Author Topic: On Marketing and Priorities  (Read 16001 times)

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38PTSWarrior

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At the moment nobody knows if bitsharesx will even work right? What if this whole thing crashes or gets hacked or something? I say stay low profile until things work and when it works, get "Drew Barrymore" for an ad on "Hulu"

Offline CLains

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Excellent suggestions Adam!

I would really encourage invictus to emulate them ASAP and get at least a temporary blog up that can be the central repository for the most important information every invictus investor/donor should know.

I particularly like this idea.  +5%

Ideally we would want Brain to do more on the on-camera press, etc. but everyone who has met Dan knows he is pretty convincing.

Daniel is good at talking on the fly, and a great presenter when talking about the more technical stuff. More general stuff (like the snapshot and upcoming plans) can be handled by someone else.

Invictus's only advantage is DACs that make economic sense and are truly value-producing.

+5%

I think this is great news. Sounds like there's huge upside potential for BTSX, now that the snapshot is taken.

This was my first thought as well. I love Invictus, but as an investor that's how I think.

I think web strategy is very important to any crypto. Not just website, but presence.

+5%

I think opportunity has and continues to be wasted by letting these very basic things go undone.

+5%

For the right amount of protoshares most of us would gladly advertise and market any website Invictus wants marketed.

But instead they've decided to go with this centralized top down marketing campaign.

They have all these angelfunds and they have people on this forum willing to do marketing. Why not use the community to do marketing? We all own PTS/AGS and we all want more, so they have ways to give us incentives to market whatever information they want us to market but they aren't giving us any talking points, any websites or signature codes, etc.

+5%

What's really lacking is transparency in all of this. Brian is basically working alone in his locked room waiting for magic to happen. He doesn't really update the community and from what I've seen, he isn't really using the community and integrate them in his marketing strategy. There are so many smart people on this forum that are eager to spread the word and help with some marketing here and there.

+5%

I think this applies to their whole financial strategy. I tried to instill a sense of urgency in the allocation of resources thread. The ultimate problem here still seems to be that Invictus thinks they have enough creativity and intelligence to produce an optimal financial plan to spend the resources they are getting. But this is impossible in light of the fact that 100 PTS distributed across the right 4-5 people can do more than they can dream of. Thus, they need dedicated places where the community can criticize their overall spending-strategy, and contribute ideas, and even be rewarded for good ideas on how to spend their money.

There is almost no presence on Bitcointalk.

There has been little to no incentives for people like me to evangelize. In the last week however, it seems that Invictus is hiring people and getting help from people to manage social media. Brian contacted me a few days ago asking for help with Bitcointalk. I view this as a good sign that things are starting to happen and I'll help work on upping the presence on Bitcointalk in the following weeks. Hopefully, there will be a much larger grass-roots push with incentives in the following months. Part of this however needs to be a decentralized way of providing incentives (referral systems is one such way, "propose microbounty thread" is another such way, etc.).

Overall excellent thread. So many constructive suggestions!

Very promising. Much excitement.
« Last Edit: March 03, 2014, 09:29:06 am by CLains »

Tuck Fheman

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I've been promoting PTS to my libertarian/anarchist followers since I jumped on board ...

http://tuckfheman.com/tagged/Protoshares

Daniels quote was a big hit.

Offline domsch

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What's really lacking is transparency in all of this. Brian is basically working alone in his locked room waiting for magic to happen. He doesn't really update the community and from what I've seen, he isn't really using the community and integrate them in his marketing strategy. There are so many smart people on this forum that are eager to spread the word and help with some marketing here and there.

Whenever I've talked with Dan about Brian he said "Just wait, you'll be amazed what Brian is pulling together". But I haven't seen anything magic so far and Brian nor Invictus were able to create hype around this project pre-launch. So I really do hope that Brian thought of something in the coming months.

I'm not blaming Brian, am saying that he needs to be more transparent and has to update the community and investors on a regular basis on what he intends to do. And most importantly, he needs to use the power of the community to create the a proper strategy. Me and others have offered our help and involvement in this, but Brian has been reluctant in taking our help so far.

And as you mentioned Adam, conferences are good and Brian does an excellent job there, but they are only great to reach users on a smaller scale with some networking here and there. Web presence is everything in today's time and we are doing an abysmal job there.

Tuck Fheman

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I actually gave up on the NXT community because they only exist in that 2,000 page long thread. 

FWIW, they do also have an active forum with 860 members.

Offline AdamBLevine

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NXT did a double sponsorship for the main LTB show for three months, their first month just ended.  I suggested they use the time as a way to update our listenerbase on whats actually happening with the project since our audience is a perfect fit for these 2.0 platforms and it's legitimately hard to keep up with the projects.  I actually gave up on the NXT community because they only exist in that 2,000 page long thread.    The twice weekly updates really solved the problem IMO, but I might be biased as it is my show.

I believe the Invictus team plans to start a sponsorship campaign on at least one of the new shows this month, we've been talking about it on and off and I've occasionally encouraged them to do it sooner rather than later but they likely have a larger plan I'm not privy to.

Really what it seems like you need is multiple companies competing with Invictus so invictus has to step up their game.  This is basically what I did with Let's Talk Bitcoin, I had no competition and I was getting lazy because I could so I invented competition and literally held a competition to have people jump in when otherwise they wouldn't have.     Seeing the great work being done by the newer shows on my network resulted in me upping my game, taking on more ambitious interviews with higher profile guests and as a result we've had some of our best shows ever.

It would be nice to see Invictus create a bounty that's less product oriented and more outcome oriented.  I would like to see an AGS financed bounty that has a good sized reward for the first DAC to truly meet all the criteria, honor PTS/AGS and function for longer than three months.    This would create that ecosystem of development that is so desperately needed, and put a spark in the competition.   Invictus would step up their game too, it's just the nature of the thing.   It would also be great to see such projects and bounties be marketed through partnerships with job boards, advertising, etc. 
Email me at adam@letstalkbitcoin.com

Offline luckybit

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Unless the system has changed, when I checked in December reddit ads on the /bitcoin sub were sold out for months in advance.

I saw an ad for the Nexus exchange on Reddit (although I don't recall if it was just an upvoted thread or a full ad) which is being hyped all over Bitcointalk and on here. So if Nexus could put an ad for their product I would have at least expected something from Bitshares. I heard an ad for Nxt too, I think it was on LetsTalkBitcoin.

There are more sites than just Reddit, what about Slashdot? What about some of the politically oriented sites or the sites associated with Ray Kurzweil? I don't see anything about Bitshares where I saw articles about Bitcoin, Mastercoin or Ethereum.

I believe if we are going to go with the top down hierarchical model of advertising then the leadership up top should be supplying us with talking points, incentives to blog and write stories, and so on. I don't see anything happening despite assurances that stuff is going on behind the scenes and you'd think if some underground grassroots campaign were to happen then we'd be the first people to know about it.

« Last Edit: March 03, 2014, 05:45:56 am by luckybit »
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Offline super3

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I agree with everything you said. It seems like Invictus is doing a decent job when it comes to conferences and things, but our web presence is entirely lacking. Ideally we would want Brain to do more on the on-camera press, etc. but everyone who has met Dan knows he is pretty convincing.

I think web strategy is very important to any crypto. Not just website, but presence. I mean just look at dogecoin, even for a meme their web presence is brilliant.

I've learned a few tips and tricks maintaining the websites for Peercoin and Primecoin. I can boast and say we pretty much have one one of the highest traffic levels of any official crypto website. Social media and a good core team is important too. Have to work with them to make sure the web stuff is in line.

Peercoin just did some intresting stats on marketing:
http://imgur.com/a/VZqbE

Notice how many people come from reddit(where we have little to no presence). Also notice how many people are funneled to a website from coinmarketcap, articles, and search engines.

I tried to lead that charge on the web front building Protoshares and the Invictus website. I was doing these all for bounties and freelance hours. Blogs, and stuff were already in the works, but suddenly Invictus didn't want my help anymore.  Still haven't gotten paid for some of the work that I did do. Was hoping someone would take over my role on the web stuff, but really haven't seen much work on that front after I stepped away.

Offline AdamBLevine

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We had a bitcoin meetup yesterday in napa, had 9 people show up.  Every person there knew about Ethereum, NXT, and Mastercoin.  Four of them knew about Counterparty, one knew about eMunie.    None of them knew about Protoshares, Bitshares or Invictus innovations.   When I explained to them about the bitshare snapshot they were all interested but unfortunately they didn't know about it, seven of them were LTB listeners

Counterparty launched their blog yesterday (that is, a protocol that raised no money and has no paid staff, but does have a working distributed asset exchange, distributed betting etc) and announced their medium-term security audit and protocol upgrade strategy.  I would really encourage invictus to emulate them ASAP and get at least a temporary blog up that can be the central repository for the most important information every invictus investor/donor should know.   I also believe it should be the marketing director Brian who should be doing most of the on-camera press, blogging and evangelizing.  Daniels time is very valuable and he is not well suited for the role of spokesman. 

I am a fan of conferences when you need to make deals happen or need money, but if the goal is to "get the word out" I can't see any potential reason why going to the texas event should be more important than crafting a strategy to address the tens of thousands of people who are predisposed to being interested in Invictus's products but have never heard of them because there has been almost zero web outreach and the web presence for invictus continues to be insufficient to educate or inform all but the most dedicated and non-time-constrained supporters.    Invictus does not need money and they don't need thought leadership, which is the reason to give a talk - they need to deliver on a media strategy and deliver on their products. 

As they say, you don't starve - you drown.  I'm a huge invictus supporter and think the vision is right on but execution has been lacking and communication/marketing abysmal.  Please prioritize so I can stop complaining.

I agree with this. There is almost no presence on Bitcointalk.

I recommended early on that Invictus use bounties to get people us to put their website in our signatures. That is the least they could do. For the right amount of protoshares most of us would gladly advertise and market any website Invictus wants marketed.

But instead they've decided to go with this centralized top down marketing campaign. So where is the leadership? Where are the advertisements?

There should be ads on Reddit at least.

My suggestions:

* STOP Keyhotee UI development. Deploy the blockchain, get a CLI client and let people integrate it into stuff on their own. This is a *massive drain of precious angel resources*
* Dan focus on BTS X and BTS DNS and nothing else. Let someone else do "ceo" tasks, including kicking the marketing team into shape

I'm very strongly tempted to come to I3's offices and help them organize all their shit over spring break...

They have all these angelfunds and they have people on this forum willing to do marketing. Why not use the community to do marketing? We all own PTS/AGS and we all want more, so they have ways to give us incentives to market whatever information they want us to market but they aren't giving us any talking points, any websites or signature codes, etc.

I think Keyhotee is critical and should have been released first. So I'm glad they are spending money on it, but I think marketing is probably the most critical and it's easy to do when you have the money.

Put an ad on Reddit. A lot of people go there and when the Bitshares client is ready that is the best place to find people. Also set up some sort of referral or viral marketing campaign for Keyhotee. If we have Keyhotee ID's there is no reason why they cannot give us a referral incentive.

Unless the system has changed, when I checked in December reddit ads on the /bitcoin sub were sold out for months in advance. 
Email me at adam@letstalkbitcoin.com

Offline luckybit

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We had a bitcoin meetup yesterday in napa, had 9 people show up.  Every person there knew about Ethereum, NXT, and Mastercoin.  Four of them knew about Counterparty, one knew about eMunie.    None of them knew about Protoshares, Bitshares or Invictus innovations.   When I explained to them about the bitshare snapshot they were all interested but unfortunately they didn't know about it, seven of them were LTB listeners

Counterparty launched their blog yesterday (that is, a protocol that raised no money and has no paid staff, but does have a working distributed asset exchange, distributed betting etc) and announced their medium-term security audit and protocol upgrade strategy.  I would really encourage invictus to emulate them ASAP and get at least a temporary blog up that can be the central repository for the most important information every invictus investor/donor should know.   I also believe it should be the marketing director Brian who should be doing most of the on-camera press, blogging and evangelizing.  Daniels time is very valuable and he is not well suited for the role of spokesman. 

I am a fan of conferences when you need to make deals happen or need money, but if the goal is to "get the word out" I can't see any potential reason why going to the texas event should be more important than crafting a strategy to address the tens of thousands of people who are predisposed to being interested in Invictus's products but have never heard of them because there has been almost zero web outreach and the web presence for invictus continues to be insufficient to educate or inform all but the most dedicated and non-time-constrained supporters.    Invictus does not need money and they don't need thought leadership, which is the reason to give a talk - they need to deliver on a media strategy and deliver on their products. 

As they say, you don't starve - you drown.  I'm a huge invictus supporter and think the vision is right on but execution has been lacking and communication/marketing abysmal.  Please prioritize so I can stop complaining.

I agree with this. There is almost no presence on Bitcointalk.

I recommended early on that Invictus use bounties to get people us to put their website in our signatures. That is the least they could do. For the right amount of protoshares most of us would gladly advertise and market any website Invictus wants marketed.

But instead they've decided to go with this centralized top down marketing campaign. So where is the leadership? Where are the advertisements?

There should be ads on Reddit at least.

My suggestions:

* STOP Keyhotee UI development. Deploy the blockchain, get a CLI client and let people integrate it into stuff on their own. This is a *massive drain of precious angel resources*
* Dan focus on BTS X and BTS DNS and nothing else. Let someone else do "ceo" tasks, including kicking the marketing team into shape

I'm very strongly tempted to come to I3's offices and help them organize all their shit over spring break...

They have all these angelfunds and they have people on this forum willing to do marketing. Why not use the community to do marketing? We all own PTS/AGS and we all want more, so they have ways to give us incentives to market whatever information they want us to market but they aren't giving us any talking points, any websites or signature codes, etc.

I think Keyhotee is critical and should have been released first. So I'm glad they are spending money on it, but I think marketing is probably the most critical and it's easy to do when you have the money.

Put an ad on Reddit. A lot of people go there and when the Bitshares client is ready that is the best place to find people. Also set up some sort of referral or viral marketing campaign for Keyhotee. If we have Keyhotee ID's there is no reason why they cannot give us a referral incentive.

« Last Edit: March 03, 2014, 02:42:16 am by luckybit »
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Offline AdamBLevine

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I don't think it's too late, but I think opportunity has and continues to be wasted by letting these very basic things go undone.
Email me at adam@letstalkbitcoin.com

Offline oco101

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We had a bitcoin meetup yesterday in napa, had 9 people show up.  Every person there knew about Ethereum, NXT, and Mastercoin.  Four of them knew about Counterparty, one knew about eMunie.    None of them knew about Protoshares, Bitshares or Invictus innovations.   When I explained to them about the bitshare snapshot they were all interested but unfortunately they didn't know about it, seven of them were LTB listeners

Counterparty launched their blog yesterday (that is, a protocol that raised no money and has no paid staff, but does have a working distributed asset exchange, distributed betting etc) and announced their medium-term security audit and protocol upgrade strategy.  I would really encourage invictus to emulate them ASAP and get at least a temporary blog up that can be the central repository for the most important information every invictus investor/donor should know.   I also believe it should be the marketing director Brian who should be doing most of the on-camera press, blogging and evangelizing.  Daniels time is very valuable and he is not well suited for the role of spokesman. 

I am a fan of conferences when you need to make deals happen or need money, but if the goal is to "get the word out" I can't see any potential reason why going to the texas event should be more important than crafting a strategy to address the tens of thousands of people who are predisposed to being interested in Invictus's products but have never heard of them because there has been almost zero web outreach and the web presence for invictus continues to be insufficient to educate or inform all but the most dedicated and non-time-constrained supporters.    Invictus does not need money and they don't need thought leadership, which is the reason to give a talk - they need to deliver on a media strategy and deliver on their products. 

As they say, you don't starve - you drown.  I'm a huge invictus supporter and think the vision is right on but execution has been lacking and communication/marketing abysmal.  Please prioritize so I can stop complaining.
I have to agree. You thing the upcoming website it is to late ?

Offline Markus

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We had a bitcoin meetup yesterday in napa, had 9 people show up.  Every person there knew about Ethereum, NXT, and Mastercoin.  Four of them knew about Counterparty, one knew about eMunie.    None of them knew about Protoshares, Bitshares or Invictus innovations.   When I explained to them about the bitshare snapshot they were all interested but unfortunately they didn't know about it, seven of them were LTB listeners

I think this is great news. Sounds like there's huge upside potential for BTSX, now that the snapshot is taken.

Offline AdamBLevine

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Hi Mr. Levine, there is this bounty for a radio ad for your channel. Nobody is doing it I guess because it's too difficult. If you know how to do it, gogogo :)

It's not worth my time.   It's not difficult to do but it does take time.
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38PTSWarrior

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Hi Mr. Levine, there is this bounty for a radio ad for your channel. Nobody is doing it I guess because it's too difficult. If you know how to do it, gogogo :)