Ask HN: How do you get tech bloggers to review a startup?
For the past few weeks I tried to get bloggers to review my startup http://www.s3mer.com with no success. Is there something I can do to improve my odds?
Thanks for the advice!
Thanks for the advice!
Everytime geeks hear the word phone, they revert to sending a shy email instead. If really you can't be bothered to pick up a phone, then maybe paying thousands of dollars to have a PR agent do it for you makes sense. Just think of much you are paying for phone calls...
Shoot high and have a human angle, a story, some kind of connection (I do get Guy Kawasaki to reply to my emails, but that took 6 months).
Bottom line: if you haven't done any of the ground work and you need your news to come out today, you're out of luck. But if you have two months, plan ahead and establish those contacts starting TODAY.
Hope this helps.
While press releases are not the only service PR companies offer they are a good part of it. Many PR companies offer additional services such as website review (functionality & design), copy editing for your website, media training, and help with your overall marketing efforts.
As I said before costs can range from a few hundred to several thousand, but most PR companies will want you to engage them with a monthly retainer. The retainers for reputable firms can run from $10-20K a month.
For startups I would highly recommend against engaging a PR company. Everything you will need as a startup you can do yourself or by hiring a college student to handle for you. Your main concerns in a startup environment typically will be to make sure your website makes sense and is clear, building connections with bloggers who have an interest in your space, and utilizing those connections to get the word out. The wire services are a waste of time really. Your story is not going to make it in the NY Times are Washington Post by releasing a press release on the wires.
Pricing varies and sometimes they charge retainers and other times they charge hourly fees. It can be a big expenditure for a startup, but PR companies often have relationships with reporters that can help get your name out there.
With this kind of service, the agency will define your target media and create a media list, create messaging and operational strategy, call reporters and pitch stories about you, and report to you on the stories that are placed about you.
You might also get services like media training for interviews, ghost-writing of articles to place in magazines, research on competitors media placements, and maybe even something like a PR emergency plan if you are a large business or in a business with high media risk.
My former colleague Marshall Kirkpatrick put up a post last April about the wrong ways to pitch ReadWriteWeb: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/pitching_rww.php -- #2 is via phone (though Marshall didn't mind it as much, Sarah, Richard, and I all preferred pitches by email).
In July I wrote a post the original poster (or anyone else) might find helpful about how to pitch a blogger: http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/07/12/how-to-pitch-a-blo...
I was mostly writing about how to pitch me, but I think the advice might be helpful when figuring out the best way to pitch any blogger.
The short version: 1. Don’t Cold Call — Email First 2. Engage Us In Our Natural Habitat 3. Personalize Your Communications 4. Offer An Exclusive 5. Pitch An Angle 6. Be Flexible 7. Give Adequate Lead Time
On my quick scan of the site, when I read "dynamic digital signage solution" it never even occurred to me that it wasn't talking about PGP document and email signing.
I highly recommend reading: http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/?p=198
Peldi's advice and the links he give are dead on. I pitched bloggers before reading this and got a zero response rate.
Then I adjusted tactics. I added a phone number to my website and a mediakit. Some of the articles Peldi links to talk about having a media kit.
I also added the ability to give out codes for people to try the service for free. This is important as it takes replying to me out of the equation. The blogger can try things out (if they choose) at their leisure. The code also makes it easy to tell who is looking.
I started looking for bloggers via Google Alerts, Technorati, etc.). I then sent tailored messages to a few and included the "try it" code. I also tried to say something to show my site added to the dialog of something they already wrote.
Overall I kept my pitch short (unlike this reply :))
I mentioned nothing about writing a review or any such thing. I merely asked for their opinion. Some folks reviewed my service, others sent me their opinion. Still, I had responses :)
My mediakit is at: http://www.feedbackarmy.com/about.slp
And my welcome page for people with a code is: http://www.feedbackarmy.com/tryit.slp?code=theircodehere
Good luck!
I suggest you change your homepage to be a lot more like the tour page.
What s3mer is? --------------- s3mer is a piece of software that helps people and businesses create and maintain digital signs using flat screens, computer monitors, TVs, projectors or even giant digital billboards as a display surface. Digital signs can display still images, animations, video and even live data from the web like weather, stocks, sports and even twitter activity.
With s3mer you can build a custom in-store TV network just like Walmart TV. s3mer was designed with small businesses in mind. Its affordable, easy to use and powerful. Business owners can sign up for a s3mer account and in a matter of minutes start displaying their own digital sign.
For the technical folks: ------------------------- The s3mer system has 2 components: Admin website and Player application. The player application is built on Adobe AIR technology so it works offline after it has downloaded the media files from our servers. The player app is remote controlled from the website and you can manage as many Players as you like.
Thanks for the tips I will make sure they get implemented.
This takes weeks or months, not days.
Start by commenting as much as you can. It's best to be one of the very first commenters and make thoughtful comments. Always make sure to link to a page that might be most helpful to the people who visit your site.
After you've spent some time being a contributor to the site, it's time to concentrate on getting attention from a writer/editor/blogger. Target one of the writers and provide some information that might be helpful to him/her but not about your product/service. Example: "I saw this new feature running on gmail" etc. Also, you might want to target a less prominent writer at the publication. Mike Arrington is swamped with stuff but Serkan Toto probably has less in his inbox.
If you still have trouble getting to them, follow them on twitter and figure out when they're in front of the computers. Sometimes it's easiest to reach busy people late at night or early in the morning.
Finally when you 'pitch' your product, make it one paragraph description.
Also potentially offer to demo your software to them in person at their office or near their home, etc. Make it stupid simple.
Good luck.
And if you contact them use some to explain what the startup does, why and how are you etc.
(btw. ArcticStartup covers Scandinavia/Baltic startups so we in the local category)
Overall I agree with what Mystalic wrote but wanted to add a couple of things - note my disclaimer, I write for ReadWriteWeb.
Make sure your product is relevant to to the sites audience - this is soooo important. Take a look at this post Richard wrote some time ago - it's worth a read - http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_not_to_pitch_a_blog...
Also, if you do want to target bloggers - make it easy for them to write about you. For instance - make sure the site covers all the things we'll want to know - the basics - who, what, where, when, why and how - you'd be surprised how many people forget that blogs have made it super important to write stuff up quickly; if we have to spend an hour just working out what your product is about, chances are we won't bother.
Sorry that sounds harsh, but it is the reality.
Hope this helps a bit and good luck!
I used to be dead-set against that advice, but good PR folks act as a quality filter to many of the big-name tech bloggers.
Show it to people they trust, who are easier to access. The reason is: startup bloggers get flooded with nearly-identical requests. They are more likely to pay attention to you if you first pass the screening test of a trusted friend of theirs. If your startup is interesting, a recommendation from the friend will be passed along.
Read the book "Made to Stick" and ask yourself how sticky your story is (you don't HAVE a story-- that's the problem).
Look at Balsamiq-- that guy had a STORY that people wanted to read, so people wrote about him.
Nobody wants to read about a product with no angle. What's your twist? How are you surprising? What you can say about your product that blows people away? Have you changed someone's life? How are you going to effect the reader of this story?
Clarity (and speed) of the site is a problem, but I think your bigger problem (from a PR perspective) is that you just aren't telling an interesting story.
* very slow to load
* Awesome logo - did you make it?
* I don't know what it is. "s3mer is a complete dynamic digital signage solution designed to be easy to use, cross platform and feature rich."
Does this mean digital code signing or advertising signs? The image with the reflection doesn't indidcate what it is.
* your sign up form is too long. Which fields are required?
* there isn't an "other" field for the industry.
* Why is there a captcha?
++++ for not having email verification
I stopped here because I still have no idea what it does.
People without offline advertising experience don't know the phrase "digital signage". If you're lucky they will leave through the Wikipedia link and learn the term, but that page only tells them "Ah, this is something I don't care about" so they won't return.
People with offline advertising experience won't learn about s3mer from your homepage. It doesn't explain why s3mer is better than other products. The only information is a few bullet points about video encoding, and that's selling features instead of benefits.
I throw all the press releases away. I care a lot more about a good two sentence pitch.
Butt really, you need to email them that quick pitch to the appropriate email, or get in contact with the right people. It's about connections and promoting a solid product.
Maro's right, though - I'm still not sure what it's all about. Your description's bad.
*Disclaimer: I write for Mashable
Do you ever blog about startups/sites/apps based on recommendations from your friends? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=462326
You still have to have a compelling product or pitch in the end, though. No way around that.
The bottom line is that you really need to understand your opportunity so well that you can reduce to 8 words and still have people understand what you are trying to accomplish. It really makes you focus. Save all the flowery language for when you have investors attention and can afford to use more words.
* Slow load time (I'm located in Europe)
* It's not clear what your startup does. At first, I thought it would be something using Amazon S3 because of the name "s3mer". The "What is s3mer?" section is also very unclear to me.
* Why the Adobe Air, Mac, Windows XP and Windows Vista logos? If it runs on Air wouldn't it also run on Linux?
* The "Change Language" overlay is blinking when the site is loading and displayed by default (WebKit nightly ;-))
People usually understand things better with examples, so I would try and get some images of it in action (on an actual screen, in an actual public place) on the front page.
Kudos to Harkins point - the front page should show benefits rather than features, and be targeted to a specific audience.
You are right we need pictures. We are getting some great photos from client installations.
And again, the video is too small, and it all takes too long to load.
(I used to work in the industry and sold a few of my own solutions)
Being famous/well-known is another. (Sounds tough, but you can really reach people by teaching.)
Before you redesign your front page which -- I agree with everyone else -- is confusing, you have to get clear on why YOUR service is so special that journalists would love to write about it. If it isn't, you have to make it so.
Remember that "the media" isn't there to be a mouthpiece for your product, but they are always hunting for interesting stories because that's their job.
My app launch got covered on RWR and LifeHacker the next day (not to brag, this was unintentional). Apparently they follow what I launch because of personal projects I've done before that captured a lot of interest (http://www.twistori.com).
Since then I've also been interviewed for WebWorkerDaily and th Startup Podcast. Those came from the interestingness of our approach with the product, and respect for one of our marketing efforts (http://jumpstartcc.com/), respectively.
I deserve the down mod.