Where and how to announce the launch of a website?

Press releases and public announcements on these aggregator websites really aren't good. You need to find some more creative way to generate publicity for your launch. Since you're working on a marketplace, what is some high-profile good or service you could offer that would draw people in? Were you to release next week, a couple hundred copies of Halo 3 might just do the trick (though at $60 a pop that could get expensive). There are too many online social sites for a simple announcement that it's up and running to draw in participants.

On Facebook.

Send a link to the uncov guys.

Any publicity is good publicity, right? But seriously, a social network... for selling things to each other? They're going to tear you apart.

Your blog is very optimistic. You'll need that:)

This is an interesting topic. I'm always trying to learn more about what other people do for publicity. I get really tired of all the bs stories with the founders who claim that they just told some friends and then woke up with ten million users the next day.

If you seriously want to launch this service you'll need to be ruthless about who you target. You're not going to get anywhere by playing nice and focusing on a handful of sites.

Target everyone and anyone. Then go back and do it again. Marketers typically try to make 3 impressions on a person for any given product or service.

And as others are mentioning press releases are pretty ineffective. I find it's always best to write a personalized email even if you're just changing some boiler-plate text. Personalized emails create a sense of obligation to respond.

http://www.buzzshout.com/ http://www.launchfeed.com/ Social networks on Ning with collaborative blogs - write posts Google Ad-words Put a link in your email footers Make some good comments on Techcrunch with a link to your site

Get a friend of yours to try it out and then link to it on Digg. Careful about self promotion tho!

"My friends and I"

Best foot forward, you know.

I'd suggest you go focused rather than shotgun. Who are your target customers? What other sites are they using? Are you a cross between eBay and Facebook? Who are the biggest bloggers out there on those topics? Target those people, like a laser beam, you should be able to guarantee coverage on launch day.

Plus, you should be able to generate some hype beforehand. Start targetting these sites now. Tell them the launch is coming. Build the relationship. Make sure the authors know who you are and that you're coming.

Oh, and in 4-6 weeks means nothing, pick a date. Pick a date in 8 weeks so you can be sure you hit it, but a date, an actual date, a timeframe is always meaningless.

So you've targetted the top bloggers in the field, now offer them something. Tell them you're coming, then offer the top blogger a 4 hour exclusive if they'll guarantee coverage. Offer them all a sneak preview. Delay your launch by 3 days and run 3 days of "private, invite only beta testing". Tell all the bloggers you're targetting that they can invite people, on their blogs.

The people you're targetting (bloggers, not customers) have to feel like they're getting something real, something that's a scoop, not some generic, third hand, run of the mill announcement.

Second, target forums / user groups / fan sites / etc. Anything in the eBay / MySpace / Facebook / etc space, if there's a forum out there, find their news section, add them to your list above. Then get an account on the forum and start talking (try to keep it relevant, spam never helped anyone).

Scrap the "Coming soon" on your site and start a big, fat counter. LAUNCHING IN 45/44/43 DAYS, etc.

Generate some hype, get people excited, this thing is going to happen, it's going to be huge, and you want to get into it right now.

Most of all, good luck!

I've found the best thing to do it Press Release.

Why? 1. It's syndicated across hundreds of websites including forbes.com and yahoo news. 2. People read them constantly to find what's new 3. Writers read them to get new stories 4. People in your industry read them to bring new apps to the limelight with their small audience

and all other forms of promotion should compete with the press release, not supplement it.

Thank you so much everybody for taking time and replying to my questions.

To make things clear, yes we are building onista as amalgam of eBay, LendingTree, Priceline and LinkedIn. We are basically trying to close the gap between social network and a marketplace. We are also not as boring as auction or reverse auction.

It is a general marketplace and not specific to any niche.

The key take away from everybody's reply is

1. Pick a date. Sure We are confident that we will launch on November 1st 2007. (139 more bugs to fix) 2. Put a day counter on front page 3. Contact Bloggers that cover social networks and marketplaces and Web 2.0 in general. (Wish I knew where to find these bloggers) 4. Post on http://www.buzzshout.com/ & http://www.launchfeed.com/ 5. Post comments on TechCrunch with a link back to our site 6. Write a personalized emails 7. Though generating lot of pre-launch hype sounds very attractive idea it may not always work. as "ed" mention in the post, "I've never, ever ever ever, seen this work out in a positive way. Once the floodgates open, users are almost invariably disappointed by what's available. The result is that you lose the (critical) attention of early adopters". 8. Use SEO press release from PRWEB.COM for $200. (Any suggestions on services that can help us write a press release? I've never written one and certainly writing is not one of my great skills. Except javascript/css and html) 9. Send a link to the uncov guys. Loved this idea. Would be interesting to read how they will tear us apart.

Now I will post specific replies to each post here.