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Ask HN: What should I do to make this product viral?

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Re: Ask HN: What should I do to make this product viral?

#11
In my opinion, building a Viral Product takes more than just Marketing or Luck. I believe it begins with an understanding of your customer, and their desire to Share information within the Context of your Product. Taking this into consideration when designing the Product (or it's features) will allow you to build a Product that provides an environment that facilitates viral growth. Weather or not the Product actually goes viral will depend on how useful / valuable the Product is, in conjunction with your success rate of understanding your customer, and integrating this understanding into the Product.

In your example, I would start with some customer validation. Are you currently talking to your customers? If not, then this is probably an area of concern as you are likely out of touch with what they actually want. If you are talking to your customers, then you would want to modify your interaction with them to include some questions about what drives them to share, and what types of information they like to share, as well as who they would want to share it with. Then you basically take what you've learned and integrate it into your Product.

Going off the top of my head (this has not been validated, just my own understanding from knowing lots of parents), I would key in on the fact that Parents like to Brag about their Kids. So when their Children accomplish something cool, they want to tell all their friends about it. I would integrate this into the Product by identifying common Accomplishments that children experience in life (just learned how to walk, just learned how to talk, learned to ride a bike, etc,etc all the way up to graduated from college, got a good job, bought a house, and/or started a family). By identifying these moments / memories as Accomplishments (and perhaps assigning them a special badge of some sort), you will increase their value in terms of something worth sharing. Your Product already allows Parents to share specific moments / memories, but because these moments / memories are special, you will increase the Customers (Parents) incentive to share them, which becomes a vertical for potential viral growth. By following this train of thought (which always starts with customer validation) you can identify multiple verticals for potential viral growth. Essentially, you just want to learn and understand what makes your Customers share information, and then facilitate the sharing of that information. Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: What should I do to make this product viral?

#12

In my opinion, building a Viral Product takes more than just Marketing or Luck. I believe it begins with an understanding of your customer, and their desire to Share information within the Context of your Product. Taking this into consideration when designing the Product (or it's features) will allow you to build a Product that provides an environment that facilitates viral growth. Weather or not the Product actually…

Excellent points. Having badges for the accomplishment can be really awesome for parents. As a parent myself, I understand what you are saying here. Personally I don't like to brag about my child's accomplishments but I know a lot of parents who do and we can capitalize on that in a good way.

I was also thinking of adding instagram like filters in the mobile app to make memories more beautiful (well at least in some cases).

Thank you for your suggestions and ideas. This helps a lot.

Re: Ask HN: What should I do to make this product viral?

#13
post #2

The problem with "viral" is very simple - virality works through either blind luck or a massive marketing spend in a short time ( most viral things are simply well made adverts in disguise). As a startup you can't rely on the first ever happening and you can't afford the second. Market the app the 'old' way; go to events where parents go, pay for adverts on websites parents use, try to get a celebrity parent to endor…

Going viral is simple. You send X people to your site, and they on average send at least X+1. For example, you link to your site on HN, and receive 100 visitors day one. It's a great service, and those 100 people share it with enough people to receive another 150 visitors the next day. Your new visitor traffic per day goes... 1. 100 2. 150 3. 225 4. 338 5. 506 6. 759 7. 1,139 8. 1,708 9. 2,563 10. 3,844 ... 20. 221,6…

Well I see what you are saying. More making 100 people to refer to 150, the product has to be awesome and should solve some real problems. I guess that's where the different lies between both the cases.

Re: Ask HN: What should I do to make this product viral?

#16
post #7

> What should I do to make this product viral? That's easy: First and foremost, don't ask how to make it go viral in a public forum. Second, let the news spread through agents provocateurs that it's a terrific program, so terrific you're having difficulty protecting it from thieves and pirates, but you've created what you think is a bulletproof protection scheme to defend your magnum opus against the barbarian hordes…

Well it will take a while before I can fully understand your suggestions but I am on it :)

Re: Ask HN: What should I do to make this product viral?

#17
post #6

As bad as it sounds, your best bet is probably to astroturf (or whatever the equivalent term is for social networking - sockpuppeting?) on Pinterest and Facebook, try and get a mention on popular blogs, etc. Expending effort into improving your product is not likely to pay off in a "viral" fashion.

Yes you are right. We are already active on Facebook and should be active on Pinterest and other platforms very soon.
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