Ask HN: Promoting a free niche online tool

I've built an online tool that solves a real but niche problem. The tool is free, without ads (and even with ads it would likely make Clearly, I wouldn't spend money advertising it. It's also won't go viral (it automates a boring bookkeeping task). It's also not appropriate for "traditional SEO" (relationship building with bloggers, etc) - can't justify the time investment. Basically, it's barely even a commercial project, I'd be happy to just get users.

I decided then that organic search traffic is the way to go, but for that I need at least some links. My naive assumption was that highly-customized posting in appropriate niche forums was the way to go. I figured that since I am "adding value to the Internet" by making something free and useful, it would be well-received.

I was wrong. In most places, I see cold responses about "self-promotion/advertisement", and moderators delete messages in the blink of an eye. Even in places with "nofollow" links. I understand the frustration with ads, but (1) I am very careful to post in highly relevant places (2) I am convinced the tool is unique on the Internet right now - it's not like "yet another advertisement for X", and (3) it's free and its status as a "barely commercial" project is readily apparent.

I could try tricks such as pretending to be unrelated to what I'm posting ("Oh, look at this cool tool I found"), but this feels dirty. I always disclose my affiliation - seems I'm being penalized for honesty.

So, question: What are good, legitimate ways to let people know about a new, free, genuinely unique, genuinely useful, niche tool, keeping in mind that I can probably devote at most a day or two to promoting it?

Not just asking for this tool: I have many other ideas and would like to make them a reality, but there's no point in making them if there's no way of making the target audience even aware of their existence. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

Maybe you could approach some experts in the field, humbly present yourself, briefly explain how your tool works and how it can make their life easier, and ask them whether they'd consider a no-string attached test run.

If it's a real niche field like you said, they probably won't get swamped by this kind of emails very much and will get curious.

Once you make a few fans, you could ask whether they can spread the word, or, if they're really into it, they'll do it for you on twitter and such.

I have a related anecdote but no advice for your goal of 1-2 days promo then leave it.

Once upon a time I also made some software for a similarly real but niche problem (recording, processing, and building timelapse videos of your work during hackathons). I never promoted it or anything beyond talking about it and using it within the community where the idea was born (in my case, ludumdare when it was still very small). It has actually done pretty well within that context; over the 8 years or so it has been around it has ~50k installs, and it has branched far beyond hackathons -- it made its way onto lifehacker when they still covered real products, there are a handful of completely independent reviews out there, and I get emails from time to time asking for features from a wide range of use cases (everything from documenting cell growth to filming engine rebuilds to tracking video game progress in a modernized arcade).

My only (admittedly weak) advice is to go to the source of how you knew this was a need and share it openly and honestly within a community that is either about that or clearly shares that. From there you'll get some feedback and, if it really does solve a pain point, people will use it and share it. In my story, the flexibility of the product to be useful beyond the initial problem I was trying to solve was also key to its growth - maybe you can do something similar with how your thing works.

I realize that 8 years of being available is the complete opposite of your goal of promoting for only '1-2 days', but I think that amount of participation may not be super compatible with any software these days, particularly for small 'love' projects. How many github projects have you seen that sound nifty but have an empty readme and no commits for 2 years so you wouldn't touch it with a 10 ft pole? I think you'll get much better results by trickling continued time into the product to make sure people know it is alive - respond to posts/questions about it, fix bugs (or at LEAST comment on the issues), etc.

You can post it on Show HN. You can self promote on Twitter. In other forums, you can have a link in your profile and participate as a regular member a good bit and once in a great while link to it in an answer where it is relevant. If you are only answering questions where you feel "link to my Thing" is The Answer, then, yes, you are frequently going to be in violation of some community guideline.