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.