
Ask HN: My site is better than that of competitors, how do I make my site known? - garagol
I don&#x27;t know how many of you use chat sites when you feel like venting or talking for a while. There are websites like blahtherapy, 7 cups of tea, omegle(using tags) and others that fulfill this role, letting you connect with a random person to talk about whatever you want. It could be to talk about your new dog, or ask for advice about your struggling relationship, or to vent about your daily struggle with depression, or anything you want - you get the point.<p>Thing is, most of these sites are pretty bad, and fail in one way or another. Some spam ads everywhere, or allow trolls to flood in, or have poor programming (backspace exits the chat suddenly, no reconnection features, poor design), require creating an account - or a mix of these.<p>Because of all this, and because I myself am a user of these sites, I created my own &quot;worthy&quot; alternative, rainychat.com<p>However, even though I KNOW my site is better in most ways, I have no idea how to make people realize it exists.<p>Is advertisement on google neccesary? Do I repost my site on facebook and twitter over and over again? How do you promote your sites?<p>Honestly, I&#x27;m lost. I don&#x27;t have lists or followers to spread the word, and if things keep this way my site will die eventually.<p>What would you do, HN?
======
Gustomaximus
Its a nice looking site. Why is it better?

1) I had a look at 7 cups and yours. 7 cups looked to identify then solve a
problem for me as a talker (ie find out what was wrong and relax me while
waiting, offering free or professional help) while your just had faster
listner to talker connection potential.

2) Using 2 computers to connect to myself your service didn't allow voice?

3) Being random instant connections I connected to my other PC and tried
various swear words and told myself to go kill otherself type thing. Nothing
flagged the system which means this system is potentially opening depressed
people to troll. Something that could have serious consequences.

I'm not taking the piss here. I'm marketing side and was intellectually
curious to consider how I would market this. But I'm not feeling any USP of
note and curious why you feel your is such a better offering? Could you expand
on this? Personally it feels to me you need to go back to the goal of the
projects and evaluate how and what your are trying to achieve and does this do
that. I dont feel this is ready for significant marketing efforts.

------
qwrusz
> because I myself am a user of these sites

Well how did you come to find/become a user of all these sites?...

Upvote for your use of the "ask HN promotion strategy" done a bit more
tastefully than what I've seen on here recently. Good luck.

------
spcelzrd
Hire a marketer. If you can't afford one, you have to become one yourself. If
you need convincing that marketing is just as important as the product, read a
book like The Ten Day MBA (it's super dated, but the principles still apply).

The fundamental truth of small business or entrepreneurship is that you have
to do the things you can't afford to hire for (see Toilet Paper Entrepreneur).

Marketing is very very easy. Marketing on a budget is expensive. Go to the
library and start reading. Don't forget to measure your results.

------
shuzhang
You seem to think a cleaner UI makes a product better, it doesn't. Right now
your value prop is super unclear and it won't matter how much advertising you
do.

For a product like this, the community is the ESSENTIAL part of the product.
The best product in this category is the one with the highest quality network
of listeners/people-with-problems and good matchmaking. You will probably also
need something more specific to focus on.

For starters, think about where you can find potential users and where you can
find people trying to tackle similar problems as you.

For example, check out the first google result for 'help lines':
[https://helplines.org/helplines](https://helplines.org/helplines)

It's literally a listing of hundreds of organizations with pre-built networks
of (trained) volunteer listeners and (hopefully) real demand from people with
real problems. Maybe you can try messaging these organization to see if they
need technology help. You can also ask about their experiences around building
up their volunteers network and how they spread the word for their help line.
If you craft good messages, maybe several out of those hundreds will talk to
you. You should be able to get some good ideas with enough work, and maybe
even a few potential partnerships.

Think about what else you can search for. Think about how to find relevant
users on community platforms like reddit, google groups, fb groups, meetup
etc. I'm sure there're lots of communities out there where people have
problems and look for advice or want to talk things out. Segment the potential
users and try to gauge the level of demand. Think about what exactly different
types of users need and how to craft the right pitch for them (and if you can
deliver on it). If you get it right, you could also leverage those communities
to seed your initial network.

If you get specific, you'll have an easier time creating value by seeding the
network correctly, doing better matchmaking and having a clearer pitch and
value prop.

update: updated for clarity

------
kohanz
You're basically asking: how do I do successful marketing, right? I don't have
the answer to that, but I'd presume that despite many flashy resources out
there claiming otherwise, there is no secret sauce, you have to put in the
work of advertising (and finding out which channels work best for you), and of
course the very important SEO.

By the way, I used your site and had a decent experience. I'm not a typical
user of these, but it was interesting. You mentioned that other sites allow
trolls to flood in - how do you prevent that?

~~~
garagol
I made three different algorithms dealing with spamming messages, spamming
reports (repoting people unfairly), and when to ban someone depending on the
reports gotten.

Contrary to most sites which do nothing (as to get the traffic from the trolls
anyway), if someone is being intrusive, I ban him for a limited time, or the
after two times, permanentely.

------
afarrell
Apply your site to the needs of a community who will have members that spread
the word. For example, if you knew a community of people that worked from home
wanted to work alongside like-minded folks. Or who wanted to work through a
MOOC together. Or who wanted to move to a city and get matched up with a
person from that city.

Find a reason why someone should post on /r/subreddit "hey, you should use x

------
darrelld
Well posting on HN is a good start.

You have a chicken and egg problem. I visited your site, sat in as a listener
for minutes and no one showed up.

~~~
spcelzrd
All the best sites astroturfed in the early days.

~~~
jcahill84
This would be a great article to read... "Hackers Guide to Astroturfing Your
Shiny New Product"

------
chphipps
Depending on where you live, throwing a launch party is a plausible idea that
would raise awareness. If you live somewhere such as Boston or California,
then start going out to start-up events.

Or you can focus on SEO. I would do both if it were me, let me know how it
goes!

------
imauld
Try getting some marketing out on Imgur. I'm a fairly active member of that
community and this seems like something the community there would like. Don't
just spam them with posts though.

------
tmaly
read the book Will It Fly by Pat Flynn, he lays out a method for finding out
how to reach your target market.

Also there is a book co-authored by the creator of DuckDuckGo called Traction
that is very useful in testing out marketing channels.

------
ddgflorida
By mentioning your site in your question you just got a huge jump in traffic.

