Marketing plan for Bitshares 2.1

[cylonmaker2053]

Here's some tri-fold flyers and business cards you can use if you like (they might need to be updated a bit though):
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=15840.0

 

[kenCode]

Here's some tri-fold flyers and business cards you can use if you like (they might need to be updated a bit though):
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=15840.0

[cylonmaker2053]

This just got me to thinking.

Maybe a lot of people are scared to market because BitShares changes so much and it's difficult to keep up with.

Back before we knew 2.0 was coming, I used to do quite a bit of pretend-journalism and evangelizing on reddit.

I was trying to introduce new people to BTS in posts that I thought easily presented an opportunity. I was attempting to give out as accurate of info as I understood But even then it was getting ahead of me, and in a couple of the posts a respected former community member came on and basically told people to ignore me because I was full of shit (in so many words), didn't send me a courtesy pm to correct my inaccuracies or anything. I felt as though I my efforts were counterproductive, not to mention feeling like a complete idiot because I had a certain degree of respect for this person who simply wrote me off.

After that I've been too scared to market for fear of sounding like a total fool, though I did in and contribute to lists of newspapers and such in nullstreet.

But I was thinking, now that BTS 2.0 is here, we should prepare a set of standardized marketing materials, graphics, one-liners, and catchphrases, that have been VETTED and PRE-APPROVED by really smart people, that only give details that are SET IN STONE. That way people who aren't quite as smart can participate without being worried about unintentionally spreading misinformation.

i agree. i ramped up my Bitshares evangelizing pre-2.0, then things changed from the pitch i was making to people, so i backed off to let the 2.0 dust settle. then i tinkered with 2.0 for a few months, liked what i saw, and then resumed the evangelism. we have an awesome set of products, technology, and growing network; definitely time to put together a core message and have our minions then fan out and spread the word.

[unreadPostsSinceLastVisit]

This just got me to thinking.

Maybe a lot of people are scared to market because BitShares changes so much and it's difficult to keep up with.

Back before we knew 2.0 was coming, I used to do quite a bit of pretend-journalism and evangelizing on reddit.

I was trying to introduce new people to BTS in posts that I thought easily presented an opportunity. I was attempting to give out as accurate of info as I understood But even then it was getting ahead of me, and in a couple of the posts a respected former community member came on and basically told people to ignore me because I was full of shit (in so many words), didn't send me a courtesy pm to correct my inaccuracies or anything. I felt as though I my efforts were counterproductive, not to mention feeling like a complete idiot because I had a certain degree of respect for this person who simply wrote me off.

After that I've been too scared to market for fear of sounding like a total fool, though I did in and contribute to lists of newspapers and such in nullstreet.

But I was thinking, now that BTS 2.0 is here, we should prepare a set of standardized marketing materials, graphics, one-liners, and catchphrases, that have been VETTED and PRE-APPROVED by really smart people, that only give details that are SET IN STONE. That way people who aren't quite as smart can participate without being worried about unintentionally spreading misinformation.

[unreadPostsSinceLastVisit]

I think the community is still recovering from the burn of all the effort that was put into nullstreet/related content at that time, but was wasted because 2.0 was being worked on but nobody knew.

I suspect everybody just might be waiting on some kind of catalyst that signals "go!"

[Samupaha]

So I guess it's better to forget 2.1 campaign for now.

Sad, just sad. 

BitShares News went down as well. 

Let's not get sentimental. This didn't work out but it did reveal a problem: how we should collaborate in cases like this? If we can fix that, we can collaborate more efficiently in the future with cases like this marketing campaign. This inspired me to look for solutions like project management tools.

Why did you not use a microphone to speak up?

I didn't have time to attend live hangout, I listened to the recording later.

[xeroc]

Who is in charge of numbering the releases? Why not upgrade with our next major hardforck.

In fact, no one is. The closest we have to this would be CNX.

How far is @xeroc with the library documentation for developers?

Those are ready to be used but not "complete" (they probably never will
because of the nature of a library )

http://python-graphenelib.readthedocs.org/en/latest/

[Chris4210]

I'd recommend talking about this in next friday's Mumble hangout ..

I left a question on the hangout thread but nobody asked it.

So I guess it's better to forget 2.1 campaign for now.

Why did you not use a microphone to speak up? I was in a public library that time.

Who is in charge of numbering the releases? Why not upgrade with our next major hardforck.

How far is @xeroc with the library documentation for developers?

[Tuck Fheman]

I'd recommend talking about this in next friday's Mumble hangout ..

I left a question on the hangout thread but nobody asked it.

So I guess it's better to forget 2.1 campaign for now.

Sad, just sad. 

BitShares News went down as well. 

If nothing else, at least Jonny got to sell ~5 million of his stash during the pump. Success! 

[Samupaha]

I'd recommend talking about this in next friday's Mumble hangout ..

I left a question on the hangout thread but nobody asked it.

So I guess it's better to forget 2.1 campaign for now.

[xeroc]

Great to see that you all are getting interested in this!

But first things first: Are we going to do the 2.1 campaign or not?

If yes, we should know that as soon as possible so everybody can start to make their marketing plans.

If no, we need to think what's the best way to market individual features and/or the whole Bitshares system and should we do some other kind of campaign.

In any case, we need a word from developers as soon as possible. Devs are the people who decide the version number. Every day that you withhold the information is one day less for marketing campaign preparations.

I'd recommend talking about this in next friday's Mumble hangout ..

[Samupaha]

Great to see that you all are getting interested in this!

But first things first: Are we going to do the 2.1 campaign or not?

If yes, we should know that as soon as possible so everybody can start to make their marketing plans.

If no, we need to think what's the best way to market individual features and/or the whole Bitshares system and should we do some other kind of campaign.

In any case, we need a word from developers as soon as possible. Devs are the people who decide the version number. Every day that you withhold the information is one day less for marketing campaign preparations.

[kenCode]

If we could have more 5-star reviews of the mobile wallet, it will bump ours above a lot of the bitcoin wallets and get some traction:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.bitsharesmunich.wallet
 
Please share that link with your friends, have them leave us a 5-star review, this reflects on BitShares so I am trying to promote it as much as possible.
Those 5-star reviews are very important for google SEO. Thanx!

[cylonmaker2053]

I am not a Marketer, this is why I work with Chris4210. He is out there every single day guys shaking hands with Executives from billion dollar corporations, flying to Amsterdam and other events (his parents paid the way for him thusfar, but cannot continue that forever!), organizing Meetups, tweeting and doing everything a successful Marketer can do with no income.
 
I can get a successful team of Marketers together, but REAL Marketers cost money. As you know, I do not hire Americans or other high priced labor, I know that sounds bad, but this is one reason why I can build so much stuff so fast. I will get us a Marketing team now that will blow the doors off any other out there.
 
As Chris said, it's time to get LOUD. I/we need your support for it though...

i agree in bringing on professional marketing support, but recommend not outright excluding potentially valuable/innovative/efficient help from North America

often in life, you get what you pay for. Americans may be expensive, but they're also likely some of the best innovators in a wide range of professions, including marketing. i'm more interested in ROI / value maximization, rather than cost minimization.

[cylonmaker2053]

I am not a Marketer, this is why I work with Chris4210. He is out there every single day guys shaking hands with Executives from billion dollar corporations, flying to Amsterdam and other events (his parents paid the way for him thusfar, but cannot continue that forever!), organizing Meetups, tweeting and doing everything a successful Marketer can do with no income.
 
I can get a successful team of Marketers together, but REAL Marketers cost money. As you know, I do not hire Americans or other high priced labor, I know that sounds bad, but this is one reason why I can build so much stuff so fast. I will get us a Marketing team now that will blow the doors off any other out there.
 
As Chris said, it's time to get LOUD. I/we need your support for it though...

Fuck marketers. Become a marketer for yourself. It is not a rocket science.

marketing is part science and part art, but certainly a ton of value can be added by professionals. i'd be in favor of hiring professional marketing support, maybe someone from our community overseeing an outsourced team.

my recommendation is to target traders and those marketing their own trading strategies. get them on-board by showing them referral potential by promoting markets on our DEX.

[yvv]

I am not a Marketer, this is why I work with Chris4210. He is out there every single day guys shaking hands with Executives from billion dollar corporations, flying to Amsterdam and other events (his parents paid the way for him thusfar, but cannot continue that forever!), organizing Meetups, tweeting and doing everything a successful Marketer can do with no income.
 
I can get a successful team of Marketers together, but REAL Marketers cost money. As you know, I do not hire Americans or other high priced labor, I know that sounds bad, but this is one reason why I can build so much stuff so fast. I will get us a Marketing team now that will blow the doors off any other out there.
 
As Chris said, it's time to get LOUD. I/we need your support for it though...

Fuck marketers. Become a marketer for yourself. It is not a rocket science.

[kenCode]

I am not a Marketer, this is why I work with Chris4210. He is out there every single day guys shaking hands with Executives from billion dollar corporations, flying to Amsterdam and other events (his parents paid the way for him thusfar, but cannot continue that forever!), organizing Meetups, tweeting and doing everything a successful Marketer can do with no income.
 
I can get a successful team of Marketers together, but REAL Marketers cost money. As you know, I do not hire Americans or other high priced labor, I know that sounds bad, but this is one reason why I can build so much stuff so fast. I will get us a Marketing team now that will blow the doors off any other out there.
 
As Chris said, it's time to get LOUD. I/we need your support for it though...

[mf-tzo]

should we consider Brian Page again to do some marketing with a marketing worker proposal (although I think he already got overpaid and dumped his shares on us so I don't think this might be a good idea..)? or Max Wright? or anyone else? Maybe kencode and Ronny are much more suitable.

[Chris4210]

This is better. Hangout recordings and transcripts are probably really valuable to some people. But this has also the problem of not having much really original content. No blog posts that are thoughtfully written and give "whoa, this is really good stuff, I have to link this to all my friends!" feelings to people.

"Ok, here is some straight and honest feedback:"

This community has about 5-10 members that will consistently click and upvote a post on reddit.

This community has about 3-5 members that will simply click retweet a tweet.

This community has 1-2 members that will Plus1 a Google+ post.

OC cost $ or time, and this community rarely (if ever) donates to people/groups trying to promote BitShares, mostly out of their own pocket(s).

Hangout transcripts cost $60 - $120 USD each or days of time and transcripts are OC, in the sense that you don't see them anywhere else, except the one other site I posted them to (on my time) after paying for them out of my own pocket.

I am very thankful for the Brownie Points from Dan via fuzzy that covered a small portion of my expenses to do so and the donations from around 10 community members from time to time after that supplemental funding ended, but that minimal support too has ended for the most part.

The point is, OC is expensive over time and the community by and large does not help promote this OC or for the most part any post about BitShares by simply clicking a link/button, much less offer any supplemental monetary support for these contributions and/or time.

But Tuck, what about a Worker Proposal? 

Yeah, that was brought up with "BitShares News" a few weeks ago but I discouraged them from persuing one due to the communities attitude towards workers (see various threads on this forum) and the lack of support shown for anyone attempting to market BitShares.

There's plenty of criticism dished out (see various post by community members on this forum), but very little support for the time given by those trying to help on the BitShares marketing front.

And these people trying to market BitShares asked for nothing up front (like some others who were paid handsomely and ran <cough>), but instead did the work then hoped even a few people would simply upvote/retweet or Gawd forbid donate for their time and effort.

That simply has not happened on a worthwhile scale or anywhere close to it.

Take a gander at the Ethereum subreddit and see how many upvotes a simple post gets.

Now go compare that to the most upvoted post of all time on the BitShares subreddit.

Do you see where I'm going with this? 

I think you do, so I won't bother spelling it out (even though part of me wants to, just to rub it in with some salt).

In my opinion (which has had about 9 months of trying to market BitShares to think it over) ultimately the lack of community participation (a simple upvote, retweet, Plus1, etc), complaining and negative feedback instead of positive support will pretty much kill off any efforts to market BitShares by people trying to do so on their own time or own $.

Any BitShares marketing in the future will most likely come from paid articles (see CCEDK), which have far less effect on the general public ... because it's a paid article and everyone knows it.

The days of people giving up their time and money to promote BitShares from their heart is currently on life support and no one's visiting them in ICU.

There are no flowers by their bedside, no teddy bears and no cards with well wishes ... just complaints and negative feedback telling them how they should have done more for the rest of you while they lay on their death bed.

I fully agree our current community efforts and participation is close to 0%.  Following #BitShares on Twitter will show 4-5 tweets a day. What a missed opportunity! It does not take much time to send out some news and ideas, visions and dreams on Twitter. Everybody can be a part.
Pro tipp: Use www.hootsuite.com and set up a channel with #Blockchain, #BTC and one with #Ethereum, #ETH. You can monitor all major news and retweet within seconds. The tool is for free!

I would like to set up a worker proposal to fund organized marketing efforts for BitShares. We will lose in the long term if we only spend worker funds on proof of concept features and 0% on marketing. We do we not focus on our core features and promote them? We cannot wait another 3 to 4 months until somebody steps up and promotes BitShares. We have to start today!

I would suggest to create a marketing worker and hire e.g. BitShares Munich and pay them to find and manage a marketing team for BitShares. #Kencode proved already that he can hire and manage teams very cost efficiently and deliver results.

BitShares Munich is also planning a BitShares Hackathon for Summer 2016 plus I am working on bringing BitShares on stage at the biggest start-up Festival in Germany: Bits & Pretzels 2016. (I am organizing the Blockchain track)

We could have several marketing teams, promoting BitShares features in different ways. The main agenda will be the same:

- price stable smartcoins (digital money)
- low trading & transactions fees
- international transfers within seconds
- stealth transactions (BitShares Chameleon)

New features and hard forks should be named, similar to Ethereum. All marketing teams use the same name.

If we have a monthly budget of $40k , why can we not spend 8-10% on marketing?


BitShares needs to get loud again!!

[Chris4210]

I totally agree with the marketing we need to take forward in making BitShares well known. I'have compare BitShares with other Bitcoin 2.0 protocols like Ethereum, Mastercoin, NXT, Counterparty and found that BitShares is a ready to market platfom for businesses and communities, especially with UIA, Rewards, FBA and now Stealth. Yep, we lack marketing and communication. I'm planning to start a Bitshares meetup group here in Montreal. We have a Bitcoin community and this will be great place to show Bitshares advantages. Next, I will be targeting independant artist to talk about PeerTracks, and Coop companies since they can use Bitshares blockchain to issue tokens that can be shares among their members. Bitshares BlockChain features are well align with Coop laws and regulations here in Quebec.  It will be great to have a user friendly Bitshares mobile wallet. Something that non-crypto savvy can use easily, just by having fun sending/receiving BitShares UIA and SmartCoins  http://jaxx.io/ , https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/
We are now features in french on BitOramag.com - a Gold Crypto WebMagazine: http://bitoramag.com/2016/02/27/bitshares-la-plateforme-technologique-qui-utlise-la-blockchain-pour-decentraliser-et-socialiser-la-finance/

Thanks @pam2,

do not forget to claim your bounty for setting up a meetup group! https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,21260.msg276075.html#msg276075

You can download the BitShares Mobile wallet at the Google Play store here:  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.bitsharesmunich.wallet.

That should help you to spread the word. You could sell BitUSD at the meetup directly . Which Canadian would not love to get his hands on some USD?

[xeroc]

@xeroc, do you have any updates you can share with us?  Thanks.   

2FA is essentially working .. There are still a few slight issues that result in bad user experience
Also, I will need some more time to simplify the "registration" procedure. It will probably be as simple as providing a mail address and clicking a checkbox in your wallets permissions page ..

[tbone]

I understand where @Samupaha is coming from.  I think it would also be good to know when the new hosted web wallet will be ready.  Also, how is 2FA coming along? 

@xeroc, do you have any updates you can share with us?  Thanks.   

[CLains]

@Samupaha  is clearly stepping up. He just needs the core information required to do so.

If we want to use this possibility for focused marketing effort, we need to know only two things:

1) Is the version number going to change to 2.1?
2) When the hardfork is going to happen?

@bytemaster, @Stan , @xeroc give him some fuel

For what it's worth i'd vote for a Samupaha worker (:

[Samupaha]

Let's just try simple things first, like I'm doing in this topic. I'm going to start a marketing campaign with my own resources, and everybody is welcome to join me.

I like that, how can I help?

Great! Do you have any special skills? Connections to individuals or groups that might be interested in what Bitshares can offer?

For now we have to wait until the devs decide will the version number change or not, and when the hardforks happen. Then we can start to do more detailed plans. But in any case, what is needed are good blogposts/articles etc. that can convince people that Bitshares will revolutionize the world. Pictures and infographics are also needed. And if we can get funding and/or enough volunteers, video would be great.

I'm still somewhat busy with fulltime job for the next few weeks but after that I can hopefully invest more time in this.

[Louis]

Let's just try simple things first, like I'm doing in this topic. I'm going to start a marketing campaign with my own resources, and everybody is welcome to join me.

I like that, how can I help?

[Samupaha]

If you need any assistance with marketing, please don't hesitate to contact CNX about it. The whole purpose of Cryptonomex International is to have a means of coordinating exactly those efforts, however, focusing on the CNX AND BTS side of things, not merely on BTS.

What's the best way to contact? I'd rather do it here on the forum so that everybody else can keep up what's happening. So far very little results.

I think, BitShares needs to figure out a way to have someone take "the lead" without giving the impression to dictate things. CNX tried to play that role and people complained. Now they are not longer taking that role and no one else stands up to take the lead .. yet ..

I think we have seen already enough and can say that Bytemaster/Cryptonomex-haters were just full of bullshit and we don't need to take them seriously. If Cryptonomex has any resources for marketing, they can take more responsibility for it. It has been clearly too early to let Bitshares handle it's own marketing in a decentralized way – it doesn't work because there is no accumulated knowledge how to do it.

Without talking bad about other projects, this is exactly what I don't like about Ethereum (among other things) .. They claim to be a decentralized network and still consensys defined and decides almost everything on its own. They seem to be quite successful with that approach though ..

Usually centralized way is more effective. Decentralization is not a panacea that will make everything better. It's great at increasing resilience and antifragility of a system, but it has also costs.

Would there be anyone interested in running a marketing campaign?
We could create a committee-owned account for referrals and then pay a marketeer via worker.
If he succeeds we get the referrals and if he doesn't manage to bring in a certain number of new users every month (including nr transaction generated by them), we could simply fire him.

Let's just try simple things first, like I'm doing in this topic. I'm going to start a marketing campaign with my own resources, and everybody is welcome to join me.

I'll focus on high quality early adopters. People who will get really excited about Bitshares and want to do something for it, like development or marketing. Or at least they'll see BTS as a good long term investment. This does not necessarily manifest as hundreds of new accounts, at least in the short term. We don't need people to open account and forget it after two days because they didn't see anything interesting. We need people who understand how great and powerful system Bitshares is and are willing to do something for it.

Other people can focus on other groups, like traders.

If somebody doesn't want to do anything, that's ok.

But we still need a little bit of cooperation:
- Decide what we are campaigning for (in this case: 2.1 with stealth and free transactions)
- Know when it will happen (when the hardforks are coming?)

[xeroc]

If you need any assistance with marketing, please don't hesitate to contact CNX about it. The whole purpose of Cryptonomex International is to have a means of coordinating exactly those efforts, however, focusing on the CNX AND BTS side of things, not merely on BTS.

I think, BitShares needs to figure out a way to have someone take "the lead" without giving the impression to dictate things. CNX tried to play that role and people complained. Now they are not longer taking that role and no one else stands up to take the lead .. yet ..

Without talking bad about other projects, this is exactly what I don't like about Ethereum (among other things) .. They claim to be a decentralized network and still consensys defined and decides almost everything on its own. They seem to be quite successful with that approach though ..

Further, I am happy to have a technically verse community with unlimited ideas and healthy discussions about tech and economics .. and I realize that we now need to sell our tech before putting it out to the public for everyone to copy ..

Would there be anyone interested in running a marketing campaign?
We could create a committee-owned account for referrals and then pay a marketeer via worker.
If he succeeds we get the referrals and if he doesn't manage to bring in a certain number of new users every month (including nr transaction generated by them), we could simply fire him.

[Samupaha]

IMOH(!) ... CNX is only a software provider for BitShares and nothing more. They probably won't and shouldn't be able to *just* decide on bumping the version number.
As they are merely the technological providers for BitShares, the marketing side of things has to be done by other parties (and it should be as we all know how well
marketing went with CNX/I3).

How come we have a decentralized network, decentralized community, decentralized exchange but not decentralized marketing yet?!?

Maybe I should have been more clear on this...

I don't mean that I want Cryptonomex to get fully involved with marketing. But they are a key player so any marketing effort will require some cooperation with them. They are producing the stealth feature so they know when it's going to be ready. And probably also they will know when free transactions feature is ready?

If we are going to do any kind of marketing campaign, we need to know the deadlines. There will be hardfork and marketers have to know when it's going to happen so that they can make plans and be ready to execute them at the right time.

This has been big failure point for Bitshares in the past. New features and updates are just rolled out without any effort to market them for outsiders. We can't just assume that if feature is completed, users and developers will just somehow magically find it and start using it.

Changing the version number would be really big help for the campaign, but not necessary. But we need to know if it's going to be changed or not! Bytemaster made already a positive comment on this, but didn't say anything final.

Decentralized marketing isn't something that happens automatically. There still needs to be real effort by real people to make it happen. This needs cooperation. What I'm trying to do here is get things started, let the marketing campaign emerge.

Imagine that we are a normal tech company. Engineers are making new products every now and then, but they don't tell marketing department anything about them or when they will be ready. That would suck for a traditional company, and it sucks for us too.

[Stan]

So what's the timeline here? When the stealth and free transactions features are ready? If I understood right, Bytemaster said in the latest hangout that they might be in a same hardfork quite soon.

If we want to use this possibility for focused marketing effort, we need to know only two things:

1) Is the version number going to change to 2.1?
2) When the hardfork is going to happen?

If we know these as soon as possible, anyone can make marketing plans either together or individually. We don't need to agree on a certain message, but we all need to make the effort at the same time to get the full benefit.

@bytemaster, @Stan would be nice to hear a comment from Cryptonomex on this topic.

IMOH(!) ... CNX is only a software provider for BitShares and nothing more. They probably won't and shouldn't be able to *just* decide on bumping the version number.
As they are merely the technological providers for BitShares, the marketing side of things has to be done by other parties (and it should be as we all know how well
marketing went with CNX/I3).

How come we have a decentralized network, decentralized community, decentralized exchange but not decentralized marketing yet?!?

We have a perfectly working decentralize marketing program. Can't you see. When it is decentralized there's no one person entity that can be held accountable for results which means there is no way to measure results. Decentralize means efforts can't been focus properly so we get what we have.

It's a two edged sword.  You can't have freedom without responsibility.

That said, we work behind the scenes to attract new "partners" so they can come here and be told to go play in the "third party" alt businesses sandbox.  Those that get past our friendly "welcoming committee" and decide to stay eventually build businesses like OpenLedger and they do the decentralized marketing that is in their own best interests.

With apologies to Reba McEntire,

It sounded like somebody else that was talkin'
Askin' Mama what do I do
She said just be nice to the businessmen Fancy
And they'll be nice to you.

[Stan]

So what's the timeline here? When the stealth and free transactions features are ready? If I understood right, Bytemaster said in the latest hangout that they might be in a same hardfork quite soon.

If we want to use this possibility for focused marketing effort, we need to know only two things:

1) Is the version number going to change to 2.1?
2) When the hardfork is going to happen?

If we know these as soon as possible, anyone can make marketing plans either together or individually. We don't need to agree on a certain message, but we all need to make the effort at the same time to get the full benefit.

@bytemaster, @Stan would be nice to hear a comment from Cryptonomex on this topic.

IMOH(!) ... CNX is only a software provider for BitShares and nothing more. They probably won't and shouldn't be able to *just* decide on bumping the version number.
As they are merely the technological providers for BitShares, the marketing side of things has to be done by other parties (and it should be as we all know how well
marketing went with CNX/I3).

How come we have a decentralized network, decentralized community, decentralized exchange but not decentralized marketing yet?!?

completely agree. besides, i bet CNX would like it if more of us stepped up and took on active roles.

That's why we've been trying to keep our mouth's shut, so that other people will be encouraged to take the lead.  I'm very pleased to see the new leaders emerging everywhere.  Very healthy.

[cylonmaker2053]

So what's the timeline here? When the stealth and free transactions features are ready? If I understood right, Bytemaster said in the latest hangout that they might be in a same hardfork quite soon.

If we want to use this possibility for focused marketing effort, we need to know only two things:

1) Is the version number going to change to 2.1?
2) When the hardfork is going to happen?

If we know these as soon as possible, anyone can make marketing plans either together or individually. We don't need to agree on a certain message, but we all need to make the effort at the same time to get the full benefit.

@bytemaster, @Stan would be nice to hear a comment from Cryptonomex on this topic.

IMOH(!) ... CNX is only a software provider for BitShares and nothing more. They probably won't and shouldn't be able to *just* decide on bumping the version number.
As they are merely the technological providers for BitShares, the marketing side of things has to be done by other parties (and it should be as we all know how well
marketing went with CNX/I3).

How come we have a decentralized network, decentralized community, decentralized exchange but not decentralized marketing yet?!?

completely agree. besides, i bet CNX would like it if more of us stepped up and took on active roles.

[Pheonike]

So what's the timeline here? When the stealth and free transactions features are ready? If I understood right, Bytemaster said in the latest hangout that they might be in a same hardfork quite soon.

If we want to use this possibility for focused marketing effort, we need to know only two things:

1) Is the version number going to change to 2.1?
2) When the hardfork is going to happen?

If we know these as soon as possible, anyone can make marketing plans either together or individually. We don't need to agree on a certain message, but we all need to make the effort at the same time to get the full benefit.

@bytemaster, @Stan would be nice to hear a comment from Cryptonomex on this topic.

IMOH(!) ... CNX is only a software provider for BitShares and nothing more. They probably won't and shouldn't be able to *just* decide on bumping the version number.
As they are merely the technological providers for BitShares, the marketing side of things has to be done by other parties (and it should be as we all know how well
marketing went with CNX/I3).

How come we have a decentralized network, decentralized community, decentralized exchange but not decentralized marketing yet?!?

We have a perfectly working decentralize marketing program. Can't you see. When it is decentralized there's no one person entity that can be held accountable for results which means there is no way to measure results. Decentralize means efforts can't been focus properly so we get what we have.

[xeroc]

So what's the timeline here? When the stealth and free transactions features are ready? If I understood right, Bytemaster said in the latest hangout that they might be in a same hardfork quite soon.

If we want to use this possibility for focused marketing effort, we need to know only two things:

1) Is the version number going to change to 2.1?
2) When the hardfork is going to happen?

If we know these as soon as possible, anyone can make marketing plans either together or individually. We don't need to agree on a certain message, but we all need to make the effort at the same time to get the full benefit.

@bytemaster, @Stan would be nice to hear a comment from Cryptonomex on this topic.

IMOH(!) ... CNX is only a software provider for BitShares and nothing more. They probably won't and shouldn't be able to *just* decide on bumping the version number.
As they are merely the technological providers for BitShares, the marketing side of things has to be done by other parties (and it should be as we all know how well
marketing went with CNX/I3).

How come we have a decentralized network, decentralized community, decentralized exchange but not decentralized marketing yet?!?

[Samupaha]

So what's the timeline here? When the stealth and free transactions features are ready? If I understood right, Bytemaster said in the latest hangout that they might be in a same hardfork quite soon.

If we want to use this possibility for focused marketing effort, we need to know only two things:

1) Is the version number going to change to 2.1?
2) When the hardfork is going to happen?

If we know these as soon as possible, anyone can make marketing plans either together or individually. We don't need to agree on a certain message, but we all need to make the effort at the same time to get the full benefit.

@bytemaster, @Stan would be nice to hear a comment from Cryptonomex on this topic.

[Akado]

We got that fixed today .. take a look at bitshares.org ..

Thanks, the way it was just seemed some fancy words together to sound cool. It was trying too hard.

A few screenshots would be nice though.

[infovortice2013]

The truth is we all get bogged down in details of bitshares. We need a simple clear message with no details.

bitshares can do many things but the core product is that it is a decentralised exchange.

The front page of our website should say     "Bitshares is a fully decentralised exchange"

Right now it says:
BitShares is an industrial-grade financial blockchain smart contracts platform.
Built using the latest in industry research, BitShares 2.0 delivers
a decentralized financial platform with speeds approaching** NASDAQ.

WTF does this even mean?

research for money comming from out cryptoworld i think

[xeroc]

We got that fixed today .. take a look at bitshares.org ..

[cylonmaker2053]

The truth is we all get bogged down in details of bitshares. We need a simple clear message with no details.

bitshares can do many things but the core product is that it is a decentralised exchange.

The front page of our website should say     "Bitshares is a fully decentralised exchange"

Right now it says:
BitShares is an industrial-grade financial blockchain smart contracts platform.
Built using the latest in industry research, BitShares 2.0 delivers
a decentralized financial platform with speeds approaching** NASDAQ.

WTF does this even mean?

yes, completely agree 

[JonnyB]

The truth is we all get bogged down in details of bitshares. We need a simple clear message with no details.

bitshares can do many things but the core product is that it is a decentralised exchange.

The front page of our website should say     "Bitshares is a fully decentralised exchange"

Right now it says:
BitShares is an industrial-grade financial blockchain smart contracts platform.
Built using the latest in industry research, BitShares 2.0 delivers
a decentralized financial platform with speeds approaching** NASDAQ.

WTF does this even mean?

[Samupaha]

There are no flowers by their bedside, no teddy bears and no cards with well wishes ... just complaints and negative feedback telling them how they should have done more for the rest of you while they lay on their death bed.

Sorry if my message was too negative. I just tried to give constructive criticism.

The point is that marketing of Bitshares hasn't been working so far. It's really hard to get people's attention nowadays and it's getting harder all the time. While I really appreciate the effort that you are doing, I have to say that it's not usually enough. Results are the only thing that matter here. If there are no likes, clicks and comments, content hasn't been valuable and something has to change. It is through continuous trial and error how the formula is found that gives results.

Nobody should think that they are entitled to have people's attention just because they say "bitshares". Attention has to be earned.

I think we have to go to basics first. Explain very clearly what exactly Bitshares is, how does it work, for what it can be used for and what makes it valuable. Newbies don't have any clue about these things. Many people even here on this forum have some gaps in their understanding of the system. When you can explain how beautiful this system really is, marketing is much easier. People come to look for information all by themselves, without us needing to actively reach for them. That is something we need to aim for.

[Flor]

Why Bitshares hasn't it's own big show ? DEVCON1 had probably a great impact on the Ethereum buzz in media and crypto community. First one (or second if the 0 edition matter) was held in the heart of London then DEVCON2 will be hold in China with major price catalyst to be expected.

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

This is better. Hangout recordings and transcripts are probably really valuable to some people. But this has also the problem of not having much really original content. No blog posts that are thoughtfully written and give "whoa, this is really good stuff, I have to link this to all my friends!" feelings to people.

"Ok, here is some straight and honest feedback:"

This community has about 5-10 members that will consistently click and upvote a post on reddit.

This community has about 3-5 members that will simply click retweet a tweet.

This community has 1-2 members that will Plus1 a Google+ post.

OC cost $ or time, and this community rarely (if ever) donates to people/groups trying to promote BitShares, mostly out of their own pocket(s).

Hangout transcripts cost $60 - $120 USD each or days of time and transcripts are OC, in the sense that you don't see them anywhere else, except the one other site I posted them to (on my time) after paying for them out of my own pocket.

I am very thankful for the Brownie Points from Dan via fuzzy that covered a small portion of my expenses to do so and the donations from around 10 community members from time to time after that supplemental funding ended, but that minimal support too has ended for the most part.

The point is, OC is expensive over time and the community by and large does not help promote this OC or for the most part any post about BitShares by simply clicking a link/button, much less offer any supplemental monetary support for these contributions and/or time.

But Tuck, what about a Worker Proposal? 

Yeah, that was brought up with "BitShares News" a few weeks ago but I discouraged them from persuing one due to the communities attitude towards workers (see various threads on this forum) and the lack of support shown for anyone attempting to market BitShares.

There's plenty of criticism dished out (see various post by community members on this forum), but very little support for the time given by those trying to help on the BitShares marketing front.

And these people trying to market BitShares asked for nothing up front (like some others who were paid handsomely and ran <cough>), but instead did the work then hoped even a few people would simply upvote/retweet or Gawd forbid donate for their time and effort.

That simply has not happened on a worthwhile scale or anywhere close to it.

Take a gander at the Ethereum subreddit and see how many upvotes a simple post gets.

Now go compare that to the most upvoted post of all time on the BitShares subreddit.

Do you see where I'm going with this? 

I think you do, so I won't bother spelling it out (even though part of me wants to, just to rub it in with some salt).

In my opinion (which has had about 9 months of trying to market BitShares to think it over) ultimately the lack of community participation (a simple upvote, retweet, Plus1, etc), complaining and negative feedback instead of positive support will pretty much kill off any efforts to market BitShares by people trying to do so on their own time or own $.

Any BitShares marketing in the future will most likely come from paid articles (see CCEDK), which have far less effect on the general public ... because it's a paid article and everyone knows it.

The days of people giving up their time and money to promote BitShares from their heart is currently on life support and no one's visiting them in ICU.

There are no flowers by their bedside, no teddy bears and no cards with well wishes ... just complaints and negative feedback telling them how they should have done more for the rest of you while they lay on their death bed.

Some cold stone truth right there.

I do my part to like posts in facebook.. all the others mentions though I am just not active in so I must confess I am among those that have not helped out on those either.

If you were posting to facebook though I been like/wow/loving it all the time. If you are already there then I must have missed it so please share the link.

Your point though that is well and clear is that the expectation of people to continue to promote bitshares for free so that a bunch of ingrates can crack a whip and blame you for why they are not richer is just not a sustainable model.

[Tuck Fheman]

This is better. Hangout recordings and transcripts are probably really valuable to some people. But this has also the problem of not having much really original content. No blog posts that are thoughtfully written and give "whoa, this is really good stuff, I have to link this to all my friends!" feelings to people.

"Ok, here is some straight and honest feedback:"

This community has about 5-10 members that will consistently click and upvote a post on reddit.

This community has about 3-5 members that will simply click retweet a tweet.

This community has 1-2 members that will Plus1 a Google+ post.

OC cost $ or time, and this community rarely (if ever) donates to people/groups trying to promote BitShares, mostly out of their own pocket(s).

Hangout transcripts cost $60 - $120 USD each or days of time and transcripts are OC, in the sense that you don't see them anywhere else, except the one other site I posted them to (on my time) after paying for them out of my own pocket.

I am very thankful for the Brownie Points from Dan via fuzzy that covered a small portion of my expenses to do so and the donations from around 10 community members from time to time after that supplemental funding ended, but that minimal support too has ended for the most part.

The point is, OC is expensive over time and the community by and large does not help promote this OC or for the most part any post about BitShares by simply clicking a link/button, much less offer any supplemental monetary support for these contributions and/or time.

But Tuck, what about a Worker Proposal? 

Yeah, that was brought up with "BitShares News" a few weeks ago but I discouraged them from persuing one due to the communities attitude towards workers (see various threads on this forum) and the lack of support shown for anyone attempting to market BitShares.

There's plenty of criticism dished out (see various post by community members on this forum), but very little support for the time given by those trying to help on the BitShares marketing front.

And these people trying to market BitShares asked for nothing up front (like some others who were paid handsomely and ran <cough>), but instead did the work then hoped even a few people would simply upvote/retweet or Gawd forbid donate for their time and effort.

That simply has not happened on a worthwhile scale or anywhere close to it.

Take a gander at the Ethereum subreddit and see how many upvotes a simple post gets.

Now go compare that to the most upvoted post of all time on the BitShares subreddit.

Do you see where I'm going with this? 

I think you do, so I won't bother spelling it out (even though part of me wants to, just to rub it in with some salt).

In my opinion (which has had about 9 months of trying to market BitShares to think it over) ultimately the lack of community participation (a simple upvote, retweet, Plus1, etc), complaining and negative feedback instead of positive support will pretty much kill off any efforts to market BitShares by people trying to do so on their own time or own $.

Any BitShares marketing in the future will most likely come from paid articles (see CCEDK), which have far less effect on the general public ... because it's a paid article and everyone knows it.

The days of people giving up their time and money to promote BitShares from their heart is currently on life support and no one's visiting them in ICU.

There are no flowers by their bedside, no teddy bears and no cards with well wishes ... just complaints and negative feedback telling them how they should have done more for the rest of you while they lay on their death bed.

[Samupaha]

What kind of group working tools do you prefer? Is Google docs ok? We need a place where to write all plans, articles etc.

What's the timeline for stealth and free transactions? That would be good to know as soon as possible. No need to be an absolute deadline, but something that we can use as a goal (and move it if needed). @abit, @bytemaster?

[cylonmaker2053]

i'd like to see this community more active on Twitter. building a presence there will help us interact more frequently with traders, crypto enthusiasts, and the over-hyped (but active) fintech crowd. 

[Samupaha]

FWIW http://bitsharesblog.com/

Ok, here is some straight and honest feedback:

There is not much original content. Mostly just links and some pictures. That kind of content is not usually very interesting to anybody, it has very limited potential to go viral.

If it will be mostly link blog, you should try to get all the relevant information and nothing else. Then it might be useful for somebody, they can keep up what's happening in the Bitshares world. Do not create content only for the sake of having some content, it has to be always relevant and valuable for readers.

http://bitsharesnews.info

We also post on reddit, Google+ and Twitter. What our blog (and possibly the other mentioned above) and post to social media are lacking is support from the BitShares Community.

.

This is better. Hangout recordings and transcripts are probably really valuable to some people. But this has also the problem of not having much really original content. No blog posts that are thoughtfully written and give "whoa, this is really good stuff, I have to link this to all my friends!" feelings to people.

Anyone here has ppt about bitshares2.0 with full capabilities of it? Would be nice if we make one great presentation and post it on slideshare to have it as "official" explanation of bitshares and benefits of it

Good idea, added to my todo-list.

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

This is why we really need somebody to write blog posts. It's easy way of signaling that project is going forward.

http://bitsharesnews.info

We also post on reddit, Google+ and Twitter. What our blog (and possibly the other mentioned above) and post to social media are lacking is support from the BitShares Community.

You do a great job too... I just think its generally not even been well recognized within this community.. perhaps people in this thread can start rallying more around it now.

[BitShares News]

This is why we really need somebody to write blog posts. It's easy way of signaling that project is going forward.

http://bitsharesnews.info

We also post on reddit, Google+ and Twitter. What our blog (and possibly the other mentioned above) and post to social media are lacking is support from the BitShares Community.

[Akado]

A "What's New" section with rate limited fees, stealth, Polo-like APIs and a short explanation to spark a user's imagination regarding being able to trade with zero fees, etc and in the end being able to send the funds to an account no one knows.

A use case example like that. It will spark people's imagination and let them see the potential it has

[ivglavas]

Anyone here has ppt about bitshares2.0 with full capabilities of it? Would be nice if we make one great presentation and post it on slideshare to have it as "official" explanation of bitshares and benefits of it

[pam2]

Afaik we promised that 2.1 will contain a Bond market .. not sure who will hope for this ..
not that they are unsatisfied then ..

I had already forgotten that. But given that bond market will still require some time it's probably useless to wait for it.

Let's get started ... where is the action plan, we need a roadmap and we need to come up with a strategy!

Who is going to take the lead?

I can coordinate as much as I have time for. Luckily I'll lose my job in a few weeks so I'll have some time to spend on this (unless I find a new one quickly).

My vision is in the OP and roughly that will be the strategy/roadmap. Probably not everybody fully agrees what should be done, so I encourage to suggest other strategies. I'll do what I see is best and wish that as many as possible will follow my lead. But we can do many strategies at the same time – most important thing is that we do something and we do it at the same time.

I recommend that everybody starts to think what kind of marketing they are most motivated to do and be ready to action when the time comes.

MaidSafe didn't promises big things, they just said "hey guys, we are going to release a minimum viable wallet" and everybody get exited by themselves. Just check the current market trend they have. These people won't be disapointed because they didn't promise more than what they will have.
We should do the same. If we don't have bond market working in the wallet, we have to say that bond market is already coded in the blockchain protocol and is one of our millestone. Not that we have it just like the web page lead people to beleive, this lead to bad reputation.

Yeah, one of the first things is to update website to reflect what's really going on. Outdated and mixed messages are not good way of communication.

Another thing, lot of poeple in the polo troll box thing that bts is a dead project (funny). We should have something dinamic in the bts.org web page, something that is showing some kind of roadmap, what we just did, the updates, forks, ... Just to give a feeling of dynamism.
This should be easy to change because we adapt so quickly that nothing should be made to last for weeks or months.

This is why we really need somebody to write blog posts. It's easy way of signaling that project is going forward.

I totally agree with the marketing we need to take forward in making BitShares well known. I'have compare BitShares with other Bitcoin 2.0 protocols like Ethereum, Mastercoin, NXT, Counterparty and found that BitShares is a ready to market platfom for businesses and communities, especially with UIA, Rewards, FBA and now Stealth. Yep, we lack marketing and communication. I'm planning to start a Bitshares meetup group here in Montreal. We have a Bitcoin community and this will be great place to show Bitshares advantages. Next, I will be targeting independant artist to talk about PeerTracks, and Coop companies since they can use Bitshares blockchain to issue tokens that can be shares among their members. Bitshares BlockChain features are well align with Coop laws and regulations here in Quebec.  It will be great to have a user friendly Bitshares mobile wallet. Something that non-crypto savvy can use easily, just by having fun sending/receiving BitShares UIA and SmartCoins  http://jaxx.io/ , https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/
We are now features in french on BitOramag.com - a Gold Crypto WebMagazine: http://bitoramag.com/2016/02/27/bitshares-la-plateforme-technologique-qui-utlise-la-blockchain-pour-decentraliser-et-socialiser-la-finance/

[mint chocolate chip]

This is why we really need somebody to write blog posts. It's easy way of signaling that project is going forward.

FWIW http://bitsharesblog.com/

[Samupaha]

Afaik we promised that 2.1 will contain a Bond market .. not sure who will hope for this ..
not that they are unsatisfied then ..

I had already forgotten that. But given that bond market will still require some time it's probably useless to wait for it.

Let's get started ... where is the action plan, we need a roadmap and we need to come up with a strategy!

Who is going to take the lead?

I can coordinate as much as I have time for. Luckily I'll lose my job in a few weeks so I'll have some time to spend on this (unless I find a new one quickly).

My vision is in the OP and roughly that will be the strategy/roadmap. Probably not everybody fully agrees what should be done, so I encourage to suggest other strategies. I'll do what I see is best and wish that as many as possible will follow my lead. But we can do many strategies at the same time – most important thing is that we do something and we do it at the same time.

I recommend that everybody starts to think what kind of marketing they are most motivated to do and be ready to action when the time comes.

MaidSafe didn't promises big things, they just said "hey guys, we are going to release a minimum viable wallet" and everybody get exited by themselves. Just check the current market trend they have. These people won't be disapointed because they didn't promise more than what they will have.
We should do the same. If we don't have bond market working in the wallet, we have to say that bond market is already coded in the blockchain protocol and is one of our millestone. Not that we have it just like the web page lead people to beleive, this lead to bad reputation.

Yeah, one of the first things is to update website to reflect what's really going on. Outdated and mixed messages are not good way of communication.

Another thing, lot of poeple in the polo troll box thing that bts is a dead project (funny). We should have something dinamic in the bts.org web page, something that is showing some kind of roadmap, what we just did, the updates, forks, ... Just to give a feeling of dynamism.
This should be easy to change because we adapt so quickly that nothing should be made to last for weeks or months.

This is why we really need somebody to write blog posts. It's easy way of signaling that project is going forward.

[noisy]

Do you know what changing versions number is important? Because it is easier to describe evolving software with specific version number.

When someone will make a youtube video about bitshares... this review should mention about version of software which is reviewed. Later... in next few months... this will be very easy to people to judge... whether specific video is up to date, or not.

[EstefanTT]

At Bitshares French ConneXion we are finishing a video introduction for average Joe in French and english. That should be ready in a month. With that done we'll start our first communication campain in every place where people speak about crypto in french on internet.
So we can syncronise with the global wave of communication around stealth and 0.00 fee Tx. At least we'll do our part for the frenchies ;p

[EstefanTT]

Some thoughts ;

MaidSafe didn't promises big things, they just said "hey guys, we are going to release a minimum viable wallet" and everybody get exited by themselves. Just check the current market trend they have. These people won't be disapointed because they didn't promise more than what they will have.
We should do the same. If we don't have bond market working in the wallet, we have to say that bond market is already coded in the blockchain protocol and is one of our millestone. Not that we have it just like the web page lead people to beleive, this lead to bad reputation.

Another thing, lot of poeple in the polo troll box thing that bts is a dead project (funny). We should have something dinamic in the bts.org web page, something that is showing some kind of roadmap, what we just did, the updates, forks, ... Just to give a feeling of dynamism.
This should be easy to change because we adapt so quickly that nothing should be made to last for weeks or months.

[xeroc]

Afaik we promised that 2.1 will contain a Bond market .. not sure who will hope for this ..
not that they are unsatisfied then ..

But in general I agree with the OP!
We need to be way more active in marketing and we need coordination ...
Further, we can't wait for partners to do all the marketing jobs .. some of it must be dealt with by the community .. and they benefit from it either by a rise in share price or by the referral program ..

Let's get started ... where is the action plan, we need a roadmap and we need to come up with a strategy!

Who is going to take the lead?

[Samupaha]

What about bts as bitcoin sidechain, is it also in plan for 2.1 version?

Probably not. As far as I have understood, it's implementation is still far from ready.

[ivglavas]

What about bts as bitcoin sidechain, is it also in plan for 2.1 version?

[JonnyB]

I agreee with stealth and free fees it's definitely enough to be calling it 2.1

[Erlich Bachman]

You are correct. It might sound like a cheap ploy to get attention, and I was against changing the name to 2.1 for the stealth release, because honestly the stealth feature was included in the official 2.0 release, but the fact is that the "rate limiting" or "free transactions" feature is indeed a brand new feature, and one that is unique to all blockchains, and, frankly, our community will indeed develop 3,4,&5.0 feature sets because that's our strength. we adapt well and fork well.

"BitShares" is the brand. We should not get married to "2.0"

But of course we should milk the 2.0 moniker for all it's worth in the meantime.

[Samupaha]

2.0 to 2.1

When rate limited free transactions feature is implemented, we should change the version number to 2.1 because it really is a major change on how Bitshares works.

In cryptoworld people love new things, whether you like it or not. Change of version number is easy way to signal that we are doing new things here and get people's attention.

It's also easy way to get Bytemaster to interviews.
- "Hey, we made a big change! You should interview Dan about it!"
- "Oh, cool! Thanks for the tip, we will!"

Website update

We need to completely check the website and update it where necessary. Especially the technology page doesn't reflect the current status of development. We need descriptions and/or tutorials for:

- Stealth transfers (explanation that satisfies cryptoexperts and tutorial that newbies can understand)
- Referral program (seriously, how you think people start utilizing this feature if nobody knows how to use it?)
- Fee backed assets (explanation for developers and businesses how they can use this feature to make money)

Blog on the website hasn't been updated for a long time. This is bad because it gives the impression that the whole project is dead. @Akado you have been active and also did some time ago the weekly hot topics update, could you take some responsibility to write something in there? Weekly hot topics and updates is a good format. Of course other people can help too, we could collect all relevant topics and news into a googledoc and publish it regularly.

Intellectual framework: Bitshares as a DAC

DAC point of view differentiates us from other cryptocurrencies. We should emphasize it. BTS is not a currency, it's a share.

I'm not sure how well this will be recieved, but I want to try and see what happens. I think it has a lot of potential, but it's always possible that people just don't get it.

We need early adopters

Especially we need high quality early adopters. People who really get excited about how Bitshares can change the world. I've been thinking mostly libertarian groups and communities. They are already align with our thinking, we just have to convince them that Bitshares is a worthwhile project.

We can also try to get people onboard from other cryptocommunities. There are lots of failing projects, which means there are lots of people willing to change their focus on something better. A good persuasion technique is to point out some real or potential problems and tell how Bitshares has solved them, and let other people realize that their project is inferior compared to Bitshares. Do not tell directly that to people (it will create negative reaction), it's much better to let them understand it themselves.

Another potential group: cryptocompanies. I'd like to see more companies as witnesses, because it's good to have witnesses that are not dependent on one person. We should have at least some witnesses that are maintained by reputable companies. It shouldn't be too difficult to advertize this: "hey, you can make some money by this running software and updating it regularly". Once they do that, we have good chances that they will get more involved in Bitshares.

Timeline

When rate limited free transactions feature is coming out? Most of marketing efforts should come right after that. Stealth is coming out very soon, so we should start with that but not with full speed.

Focus will be on rate limited free transactions, stealth transfers and fee backed assets.

Stealth is out in a month, right? We'll start by making some noise about it. Can we get free transactions feature ready and tested in two months? As far as I understood, implementation is almost ready. After it comes out, everybody should be ready to do whatever they can.

I know that it's probably impossible to get marketing worker proposal approved so we have to do this with our own money and time. So please think of ways that are as effective as possible so that we can get most bang for the buck and not have to spend too much time in stuff that really doesn't matter.

And remember, all communication is marketing! When newbies find this forum, please be polite for them and for everybody else.