Show HN: Crowd² - A viral marketing campaign creator I wrote in 72 hours | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Crowd² - A viral marketing campaign creator I wrote in 72 hours

crowdsquared.com

106 pointsfitztrev72 comments

here's the issue: to checkout crowd2 you need to share it on your social network. unless you have a dummy social network that you use for SPAM, you're going to share it to your friends.

but hey, I don't know if I wanna share it yet. i wanna test it first. And, crowd2 is share first, test second. And that's just wrong.

It's easy to make the parallel to another form of spam, as you'd have to have a spam account to view it, as stated in my first paragraph.

This sounds remarkably similar to the Imview story, which Eric Ries shared in the opening chapters of his book. It's the same way I felt after viewing what looks to be a neat product, but something I want to play with before implementing.

Edit: I'm not sure why I was downvoted, but the point was that after Imview received this feedback from their demo set, they implemented a way for people to play before sharing, which later led to their success. Just food for thought.

The passage about IMVU from Ries' book, The Lean Startup:

"She downloads the product, and then we say 'Okay, invite one of your friends to chat.' And she says, 'No way!' We say, 'Why not?' And she says, 'Well, I don't know if this thing is cool yet. You want me to risk inviting one of my friends? What are they going to think of me? If it sucks, they're going to think I suck, right?' And we say, 'No, no it's going to be so much fun once you get the person in there; it's a social product.' She looks at us, her face filled with doubt; you can see that this is a deal breaker."

Thanks for posting that, and correcting me on the name. I knew it didn't look right.

Hey, I work on several of the networks you're promoting this service on. The implementation of crowd2 is definitely spammy, although I'm sure you've had the best intention at heart.

For points of reference, this violates Facebook's terms of service, Twitter's, and several of Google's, though not directly mentioned for Google+ I'd still err on the side of caution.

One of the things you can do to be more compliant is to offer an "opt out" option, or an alternative method (like a unique URL) that doesn't directly involve the social networks sharing plugins but still provide an effective gate. Just be aware that this will cause issues with at least three of these services. Can't speak for LinkedIn, but I'd assume it's probably the same deal.

Thank you for the information. Because of this, and others', comments, I added an opt-out button. While the customer can still share, they have the clear option that they can download the offer without having to do so.

I wouldn't like to be on the receiving end of this. I want to see the content first, then maybe share with my network. Putting a "sharewall" like this will put a lot of people off.

I'm in the same boat -- a sharewall is almost guaranteed to bounce me.

Then again, I'm probably not the target for a viral marketer, so perhaps this is an effective solution.

I think it might depend on the offer as well. I'm probably the same on most things. But AppSumo has a similar "Free Deal" on their site where you get access to the video/product after tweeting about it. Since I may actually be interested in the offer most times, I'm usually pretty happy to do it. I know that I'm going to get value out of it and, by helping advertise the site, I'm helping them continue these offers in the future.

Perhaps the difference is that AppSumo has proven value to you in the past, so the 'risk' of promoting them is lower?

I consult a niche daily deal site that implemented something similar.

In that case, it had a standard "email subscribe" nag screen (think Groupon or Living Social). There was a "No Thanks" link at the bottom. Of course most people clicked that.

We decided to give them a Like button option, too. We made the lightbox modal, and required that they either "Like" or fill-in their email address.

An email address would suppress the nag screen forever (cookie based version of 'forever', of course). A Like would suppress it for, I think, 1 week.

After a week, they'd have the same screen, but then a Tweet button.

We used the AddThis API, made it easy, we attached an OnSuccess callback to the LikeButton.

We ran 2 tests, twice. The first split the old version to the new version with the Share option. We found the Share option decreased subscribers, increased Likes, and decreased "No Thanks" clicks.

Then we ran a test between that Share version, and a version where we eliminated the "No Thanks" link. It increased both subscriptions AND like's significantly. Numbers are to this day somewhere like ~10% increase in subscriptions, and a substantial increase in likes. Sales were not immediately impacted -- and they're pretty confident in increased sales due to the increased value of their list and fan page.

We did end up doing one more tweak -- I suppose we added a door to the Share Wall. We added a 25 second SetTimeout that fades-in the "No Thanks" link. If they're in the middle of typing their email address or signing-into facebook or whatever, the set-timeout just resets itself. We don't want to cannibalize that social activity if they're in the middle of it. But there was just worry about AddThis or the Like button not working properly, etc. We wanted to give them another way at the content.

These are pretty interesting figures. If I've understood what you wrote correctly your conclusion would be that the screens that we love to hate really do work. Do you have any thoughts on situations that are particularly suited to such an ultimatum approach?

I don't think I'm enough of an expert in the technique to give that kind of guidance.

If somebody that was paying me asked that question, I'd try to figure out which of these "social cues" would work best for a sites demographic/customer base.

Then, define test cases. Think them through. Make them meaningful because if your site isn't VERY popular, you have to run these tests for a while to gather statistically meaningful data.

Then, TEST the heck out of these implementations. Use a service like BrowserShots. Make sure that whatever social mixins you've created work flawlessly. This will take more hardening than I'd usually do, past what I'd normally call "production ready." Remember, if there's a bug here, your site is just down for that user.

Finally, just test, test, test. And only trust the data.

Nice concept. If it doesn't work out maybe you should start a demo video service of some kind. Totally impressed that you could put that video together so quick, looks really nice.

Thank you. Fortunately, I really enjoy video production so it was a lot of fun to work on.

How much of the 72 hours was spent on the video? For someone like me without any animation/video editing experience, it would probably take up most of it.

If you really enjoy video production and the video was fun to work on - why not do that full-time. Or make a tool related to it.

totally agree, I was blown away by the video considering how much time went in the project.

For those of you interested, here are all of the tools and resources I used to produce the demo video.

Various stock illustrations, Keynote, GarageBand with a blanket over my head to reduce the echo, Screenr.com (free screencasting and they give you the raw mp4 at the end), iMovie (to import the mp4 and add the audio track), and VidYard (for video hosting and analytics)

I suggest checking out the Mixergy interview with Miguel Hernandez of Grumo Media. He has some great tips of how to make a good demo video. His website also has some great inspiration.

Direct link to the Mixergy interview: http://grumomedia.com/how-to-create-videos-that-get-you-cust...

Only a bit of a nudge here: viral marketing, in many many many cases is an accident. It is hard to plan, even harder to predict. We all wish for it but ...

It's great to have tools to help but tools by themselves will not make anything go viral. Most of the viral things people remember are viral because the content was great (or so stupid it was great;), not because of the tool that was used to share it. Yes, YouTube, as a tool, makes things easy to go "viral". But it was the video that made it worth sharing, not because it was on YouTube.

Also, as a marketing activity, going viral may not really be in your best interest. Viral marketing is a tactic/strategy that needs to fit your marketing plan. Just because you think you can go viral doesn't mean you should.

Lastly, the model expressed in the demo video implies sharing requires I share it before I get it... Why would I share something with my friends before seeing if what Bob has to offer is any good?

Nice concept - it looks pretty similar to Paywithatweet.com which (I've heard) does actually get people tweeting about the product.

The drawback with these sorts of concepts is that it means the product is shared before people actually use it, which makes the endorsement seem a bit forced. Having said that, people do use it to get access so maybe that doesn't put many people off.

The design looks great by the way, I didn't notice it was Bootstrap until jaryd mentioned it.

Thank you. The concept is similar. I did not like the fact that customers would have to authorize the app to post to their Twitter or Facebook accounts in order to post the status update. Instead, I just use the Like boxes from each of the networks. I look at it as a less-intrusive approach. And, if they decide the offer wasn't good enough or they didn't like it, they could remove the post. But I understand your point. I'm just as curious to see what the user behavior is.

This was my first project with Bootstrap and it did not disappoint.

Isn't it something like http://www.paywithatweet.com but also includes FB, Google+ and linkedin?

For those who are concerned about seeing the content first before sharing it, it can be a nice idea to use it with a free online version. E.g., few days back I downloaded pdf version of "Noobs guide to online marketing" (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-noob-guide-to-online-marketin... it asked me to pay with a tweet about the ebook.

Nicely executed, the video is well done. Will be interesting to see if real-life examples of viral content come out of this kid of model. IMHO, users need to choose to share content themselves in order to go viral : it's not the link-posting (which is the basis of all twitter spam) that produces the virality, but the passion and wording of the people describing the content AFTER they've seen it that gets their friends to check it out. Unrelated question : how does an article with 0 comments get to the top of HN ? :) Would love insight into the HN algorithm on this one.

Where did you get the video done? Especially in 72 hours!

Fortunately, this wasn't the first product demo I made :).

Check out the Mixergy interview with Miguel Hernandez of Grumo Media. He talks about some great tricks you can use to make simple product demo videos.

Basically, it's really good stock illustrations + some good Keynote work + a blanket over your head to cut out the echo as you record the voiceover on your computer. I actually really enjoy making them.

It's behind a paywall :(

Thanks for the heads-up though.

There's a full transcript a bit further down though, in case you missed it.

The full interview can be seen on the Grumo website too http://grumomedia.com/how-to-create-videos-that-get-you-cust...

Any good recommendations for stock art?

Most sites will have some good choices of illustrations. It doesn't have to be anything special. I really think you could get away with glorified stick figures and still make a great video.

The script and storyline is important. The big takeaway that I've gotten so far has been to make it "story-based". So instead of just a screencast saying "Crowd2 helps you create a marketing campaign to advertise your products", try, "Kevin is looking for ways to tell people about his new CD release..."

Brilliant. Very true. Thanks for framing it like this.

Thanks for mentioning my interview Frank! If you are in a tight budget going the Keynote route can be very effective as well. I think Frank did an excellent job given the time constraints. I also interviewed him about how he made the video at http://grumomedia.com/grumo-inspired-demo-video-by-crowdsqua...

That's a great looking product for such a short time. I really like the looks of the video, but for me it was a bit light on information. You are explaining how the viral effect works, but I also want to know how the campaign creator works. Will I get a code snippet I have to integrate into my page? Do I have to host anything myself? It looks like the only way to find out is to create a campaign.

Out of curiosity, did you create this in 72 hours straight, i.e. a long weekend, or stretched out over several evenings?

Thanks. I'll probably make some updates to the video and explain some things differently. I'm going to get somebody to do the voiceover next time, too. I think that will help with the quality.

Thursday early morning I started programming. Working prototype by Thursday afternoon. Spent then next couple days polishing it. Finished it Saturday night. Then I just spent Sunday doing design, copywriting, and video production.

I suggest that you mention that adding the campaign button to the page is only a matter of adding the generated HTML snippet, something like "it's as simple as embedding a YouTube video". Maybe you can also create a separate step-by-step video that shows the creation of a campaign and integration into e.g. a Wordpress post.

Great concept, nice delivery too! I hope this works out, if you have any case studies perhaps from your test clients, I'd love to read them and maybe show this to my marketing director.

Though I have one pause: "Viral". Has use of the word viral essentially trumped "social"? I don't mean to knock the work you've done here, because you've put work into it and I'd like to use it myself. I just want to know why the term viral has been slapped on your product, it's not viral because you say it is (http://johngushue.typepad.com/blog/2010/05/its-not-viral-jus...). Keep this motto in mind: "Under promise, over deliver". If someone signs up for this expecting instant viral success, and fails, that hurts your brand, no?

Good luck, I've bookmarked this :)

simple and cleanly executed, though I believe the G+ integration may be slightly buggy[0].

Also, the FAQ page has the sentence "Can I have use my Facebook fan page...". I am no native speaker but the have-use seems an error.

[0] on chrome 14, OSX10.6 I did +1, and saw a form blinking away, and the "+1" soes not seem reported in my G+ account

Ahh, thanks for both reports. The G+ button seemed to be the most finicky about how things worked. I'll get both of those items updated, though. Thanks again.

Nice use of Bootstrap. I'm using it right now on a project, with LESS and Batman.js. Loving it.

I love the idea. Just some thoughts. 1. What if the URL I want people to like is not Open Graph ready. Then what's shared looks ugly on the news feed. I know this is supposed to be my job to take care of, but when creating a campaign, there was no reminder about Open Graph and the possibility the story on the news feed will look ugly. 2. Folks could just email the link to their friends after they obtained it by liking the link. And, what's stopping them from quickly removing the like from their profile?

Nice accomplishment but I have to say that the idea of the product is off-putting. Still I guess it's up to people if they want to advertise this way.

I'm not convinced that this approach will always yield a higher viral coefficient than not forcing sharing in order to gain access. The interesting thing is you could actually run A/B tests on this.

I'm looking forward to running lots of different A/B tests. I can change the "Download for Free" button, change the copy on the Share popup, and change how people interact with the share buttons. I definitely want to make sure I optimize the site, not just for me, but for the people who are using it to distribute their content. The purpose is to get them a larger distribution network so I'll try any changes that accomplish that.

I like the name... Can you go into the details of how you came to it and the other alternatives?

The name was the result of a 5 hour long brainstorm with a friend. It was difficult to come up with one that somewhat made sense and was available. I have about 3 pages of scribbled out words and ideas. He proposed the original idea of "shared squared". All variances of that were taken, but I liked the concept of using "squared" and being able to draw a graph with "y = name^2" on it. Crowdsquared.com was available so I went with that.

Love the execution, but I'm also concerned about the share-first aspect. Maybe you could give content creators a way to let the audience preview the content before they share. Obviously this wouldn't apply to all content, but it might be a good feature.

The headline+video look great. I'm curious, though: why is the "Download for Free" button bigger and brighter than the "Create a Campaign" button (which is clearly more important)? And why does it say "Live Demo" if it's just a downloadable PDF?

simple. its not about letting people make a campain its about making crowd2 well known. so the download is more important than the campaign.

same reason it says live demo, as live demo would imply there's no download, aka no hassle. Aka a small marketing lie.

The "demo" is the process that you go through to get the PDF. Maybe I should make that more clear. It's just a sample of how the functionality would work on your site if you offered an ebook.

The size/styling of the "Download for Free" button is just something I didn't give much thought to. I used a button generator and that's what it output. Looking at it again, it could certainly be smaller. Especially when sitting so close to my main CTA of "Create a Campaign."

twitter bootstrap framework?

Indeed :) It's what made it all possible. I wouldn't have done it if I had to style all the forms and layouts from scratch.

That's awesome :) so cool that open source -design- benefits programmers too!

Nice work. Made good use of a useful framework.

This is pretty awesome, it's actually something I had an idea for a while back. My spin was a tad different.

If you are interested, I can email you my thoughts and you can decide to integrate them if you want.

Yes, absolutely. I'd be very interested in hearing about it. Hit me up and I can share my roadmap of some things I may add.

I don't think this is a viral tool. A viral marketing campaign is made of users sharing something because they think it is cool, not because they have to share the product to use it.

may i ask where do you get the resources like buttons/templates, which language framework tools do you use? what made you able to create such an app in such a short time? thanks

The template is the Bootstrap template from Twitter. I mentioned in another comment that I would not have even started this project if it weren't for that. It made development so much easier.

It's built in PHP using a custom framework that I've developed over the years for fast development.

I've seen similar product and heard that it was very successful - http://gorecommend.net/. Good luck.

Sounds similar to LaunchRock. How are you different?

Pre-Launch vs. Post-Launch

Looks great! One thing, Firefox 3.6 on Ubuntu 9.10 the "Download for Free" button has an outline, I presume that was not intended :)

Ah, yes. Cross-browser testing is one thing I was not able to do yet. If anybody is using IE, I apologize. Although the Bootstrap framework should do alright rendering in IE.

https://browserlab.adobe.com/en-us/index.html

to fix that just add to the img, style="border: 0pt none;"

rather than sharing, we've used customized check-ins: http://qrpon.linkstore.ru But yes, I also think "content" should be "visible" before sharing. That is why we go to "check-ins". It is simply more honestly - "I am here", nothing more

This looks great! I'm currently building my own side project and think I'll incorporate this into it.

Interesting service and a nice UI. I just gave it a shot. Interested to see how well it works!

Cool. May I know what framework / API you use for credit card payment ?

Stripe.

You might have done this with good intentions in mind, but I don't think this is a good idea. A pyramid scheme is NOT something positive. Only less than half the people that get informed about some product will actually have access to it if this method is used to pass the word. That's not a good strategy, and will push reasonable people off. You know, those who understand pyramid schemes. If I get informed about something that tells me that I have to share it with three more people (or accomplish any kind of assignment for that matter) in order to actually access it, I will immediately press ctrl+w and forever forget about it.

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Show HN: Crowd&sup2; - A viral marketing campaign creator I wrote in 72 hours

Show HN: Crowd² - A viral marketing campaign creator I wrote in 72 hours