Ask HN: How do I market this thing? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do I market this thing?

9 pointsfreeslave8 comments

So I built a music video site called ChartBRAIN (http://chartbrain.com). It's at the point where I think it's ready to try and get some users, but I have to admit I'm a better coder than marketer. So I'm wondering if the HN community can offer me some ideas to get some users and traction. I'd maybe even consider partnering up with someone with a proven record in driving traffic if they liked what I've built and felt it had some potential. I think a lot of people think music videos are old news but Cull.tv just got bought by twitvid and tape.tv just raised 6.5 million.

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I'd maybe even consider partnering up with someone with a proven record in driving traffic

Anyone fitting this description would be more of the mind "I might even consider partnering up with you." The world is sort of your oyster right now if you can do that. If you ask the kind of person you need what their next best alternative is, you will not hear "I got offered 5% equity and all the cola I can drink from an unfunded startup and am pretty darn tempted by that."

The traditional way to get traction for music sites and video sites is to turn a blind eye to folks stealing things that the established players can't turn a blind eye to. This lets you perform, essentially, visibility/legal-risk arbitrage. That's the on-the-ground reality, I personally wouldn't endorse acting on it.

You then use your early adopters to promote it to their friends, focusing feature development resources on implementing and optimizing things about the site which encourage social spreading rather than ones which merely encourage passive consumption.

Good advice, Patrick I appreciate it! I should clarify some things, I guess. Fortunately, I'm adhering to all the YouTube api terms etc., so there are no legal issues (yet!). I suppose it's possible some entity like Billboard might take issue with using their name and/or logo to promote the site.

When I am talking about partnering, I know building a site is only part of the battle, so in terms of equity it would be much more substantial than 5%.

I guess maybe a better question then, is how to get those early adopters?

I'm someone with a track record of driving traffic and my company was acquired about a year ago. Totally different industry...but here are a few thoughts that might help you.

Interactivity - Right now the site is fairly passive. I think you would produce more engagement with the site if you allowed users to interact with the site. Maybe something like the ability to guess the next song in a quiz type fashion. Then, they get a score they can share across social networks. Or, some kind of voting mechanism that tracks your viewers opinion of the song/video.

Personalization - You will have a much greater chance of someone sharing your content across social networks if they can personalize the content and make it say something about themselves. You could think about giving the ability to the users to drag and drop the videos so that it changes the order in which they are played. Then, they might be able to share it in their social circle and say this is the order they think the songs should fall.

I realize these are feature suggestions that might take a significant amount of time, but building in features that drive the marketing is a great way to grow. Overall you did a great job on the site and good luck!

Write a pitch and send it to techcrunch or mashable or any other site like that. Look for key editors on twitter and tell them about your site in less than 140 characters.

Give a reason on why people should follow you on twitter and facebook. For instance "Vote for your favorite video on our facebook page" or something like that.

Try facebook ads for a while if you have good organic numbers on your google analytics for instance a bounce rate less than 40%

Get it SEO friendly and try the basics with google webmaster tools

Work hard and be nice to people!

Hey no real advice marketing wise, but one in the front of ux, please consider consider adding some sort of video lightbox effect on the videos (for example here: http://chartbrain.com/chart/videos/hot).

For me it was a big turn of in this kind of site at least to have to go to a new page to see the video, I wanted to sort of go quickly through many of them...

Otherwise, I kind of liked the site, not sure if I would personally use it but it seems ok...

I have the impression you did it the wrong way. It is very difficult to create a product and push it somehow into the throat of people. It's much easier to other way round. Find what people want and then build the business.

Cull.tv had probably good arguments, but I don't think raising money is a proof of sound business in these days. BTW, I hope they are not your competitors.

Edit: I wanted to suggest to contact patio11, but I see he just answered.

Well I agree to some extent, but I think the success of other video sites is proof that there is a market for a music video site with added value. I did build chartbrain.com to scratch an itch, but I do think it is a great way to enjoy music videos and stay on top of the charts.

What is your business model ?

I'm not sure I understood what you do. What I know is that people like to be part of the show or feel like so. Add a like button and give feedback on the number of time a music is played. Open it to submission.

Create a tribe of people listening to music videos and the cosy feeling to be part of this tribe. Add a live chat for instance or commenting on songs. Make your place different of all the others. Look for animators like a chat DJ.

You could leverage on musician desperately trying to find an audiance.

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