When you launch a new product you want to get as much coverage as possible in all news streams. I am about to launch a new product for where I work, and here is how I am going to use social networking to help me launch that product.

Caveat and Warning: All these steps might not make sense for you to do, but in general, the steps below might just help you out.

The first step – make a pile of media, this means a slide presentation that I will put on Slide Share, I will make a quick video to go over the program and what it can do for people, how it answers and solves problems. I will make a podcast from the sound track from the video and post that publicly as well. I will also make a slide cast via slide share as an extra embeddable way of getting information out.

The second step – I updated all my Linkedin, Facebook, and other accounts to make sure that they would at some point integrate with the materials I will make in step one. Linkedin ties to slide share, Facebook ties into where I will post the movie. FriendFeed ties into everything get as much of my media out into the real world and open everything up for discussion.

The third step – I will blog about this and embed the media that I built in step one. I will also ask for people to interview me, give them access to the media built in step one, or let them create their own media from their own sources, interviews, and other ways of getting the word out. I will do this nationally and based on my circle of information security friends and industry leaders. They have to come to their own conclusions about the program; they are also free to be negative about it.

The forth step – I won’t worry about step three if they are negative about it, one of the things I have learned from selling on Amazon is that I sell more books with a 97% feedback rating than I do with a 100% feedback rating. If there is controversy, I will get more hits, the program will get more attention, and it might just end up going viral or be part of the “meme of the day” process.

The fifth step – go out and meet with people, I have to meet, talk, demonstrate, and discuss the viability of my new product. I’ll talk to anyone who wants to talk to me about it, the more people who are talking about my product, the better, and I need to keep the momentum up. I do not want the CUIL growth curve; I want a continuous growth curve in people talking. Refer to steps three and four, these are cyclic, and need to be repeated often.

Step Six – this is the interesting one, then use, and only after the social networking channels have run their course, do a traditional press release. Here is why, if people are blogging, talking, sharing, mixing and reusing content they are going to say something about it. If I can get direct permission to quote them (of course I am only going to go for the positive quotes here by the way) and they let me put this into the traditional press release, then they get a link, I get a quote, and the program starts a new round of conversation. Social Media does use press releases as a base of information at times, by incorporating new and traditional media at this point, I get to either restart the controversy, or be able to leverage the comments from my industries thought leaders. I will want their permission though, so that they know this is coming. They are free to say no, and if they do say no, I won’t use them. There has to be a level of trust here.

Step Seven – Wash – Rinse – Reuse – keep the conversations going on the program. Keep talking to people, keep doing interviews, keep doing all steps one through six to keep the interest level up. This means updates, this means more media gets built, this means more bloggers doing coverage, this means asking my friends to do interviews, this means keeping a level of awareness up enough that it floats above the noise. This does not mean I should abuse social media, it means that I ask my friends for a favor, one that I will repay when they launch their own product or service.

While this might not work for everyone, if you follow your industry close enough, you should know enough people, and genuinely know them enough that they will be willing to talk about what you are doing. This might cost you a few cups of coffee on a Friday night, but in the longer run, by asking your internet friends for a favor, one you are willing to pay back at a future date, the odds are better in your favor that you will get the social media coverage that you are looking for, along with the traditional press release information that you are going to post out into the media channels.

I’ll follow up on this in a month to let you know how this went with the plan.

Tags: social media, new product launch, steps, social networking, Linkedin, Facebook, people, news, pr, public relations

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