Facebook pages are worthless for your startup. Go where the early adopters are.

#1

Post by g0atbutt » Wed, Feb 16, 2011, 6:40 PM UTC

Facebook pages are worthless for your startup. Go where the early adopters are.
thestartupfoundry.com

Re: Facebook pages are worthless for your startup. Go where the early adopters are.

#2

Post by bpeters » Wed, Feb 16, 2011, 6:47 PM UTC

You should not just focus on twitter, but leverage community sites like HN. Also, social media is just one ends to a mean. There is always the good old fashion hustle in the streets to get that initial traction.

Re: Facebook pages are worthless for your startup. Go where the early adopters are.

#3

Post by g0atbutt » Wed, Feb 16, 2011, 6:50 PM UTC

bpeters wrote: post #2

You should not just focus on twitter, but leverage community sites like HN. Also, social media is just one ends to a mean. There is always the good old fashion hustle in the streets to get that initial traction.

Absolutely. Twitter helps to cultivate relationships, but meeting people in real life is where it's at. Twitter is a great tool to make that happen.

Re: Facebook pages are worthless for your startup. Go where the early adopters are.

#4

Post by mattholling » Wed, Feb 16, 2011, 6:51 PM UTC

Your points about your Facebook network of friends not being your target market is many times true, and something I had not thought about. Good insight Paul.

Re: Facebook pages are worthless for your startup. Go where the early adopters are.

#5

Post by g0atbutt » Wed, Feb 16, 2011, 6:53 PM UTC

mattholling wrote: post #4

Your points about your Facebook network of friends not being your target market is many times true, and something I had not thought about. Good insight Paul.

Actually this post was written by Robbie Abed, one of our new writers.

Re: Facebook pages are worthless for your startup. Go where the early adopters are.

#6

Post by gplaya2323 » Wed, Feb 16, 2011, 6:59 PM UTC

g0atbutt wrote: post #5

mattholling wrote: post #4

Your points about your Facebook network of friends not being your target market is many times true, and something I had not thought about. Good insight Paul.

Actually this post was written by Robbie Abed, one of our new writers.

I'm the one with the professional alias. gplaya2323.

Re: Facebook pages are worthless for your startup. Go where the early adopters are.

#7

Post by mayank » Wed, Feb 16, 2011, 7:00 PM UTC

Just a general comment about the site: I love your logo and headline styling, but why is the body text so unreadable? I know I can just ctrl+ it, but it seems that if you're building a better TechCrunch content-wise, why not shoot for better readability [reference intended] of the actual content? The emphasis looks like links and the graphic takes up a lot of room for an element that doesn't add anything.

Re: Facebook pages are worthless for your startup. Go where the early adopters are.

#8

Post by rcavezza » Wed, Feb 16, 2011, 7:04 PM UTC

Most startups need to focus where their market is. If you're in B2B or focused on selling something to startups, you need to be on Twitter.

If you're more of a general consumer product, you should be on facebook, but not on a fan page, you should be trying to get users to "Share" your content.

Fan Pages can be a good way to communicate with existing customers or blog visitors, but it's not really an acquisition mechanism.

Re: Facebook pages are worthless for your startup. Go where the early adopters are.

#9

Post by gplaya2323 » Wed, Feb 16, 2011, 7:08 PM UTC

rcavezza wrote: post #8

Most startups need to focus where their market is. If you're in B2B or focused on selling something to startups, you need to be on Twitter. If you're more of a general consumer product, you should be on facebook, but not on a fan page, you should be trying to get users to "Share" your content. Fan Pages can be a good way to communicate with existing customers or blog visitors, but it's not really an acquisition mecha…

exactly. It's not really an acquisition mechanism. I still think you should be on facebook, but focusing on building a facebook fan page isn't going to get you anywhere. If anything, just use it to reserve the URL.

Re: Facebook pages are worthless for your startup. Go where the early adopters are.

#10

Post by erikpukinskis » Wed, Feb 16, 2011, 7:11 PM UTC

rcavezza wrote: post #8

Most startups need to focus where their market is. If you're in B2B or focused on selling something to startups, you need to be on Twitter. If you're more of a general consumer product, you should be on facebook, but not on a fan page, you should be trying to get users to "Share" your content. Fan Pages can be a good way to communicate with existing customers or blog visitors, but it's not really an acquisition mecha…

it's not really an acquisition mechanism

Sure it is. We have 1000 fans on Facebook, and basically none of them have converted to our paid service yet. It's people who came to our site and hit "Like". Many of them don't even use our free service. Status updates we post there can absolutely convert users.

And when those users like an item in our feed, or comment on it, that potentially goes into their feed, which is outreach to their friends (i.e. new customers).