Joshua Porter is offering a free chapter of his book, Designing for the Social Web. The book is geared towards web designers and developers, but this chapter has some great tips for what to put on your website or social network to entice visitors to sign up. Most importantly it shows you how to put yourself into the shoes of your visitors to understand what information they need in order to understand what your website is about and what they’ll get out of signing up. Next is understanding how the site works and how to sign up…. worth checking out.
Marketing
Need a Cheap Online Ad Management System?
If you offer advertising (or want to) on your business website or blogs, you may have been holding off because of the cost of using online ad management systems. Sure, there are “free” ad networks, but most of those don’t allow you full control over the ads that show up on your site. Google’s Ad Manager allows you to sell ads, but also to supplement those ads with ads from Google AdSense and other ad networks. TechCrunch has more information: Google Will Now Manage Your Website’s Ads, as well as Ad Operations Online: Google Ad Manager out of Beta; All AdSense Publishers Can Use It.
To PR or not to PR
There has been quite a lot of press lately about whether or not you need a PR firm for your business. At the top of the current buzz is a blog post Jason Calcanis, CEO of Mahaolo, wrote: Jason Calcanis On How To Get PR For Your Startup: Fire Your PR Company. An excerpt:
My philosophy of PR is summed up in six words: be amazing, be everywhere, be real.
You don’t need a PR firm, you don’t need an in-house PR person and you don’t need to spend ANY money to get amazing PR. You don’t need to be connected, and you don’t need to be a “name brand.” Silicon Alley Insider – Jason Calcanis On How To Get PR For Your Startup: Fire Your PR Company
Obviously this post has caused a bit of a storm of PR and marketing folks looking for blood. But the fact is that most small businesses (tech startups or otherwise) don’t have the budget for an expensive PR firm. Jason has some great tips that businesses of any size can put to use – whether or not you use a PR firm. An overview of the ten tips:
- Be the brand
- Be everywhere
- Always pick up the check — always
- Be a human being
- How to bond with a journalist
- How a CEO should e-mail a journalist
- How a CEO should speak to a journalist
- Invite people to “swing by” your office
- Attach your brand to a movement
- Embrace small media outlets
Do you have your own tips for PR? Please share in the comments….