not quantity. Stay in touch with influential people and help them.
They'll help you in the future.

 _Marketing:_

1\. If you have money, go for a tightly moderated and exclusive marketing
campaign like those offered by The Deck and similar services. These usually
cater to the sort of audience you want and are much more successful for
positive reception.

2\. Make a diverse marketing portfolio networked through other startups that
need advertising revenue and through circuits that will likely hit the eyes of
influential investors and VC's.

Of course, that's very general. Good luck!

~~~
brudgers
> _"1. Post to Hacker News at a strategic time. Be receptive to all feedback
> and respond to any legitimate concerns."_

Only if there is something likely to be relevant to HN'ers. A link to the
landing page of "Facebook for Hedgehog Owners" is just spam. A link to a blog
post about the struggles of founding "Facebook for Hedgehog Owners," is
relevant.

That's not to say that links to landing pages are never relevant - e.g. the
landing page for a Github project or the landing page of a programming tool
are more likely to be directly relevant to HN's audience.

The general rule applies. If the content is good, and there's some luck, it
will get noticed. If it's basically a press release, then HN probably will
ignore it.

