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HN is more of a 'show and tell' rather than a platform for repeat-marketing. Every time someone reveals numbers behind their front paging it's awful as a growt

HN is more of a 'show and tell' rather than a platform for repeat-marketing. Every time someone reveals numbers behind their front paging it's awful as a growth mechanism, if the blog posts aren't even selling your company/product then it's even worse because that's another cliff in the conversion funnel from visitor to anything-of-value. Another startup recently revealed they got just 44 trial registrations from three distinct front page stories [1] and over 9000 visitors. Another example that comes to mind is yesterday's marketing blog post by GrooveHQ [2]. It was their second front page post in nine months and 50+ attempts, and it wasn't even about their company or product. Instead it was about a different company whose content marketing for their ideal visitors had ironically grown their blog to 250,000 visitors a month. I wouldn't be too quick to consider optimizing for HN harmless. To me it all reeks of @sama's "fake work" post from yesterday [3], right down to the justifications founders come up with - you're not going to achieve "TOMA" for enterprise social network software from a briefly popular blog post about something silly and unrelated Oracle said. You already achieved everything you will from it - a brief bump in your page views. [1] http://blog.yesgraph.com/yesgraph-tc-ph-hn-omg-bbq/ http://blog.yesgraph.com/yesgraph-tc-ph-hn-omg-bbq/ [2] https://www.groovehq.com/blog/zapier-interview-with-wade-foster https://www.groovehq.com/blog/zapier-interview-with-wade-fos... [3] http://blog.samaltman.com/the-post-yc-slump http://blog.samaltman.com/the-post-yc-slump

giltleaf 11y ago
Good insight, thanks for providing those articles. Especially interested in [3] and how it might relate. I think it's just more of a disappointment related to what marketing websites talk about and what the reality of the situation is.
mindcrime 11y ago
To me it all reeks of @sama's "fake work" post from yesterday [3] Blogging in general, or submitting to HN? If you mean the former, I strongly disagree. Blogging is, IMO, a key way of attracting attention and getting our message out. As for submitting to HN... well, once I have a blog post published, it takes 30 seconds to submit it here. Why not do it, if it's reasonably on-topic? you're not going to achieve "TOMA" for enterprise social network software from a briefly popular blog post about something silly and unrelated Oracle said. Not by itself, no. Of course not. It's just one more thing to get people reading our blog. And that most recent entry was not just an attempt to draw hits for the sake of hits... since everything we do is OSS, we actively look for opportunities to promote the use of OSS, especially in favor of proprietary plays like Oracle. And a blog post pays continuing returns over time due to hits from search. So anyway, I agree that HN in and of itself isn't necessarily a great tool for driving specific actions. But I will argue that submitting an article (which would have been written whether or not there was a HN) here is just part of a broader overall strategy for building awareness / gaining attention. A small part, granted. :-) I wouldn't be too quick to consider optimizing for HN harmless. Oh, absolutely. And I can't speak for anyone else, but we don't "optimize for HN". We write about the stuff we feel is important or needs to be said, and (usually) submit the link to HN (unless it's completely off-topic or irrelevant).
- benologist 11y ago
  Blogging in general, or submitting to HN? I mean targeting HN with an ongoing effort to reach the front page again and again, doubling down on relatively easy traffic with a few customers vs the much harder challenge of finding a good customer acquisition channel.
  - mindcrime 11y ago
    Yeah, I'd agree with that.

giltleaf 11y ago

Good insight, thanks for providing those articles. Especially interested in [3] and how it might relate. I think it's just more of a disappointment related to what marketing websites talk about and what the reality of the situation is.

mindcrime 11y ago

To me it all reeks of @sama's "fake work" post from yesterday [3] Blogging in general, or submitting to HN? If you mean the former, I strongly disagree. Blogging is, IMO, a key way of attracting attention and getting our message out. As for submitting to HN... well, once I have a blog post published, it takes 30 seconds to submit it here. Why not do it, if it's reasonably on-topic? you're not going to achieve "TOMA" for enterprise social network software from a briefly popular blog post about something silly and unrelated Oracle said. Not by itself, no. Of course not. It's just one more thing to get people reading our blog. And that most recent entry was not just an attempt to draw hits for the sake of hits... since everything we do is OSS, we actively look for opportunities to promote the use of OSS, especially in favor of proprietary plays like Oracle. And a blog post pays continuing returns over time due to hits from search. So anyway, I agree that HN in and of itself isn't necessarily a great tool for driving specific actions. But I will argue that submitting an article (which would have been written whether or not there was a HN) here is just part of a broader overall strategy for building awareness / gaining attention. A small part, granted. :-) I wouldn't be too quick to consider optimizing for HN harmless. Oh, absolutely. And I can't speak for anyone else, but we don't "optimize for HN". We write about the stuff we feel is important or needs to be said, and (usually) submit the link to HN (unless it's completely off-topic or irrelevant).

benologist 11y ago
Blogging in general, or submitting to HN? I mean targeting HN with an ongoing effort to reach the front page again and again, doubling down on relatively easy traffic with a few customers vs the much harder challenge of finding a good customer acquisition channel.
- mindcrime 11y ago
  Yeah, I'd agree with that.