What Would a Pinko Do: When you're product isn't amazing

[Eric Skiff]

Hello everyone, I've got a question I'd like to pick your brains about, and maybe this can be come a bit of a Q and A series here and on the wiki,

What Would a Pinko Do?

In the perfect pinko world, you've got a product that is good. Really good. You join a few communities related to your product, and mention your stuff here and there. People get excited, and start to talk.

At a certain point, the conversation starts to take on a life of it's own, and you do your best to get out of the way, and then listen and interact with the community.

Here's the question: What do you do when your product is good... but not "tell all  your friends" good?

For example: Right now, I'm running "The Alternative Music Show" with my wife. It's pretty good... But people don't really know about it. It's also in a tall section of the long tail, so finding the "communities" around the topic has proved very difficult.

My impulse is to start doing some "blast out" messages... Using some very un-pinko methods. I'm handing out flyers in NYC, hanging signs where I can, just generally trying to catch eyeballs.

The show is good, but it's not neccessarily going to grow a community on it's own. There's lots of podcasts.

There's a million companies in situations like this. Take Creative as an example. They've got good products, but, compared to the momentum and 'cool factor' of the iPod their offerings aren't great.

My inner marketer screams with older ideas like viral(bleagh)-marketing, traditional and new-media ads, etc.

So the question is - What would a Pinko do.

(general theories are welcome, of course, but I'd also love some ideas on how to help foster a community around The Alternative Music Show.)

Thanks!
-Eric Skiff
--
http://feltuptv.com - Puppet Sketch Comedy!
http://alternativemusic.thepodcastnetwork.com - The Alternative Music Show

[Tara Hunt]

Interesting.

Why isn't your product 'tell your friends' good? That's where I would start.

On the other hand, at Mesh, someone asked about Jam. Jam isn't usually something to write home about (although I've had some amazing jam, I probably wouldn't create a community around it - maybe there are jam fiends out there...I dunno). I couldn't give anyone an answer about Jam. Or the like.

Some products are innocuous...boring even. No matter how remarkable jam or other boring products are, will they build a community? I think there are two important things to consider here:

1. Jam and other products like jam don't necessarily need a community. There are other Pinko ways to approach this.

2. For every product/service this approach will be unique.

Jam...let's see. What do you do with jam? You eat it on bread. Sometimes with peanut butter. Some people cook with it. Some people love to make it themselves. Hmmmm...make it themselves? Cook with it? Hmmmm? That sounds like participatory kind of stuff with Jam. Jam blog? Sounds strange, but what if you involved a community of jam makers in the creation of this blog. Tips. Stories. Tastings. Fairs. Etc. I dunno. I don't know much about Jam. I guess hiring someone from the community of Jam makers would be the first step.

Heh. I know I haven't answered your question Eric. I want to tell you how to solve this. But I do want you to think real hard before using spam methods in getting the word out. I know how attractive they are. 'Cause, let's face it. They work. They work for small jumps in traffic and getting the word out a little way further (like, what is it? 2% or something). But they won't build you a community.

Maybe describe a little more about what you have, why it isn't remarkable and why you are doing it.

T

--
tara 'miss rogue' hunt
www.horsepigcow.com

[Eric Skiff]

I the problem for me is largely that my "product" is tell your friends good... But isn't necessarily "friends tell their friends" good. People get interested and subscribe, but they don't evangelize for us.

Being audio, It's also a very passive medium. People listen on the subway and in the car, away from their computer. It's also become a very personal thing - people generally listen on headphones, so the occasions for "looking over the shoulder" as might be the case with a webapp, doesn't seem to happen all that much.

On the show, we find great indie and underappreciated artists and feature their best songs in a weekly podcast. We've done 30+ episodes between this show and under our old name before we got picked up by The Podcast Network, and we've featured incredible music that we wouldn't have ever even heard otherwise. I've been fairly light on marketing (aside from my little pre-pinko myspace experiment), as we're mostly doing this because we love helping artists get their music out there.

At the core, I know what I need to do. I've connected with the podcasting community by joining the conversations at many of the podcasts I like and admire, but introducing ourselves to other podcast listeners takes me away from the real untapped market of people who don't know about podcasting and are sick of the same albums they've been listening to since they loaded up their tiny white jukebox. How in the world do I reach people that don't read blogs?

[Ian Muir]

One thing that you may want to do is try to get the artists you feature
on your show to become evangelists. As an independent musician, I'm
always looking for ways to promote my band and something like this
would be great. The artists on your show likely know their audience
pretty well and chances are the people in their audience would be
interested in your podcast.

[Eric Skiff]

Thanks Ian, that's a really good idea.

What's crazy is that although it's brilliant and simple, I've hesitated to do it. I guess I've felt uncomfortable asking for 'favors' in that way.

Maybe that's one of my initial hurdles to cross on the road to becoming completely Pinko. Part of interacting with the community means asking for help when you need it.

[paul.f...@googlemail.com]

I have found myself in the same boat to some extent Eric, how do you
start a community around bathrooms?

The I sat back and thought "do I actually NEED a communitry, WHY do I
need a community?". Pinko is much more than just forums and wiki's,
which then led me to think along the same lines as Tara's initial reply
"what general topics/subjects around MY product could people have an
opinion about?" and that is what got me really thinking.

We soponsor a hippo in a Zimbabwean hippo reserve so there is an
opportunity to consider a conversation around animal welfare (and even
those people need bathrooms!) We also are involved in a scheme with
Oxfam where sales of a certain toilet range of ours contribute to the
installation of sanitary facilties in needy 3rd world areas, we will be
offering pdf "How to" guides for (largely male) DIY enthusiasts, and
are also planning some sort of activity around home improvement
(largely female)

Whilst I am still trying to conjure up the magic formula (and find the
money to do it properly!), I never forget that community for the sake
of it is the wrong approach to take. I always ask myself, "what are my
target market interested in at the moment?" and I then decide how my
strategy will slip in with their interests.

For me this is perhaps the most important element of Pinko, to either
NOT force your strategies on the community or not be seen to do it (a
bit underhand admittedly!).

Without knowing too much about you or your product, I would try to get
into the mindest of those people looking for new music - what are THEIR
motivations, what other type of music do they listen to - ask them, ask
them to contribute to your content by getting them to send in stuff
they have heard themselves and publish it.

Best of luck!

Paul