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A Suggestion for Startups: PRESS/BLOGGER KIT

Here’s a suggestion for startups, based on two months of writing reviews. Provide a “Press Kit” for bloggers, MSM, whoever. In it include:

1. A succinct description of each section/function of your site/application in a clearly organized, bulleted form, with links.
2. Clearly link to the press/blogger kit from your front page.
3. A blog post sized version of your logo (200px wide max) in a transparent PNG format. You have no idea how much photoshopping this would save bloggers…
4. Screenshots of core functionality and actual usage of the site/app.

This list is intended to provide a starting point for reviewers in exploring your site. There’s few things I find as frustrating as spending a bunch of time trying to figure out what a given site offers or what the key points of its value proposition are; just tell me up front what you (as the builder of the site) intend audiences to be looking at.

I’d like to reinforce the “starting point” element of this: however much of the site you describe in the above format, its a good reviewer’s mandate to go beyond your bullet list and plumb the depths of your site - providing a list just helps the reviewer get through the core stuff so they can focus on digging and providing insight. As a reviewer, I’ll start with what you tell me I should see, and report on what I actually see.

Similarly, a good review will involve taking screenshots as the writer actually uses your site/app. The “canned” screenshots in your Press Kit provide guidance, however, and let you display your achievement how you hope it will come across.

Final Notes:

1. In an ideal world, a well-designed site shouldn’t need a bulleted list; hopefully the contents of your site present themselves well enough that the can be parsed out without spoon-feeding bloggers. If you’re in alpha or beta, however, your presentation may not be as refined as it might be. Writing the list may help crystalize your design as well. Even if your past beta, you may have non-obvious (for whatever reason) functionality that you want to highlight.
2. A Press-Kit is subtly different than what you may have there for users - i.e.: welcome pages, demo videos, etc. A critical blogger writing a review is a fundamentally different audience than the general public: speak to each audience in their language and tell them your story contextually.
3. This shouldn’t be a big deal to put together. One page, a few paragraphs of copy, a few graphics and screenshots. Done.

reviewing, reviews, startups, suggestions writing

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Engagement - 4 tips for Startups & Established players: using digg, del.icio.us, technorati, and google to build your community

Companies on the web (speaking in terms of 2.0 startups here) can be sorted into two categories - those that actively engage their communities, and those that don’t.

I base that on my first 2 month’s experience blogging here. Some reviews have been actively commented on over time by the company reviewed - take a look at the Collanos post, for instance: the Collanos folks are all over it with opinions, other ways of looking at things, feature updates, and so on. Same thing with Teqlo - lots of conversation flowed from that post.

Most reviews, however, haven’t gotten any attention from the firm in question. SuTree? TxtVox? Meshly? Hellooooo…?

There’s a number of ways that engaging Bloggers with comments or trackbacks is valuable for web companies (or any, for that matter) new or old:

1. Establishing a relationship often turns critics into advocates.
2. Share your side of the story: supplement, complement, and correct.
3. Gather feedback.
4. Gain eyeballs - posts with good discussion get more readers.
5. Build brand equity - your company looks better if its approachable and engaged.

Anyway, the benefits of Naked Conversations have been endlessly hashed out elsewhere.

So - how to go about realizing these benefits? Doing so does not have to be arduous or time consuming, nor do you necessarily need to rush out and hire a community manager. There’s 4 simple, fast ways to identify, track, and stay on top of conversations about your company:

1. Technorati: Subscribe to your tag. Enter this in your browser: http://technorati.com/posts/tag/YourCompanyNameHere. For example, here’s the Collanos page. Then, subscribe to it (there’s a nice RSS link right there). Now, you’re instantly updated in your feed reader whenever someone out there properly tags a post about you. For thoroughness, be sure to subscribe to feeds for all variations and misspellings of your name.
2. Google: bookmark searches for all common variations of your company’s name, as well as things like “YouCompanyName Review.” Try searching for “SuTree Review,” for instance. My SuTree post is on the first page.
3. Did you know you can subscribe to Digg search results? Well, you can. And you should. Digg weilds undue influence - you should be commenting on posts about your company, and ready to throw out a “Welcome Diggers!” message onto your site if a post goes front page (you should have a page ready to go, designed to convert notoriously shallow-browsing digg readers into members). Here’s the digg search for SuTree - the subscribe icon is innocuous, but there.
4. Del.icio.us: You should be following what’s getting bookmarked about you - your company, reviews, and so on. Read the user notes - those capsule summaries provide a good window into how your brand is perceived online. Finding yourself on del.icio.us can be cumbersome, as del.icio.us uses their own id strings for URLs. Here’s SuTree for example: http://del.icio.us/url/76ff772c19d0c546a3b70fc4e24b6080. Click that link though, and you’ll see a URL search box: enter yours there. And, if you scan all the way to the bottom, there’s an RSS feed for it too.

So there you go: adding RSS feeds to your reader from Technorati, Del.icio.us, and Digg, and bookmarking a few Google searches will keep you generally up to speed with what’s being said about your company. Following those feeds is a matter of minutes in your feed reader. Now, the onus is on you to act on that: get out there and comment - engage your community and enjoy the rewards.

EDIT: Guy Kawasaki posted an article today about DIY PR by Glen Kelmann. The 4 tips above would be good tools for someone going the DIY and engaging customers and stakeholders directly.

blogging, community, delicious, digg, feeds, google, howto, reputation, rss, startups, technorati tips

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Hey Pete: What happened to Noodly?

Just a quick curiosity post for Pete Cashmore at Mashable: what ever happened to Noodly? It quietly ceased to exist, and the domain just redirects to Mashable now. What was it? Why did you wrap it up? Just curious to hear the story!

cashmore, mashable, noodly startups

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