

Ask HN: How would you get the word out about a new dating site? - irrationaljared

I'm having a lot of success with advertising for my new dating site, The Matching Game - http://www.thematchinggame.com - but am having a hard time figuring out other ways to get the word out. All of the articles I google just look like link bait.<p>So does anyone have any ideas about how to get the word out about a new, fun, free dating site? Mostly looking for press suggestions, but any ideas are welcome.<p>Thanks in advance.
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karlclement
Hello there,

Posting on Hacker News is a good start. But I would consider leveraging social
networks to help spread the word. Here are a few options:

-You can integrate Facebook Connect or Twitter Signin to get users to link their accounts to their thematchinggame.com profile.

-Once connected, you can post tweets or status updates about their activity.

-You could also ask them to tweet or to like your website whenever they signup.

-You could also create a simple contest for an iPad 2, and users would need to invite the most friends possible to be eligible. Or you could ask them to like or tweet the contest.

Good luck!

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michaelpinto
Advertise on Facebook — that's the one place where folks identify themselves
as single in addition to indicating their interests. If you're looking for
press find every romance and sex columnist you can find and pitch away...

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ig1
Indeed Facebook advertising rules prohibit you from advertising a dating site
to someone who has a non-single status.

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irrationaljared
I've experimented with Facebook a bit and it just seemed excessively
expensive. I didn't try the CPC options, though, so may try those out.

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ig1
Did you experiment with different ad copy/targetting ? - it can make a huge
difference.

I'll see if I can get the OK from Facebook to publish the CPM/CTR rates from
one of my ad campaigns so I can show exactly how important tuning is.

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irrationaljared
that would definitely be helpful. my efforts resulted in little success, so I
didn't put any additional effort in.

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ig1
This is the best article I've read about getting press coverage:

<http://mediastandardstrust.org/blog/fuel-to-the-fire/>

But it's a pretty competitive market place out there, have you considered
buying ads?

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irrationaljared
Nice, fun story. Might have to try some of those strategies :)

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triviatise
how much money do you have to spend? How many users are you trying to get?
What is the right demographic (age range, interest etc)?

If it is fun, you might want to try to get hooked into universities. Pick one
and just try to get some penetration. University students are single, have
time and are more willing to experiment.

Your best bet is going through referrals. But if you can make a funny video on
youtube you might be able to get traffic. My sisters friend created a music
video for the nohate campaign and they got 30,000 views in a day because they
had all the dancers, production people etc to tweet, facebook and share it.

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irrationaljared
Yea, I'm thinking about the university route. I don't have a ton of money to
spend (without making money through the site), so need to be pretty particular
with advertising dollars. Trying be creative about other ways of getting the
word out there.

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irrationaljared
Here's a link to the site: <http://www.thematchinggame.com>

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triviatise
I just looked at it and I think it is a very cool idea!

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irrationaljared
Thanks :)

