Let’s say you were launching a consumer facing web 2.0product like Yelp, Youtube etc., where network effects are huge and receptiveness at launch can make or break the product or company. Cuil is a great example of a company failing at the launch, though it was more due to bad product than bad marketing. But question remains: How can you rise above the noise with tons of other companies trying to grab the market? I hear you that product should be compelling and differentiated enough for users to use it, however product quality aside, how do you effectively market your product in social media? There are millions of users on social media today. Most influencers can are most likely on social media as are most end users. Industries with large network effects simply cannot afford to ignore social media.
How can a start-up effectively reach a broad audience in a non-intrusive and effective way?
Here is a hypothetical company: It has several video channels targeting certain “verticals” such as local music fans, golf lovers, want to be cooks etc. In order to reach this audience, one can engage in several ways:
- Engage with blogs or forums that talk about these topics. Leave comments, answer questions, leave back your URL
- Engage with Digg and StumbleUpon community
- Engage with Twitter community and see who likes to follow or talk about certain topics. Follow them, answer their questions, and genuinely try to help them
As you can imagine, this can become extremely unmanageable. I have heard several pitches by several companies, but none of them has offered a solution that can be managed by, let’s say, a single “community manager”.
I want to hear your thoughts. If you were to be given this job tomorrow, how would you solve this problem?
