HN Explorer

Ask HN: How would you promote/build an audience for a satire news website?

3 points by satire ↗ HN
Say you start a satire website, let's say The Onion doesn't exist yet and you're trying to start it today.

Assuming you're starting more or less from scratch, you have your website built and have accounts on Twitter/Facebook posting links.

Obviously "content is king", and focusing on writing great content is the most important thing (that would improve word of mouth/sharing in and of itself). What are other things you should be doing to promote/grow?

Posting articles to Reddit/other relevant forums? Paid advertising/adwords?

Have a startup-style launch? Press release?

Any suggestions would be most welcome.

4 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 18.5 ms ] thread
zander1229
Be topical so sharing is more likely.

Satire gets old really fast. Be funny and not snarky.

Do something other than write satire on a consistent basis like having a fake Q&A with a fictional character.

karolisd
Making good content is really difficult.

Are you funny enough to write for The Onion, McSweeney's, or a TV show? You can't growth hack a satire website without first being a first-class satirist.

thenomad
Although the only way to become that funny is to write satire - a lot.

So if you want to be a satirist - and bear in mind that there are easier ways to make a living - starting a satire website is a pretty good approach. Just make sure you stick to it.

thenomad
Become involved with the comedy community. There's a lot of up and coming comedians out there. There are podcasts, there are forums, there are big-name comedians who interact with smaller names on Twitter and so on regularly.

Create a lot of content. Almost always, particularly when you're entering a new field, creating a lot of content trumps trying to create perfect content.

Be topical. Very, very topical. If you post something moderately amusing about something that a lot of people are thinking about, you're more or less guaranteed to spread virally, at least a bit. The earlier you move on a subject, the better.

Have an opinion. From my observation, even more than most content-driven industries, comedy and satire thrive on people with strong opinions: from Marcus Brigstocke to Margaret Cho. Often, people will share your content as much because they agree with your point of view as because they think it's funny.

Do spend a lot of time self-promoting on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and whatever other social platform works for you. Find one that works, and push your presence there for all it's worth. Don't try to do all of them at once.

Stick to it. This isn't a "done in a month"-type project. You'll need to persist for a year at least, I'd guess, to get some decent traction.

I could continue (at some length - this is kind of What I Do), but I've got to get back to work :) Hope that helps!