TechWag

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I keep on saying now is the best time to start a startup and take control of your own creativity, I believe in what I am saying so much that I am doing my own startup even if comic books are not sexy. Here are some of the things I have done to encourage social networking as a way to get attention for my startup, plus some bonus tips along the way.

Step One: The first thing you need to do is get started, what are you building, why are you building it, what niche does it fill in. Once you have the mechanics of the business down, and you know what you are doing, you are enthused and passionate about what you are doing, and you want to go to work every day, this is the best start you can have.

Corollary to step one: There are tons of people who will tell you not to do this, they are doom sayers, if you really have a niche, if you really have the brilliant idea, go to it, there are many people worldwide who will support you. If you are strapped for programmers, consider doing this as an open source project (eventually you can do a premium service for money as well). Nathan has a great post right here you want to read on this subject.

Step Two: Start a blog – I know everyone has a blog, how do I differentiate myself from the noise, I have to update it daily, I don’t know how to do this, ect. Sure there are tons of reasons not to do this, most are some form of “I don’t want to spend the effort” or a fear response. You are a startup, we want to know more about you, we need something to link to, you get Google page rank the more you get linked. You should be well over the fear idea holding you back, go do it. This might take about 15 minutes to set up word press, find a premade cool skin in your companies colors, slap your logo on it and give us a weekly update on what you are doing. Alpha version, cool, beta version, cool, call for open beta testing, excellent, go live RTM Gold Disk, even better. This gives us and your readers a way to follow how your company is doing, you will also provide inadvertently provide startup lessons for everyone along the way. Even if your startup fails, you might end up like Andy Sack, widely respected and followed because of his blog.

Step Three: Twitter – oh yes you do want to do this (even if you think it is silly, microblogging eh), tie your blog into twitter, easy to do with Word Press, and just about every other blogging platform out there. Tweet stuff, tell us how it is going, got a tough programming issues, tweet it, got a meeting with VC’s, tweet it, anything? Tweet it, 140 characters is not enough time to talk about everything, but why the heck not let us know how it is going.

Step Four: Start a Facebook page for your company, also do this on Linked In, make friends, tie rule five into your Facebook account. Friend as many people as you can, or at least those that look like legitimate people who honestly wish you well. Tie your Facebook page into your FriendFeed page (next step)

Step Five: Start a FriendFeed Account, tie your blog, twitter, and other media (if you make a great video of your product and put it on YouTube, if you podcast, anything that is your own companies channel) so that there is a one stop shop for everything you are doing. Link heavily to your FriendFeed account; use a widget to tie your FriendFeed account back to your blog.

Step Six: Start a social median account and send all your FriendFeed traffic to that account, this way there is just one feed, and social median is a great way to get noticed. There are other systems just like Social Median out there, and you should explore them all, make as many accounts across the social network, this all ends up being Google page rank support later on. You do need to keep up with this though, the more social obligations you take on, the more people expect you to keep up with them.

Step Seven: Find industry thought leaders, whatever your startup is about; there is a thought leader in the process. Technology, Robert Scoble, Louis Gray on the internet side, if you are local to Seattle John Cook and Todd Bishop at Techflash, Me (I’ll blog about any local company), NPost, and a ton of other outlets, including the Seattle PI and Brier Dudley over at the Seattle Times. Don’t just send them a PR sheet, court them, talk to them, offer them coffee, come down for a visit. Make a personal connection, and then let us write about you. This means there are at least seven people who will talk about you and link to you right off the bat.

Step Eight: Keep the conversation going, all of us are busy people, we will forget about you in the fog of shiny shiny, let us know how things are going from time to time. Send us a personal note, let us know directly that something big is coming, another guided tour, another cup of coffee, a demo, awesome.

Step Nine: Go to conventions, if you can make it, save money and go to startup conventions like Techcruch and others. Get a booth, smooze, see what others are doing, allow yourself to be interviewed by everyone, this will require more coffee, and in some cases a beer or two. Have plenty of business cards, have a huge sense of humor, but go do this.

Step Ten: Go to every single local meeting for startups and make friends. MIT Venture Lab, meetings at colleges, small halls, Seattle Tech Startup list, and get involved in the conversation. If something grabs your interest, blog about it, tweet about it, keep the connection going. Then revert back to rule two and keep this whole process flowing. It is not so much that your idea is brilliant it is that you need to communicate how brilliant your idea is.

The whole idea behind social networking is to let people know what is going on, and get other people to be as passionate about your product or service as you are. This is your baby, but if bloggers, reporters, and others do not know you exist, then we cannot help you. Who knows, you might end up being the next big splash in social networking, listened to, and have a startup that is doing well all at the same time. You just have to make the first steps here, you already did step one, go do the rest of them. This matters.

Tags: startup, social, networking, tips, support, ideas, rules, 10 step program, reporter, blogger, journalist