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Ask HN: Getting Eyeballs
Seems like Arrington's post has sparked some conversation about the community and founders' desperation for exposure. What's the problem? Are people not clever enough to come up with unique marketing plans? Or do most of them fail?
Coming from someone who hasn't been involved in a startup (yet!), I've never really understood this inability among founders to develop clever marketing campaigns. Everyone seems to think they need to score a blog post. And even if that's what it takes, there's huge frustration and difficulty with doing so.
During Startup School '08, Arrington said the best way to get on TC was to create a story. That seems pretty straightforward to me. So create one. That doesn't mean email him asking him to demo your product. It means to stir up some drama. Leak a screenshot, 'accidentally' post something on twitter, etc. I'm pretty sure that's the type of story he's talking about. In being creative with creating features, you also need to be master storytellers.
Instead of blog posts, there are myriad of things you could do for promotion and eyeballs. Make a bogus/cute little app that might not relate to your site like that 'Is Hillary Swank Hot?' app that was here a week ago. Make it a gag site and promote there. Here's an idea: Make weekly videos of a puppet version of your logo gruesomely killing the logos of your competitors or just popular sites in general. Be a sensationalist.
It really shouldn't be all that hard, guys, honestly. People these days will watch anything, and there are celebrities and fads in every corner of the internet waiting to find an audience. Making them stick to your service is another problem, but getting exposure shouldn't be difficult.
- amichail 18y agoComing from someone who hasn't been involved in a startup (yet!), I've never really understood this inability among founders to develop clever marketing campaigns. Why don't you try it and see whether it's that easy?
- kyro 18y agoI haven't been involved in a web startup, but I have started a t-shirt company, and have been involved in many campus/non-campus related clubs and efforts that required clever marketing. In my opinion, the web is no different, if anything, it makes virality happen much more quickly than by word of mouth, etc.
- volida 18y agohe's got the positive mindset, and that's more important.
- mixmax 18y agoI actually quite like your puppet idea.
- jwesley 18y agoPlease don't use the term "eyeballs". It makes you sound like an aging marketing exec. The thinking behind "getting eyeballs" is the same as "Techcrunch is our marketing plan". It's not about how many people see your product, its about the right people seeing your product at the right time. Pulling stunts might get you coverage in the tech blogs, but unless those people are your ideal users, it won't be much help.
- jamesbritt 18y agoThe book Branding Only Works on Cattle has some good observations along those lines.
- apgwoz 18y ago> its about the right people seeing your product at the right time. Or people remembering your product enough to think, "Hey, I think I remember the guys who did that Is Swank Hot? had something like that," when someone asks #lazyweb on twitter/identi.ca. You can't forget that "crowdsourcing" is in.
- jamesbritt 18y ago"Make a bogus/cute little app that might not relate to your site like that 'Is Hillary Swank Hot?' app that was here a week ago." Except that gave me a poor impression of the people behind it, since the notion of it being an "app" struck me as disingenuous. It's easy to get attention, less easy to get good attention (begin debate over "there's only one thing worse than being talked about ...")