Likwid, Shark Tank and Social Media/PR

[Likwid24]

Ok fellow fastlane members. I'm calling on all Social Media/Marketing/PR "Guru's" out there to help me come up with some ideas for a social media/marketing blitz for the next week.

I'm looking for some creative ideas to get the word out that we will be airing on Shark Tank.

I know Reddit is real big when it comes to making things go viral. @snowbank

Any ideas on what I can do to Rock it this week????

 

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[jon.a]

Ok fellow fastlane members. I'm calling on all Social Media/Marketing/PR "Guru's" out there to help me come up with some ideas for a social media/marketing blitz for the next week.

I'm looking for some creative ideas to get the word out that we will be airing on Shark Tank.

I know Reddit is real big when it comes to making things go viral. @snowbank

Any ideas on what I can do to Rock it this week????

First write an article about "the paint brush cover on Shark Tank" put it on your website with a link from your home page menu. Link to the article from everywhere, including here, with the key words "the paint brush cover on Shark Tank" Next I don't know. What you've got so far is no good because it's in images, google spiders can't read the text in images. Starting on Friday night immediately people will be searching for 'the paint brush cover on Shark Tank" help them to find your site first.

 

[Gale4rc]

You need to make something that is sharable to all the traffic you're about to get. Most likely a video, I think to get the general public* to share a product like this you gotta make the video funny...

I suggest getting very drunk with some friends and coming up with as many ideas as possible and choose the best one when you're sober.

PS - Pay me and i'll get drunk and come up with some ideas for you! ha

 

[Daniel A]

I really believe I know of someone who can help.

The only way I know of, to get access to him, is through someone who is helping me out right now (I can still easily do it I bet).

Both of the guys I have in mind were helped out tremendously by Eben Pagan (a marketing/business genius IMO).

The one you want to get access to is a specialist in social media marketing.

I'm sure he would want financial compensation though.

Would you still be interested? I'm sure I can connect you guys.

 

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[Vigilante]

See if the guy that I introduced you to tonight can get you on the radio in the Twin Cities

 

[Jimmyy]

This was on Reddit today

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/21jxku/i_went_on_shark_tank_accidentally_counteroffered/


1572 comments on an AMA from someone who'd been on Shark Tank

 

[Vigilante]

My wife saw a plug for your product on Pinterest.

 

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[Daniel A]

Idea #2 (my first idea is up there, let me know Y or N)

Here is a video I watched yesterday with Ryan Holiday. It could be very helpful to you.

From what I can remember, you can use this website

... http://www.helpareporter.com/ ... AKA ... HARO

To give a tip to a reporter(s) in the hopes of them writing a story on it, which can be free marketing/publicity for you. Actually I think I worded that wrong. He said something like HARO is "filled with reporters who are begging...for the privilege of being able to write about you."

Watch the video for clarification but that's definitely a website he mentioned.

Here's their Twitter page:

https://twitter.com/helpareporter

Here's their bio:


" Free publicity from @Vocus. 30,000 journalists & 200,000 sources strong. Making news, growing business. Social media moderated by Stacey Miller @staceylamiller.

Beltsville, MD (DC Metro Area) · helpareporter.com "

Cheers

 

[Daniel A]

Idea #3 (from the video I posted)

Write about it on Forbes.com !

I was having the video run again and he mentioned that "anyone can write for Forbes, you just have to be approved as a contributor. There's no editor of any kind."

If you are able to get your article published on Forbes.com you got major "social proof" right there (and "eyeballs" on the article!) ... That's not all though...

Also, his example was to first get the article published on Forbes.com...

Then tell a journalist about the Forbes article you just wrote (see the next website I mention). I believe he said he told the owner of this website: http://jimromenesko.com/ about the article...

Then the owner of that website published an article on his website about the Forbes.com article (We've all seen this before. The major media writes stories on stories). What makes that site so special? Apparently it's a website that journalists follow...

Well, maybe once they read the article that Jim wrote about the Forbes article...

They'll write they're own articles on it!

Haha, then it spreads like wildfire!

Worth a shot right?

Cheers

 

[KLaw]

Maybe work with @JasonR and do a fb campain targeting a specific group. Give away 20 paint brush covers to the top 20 fb'rs that send out your message to the most friends. Sorry, man. That's all I got. I'm not even gonna wish you good luck..... just got out there and kill it!

 

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[Daniel A]

Idea #4

http://www.prweb.com/

I've never used that website before, but I have witnessed it used before. Even by affiliate marketers, to promote affiliate offers (especially during "pre-launch")!

If they do that for businesses that aren't even truly their own. I think that might be worth a shot too. At least look into it because I don't know too much about it.

Cheers (aka my signature for now on haha)

 

[Carny]

I have 84 facebook friends. If you want me to blast it out there let me know!

 

[throttleforward]

I think you must capitalize on the idea that you put the paint brush away wet, leave it for a few days, open the package and start painting again because the brush is still wet. A video (or even a side by side picture) capturing that is what will go viral, in my opinion.

 

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[Coalission]

To me there shouldn't be a need to advertise that you'll be on Shark Tank, waste of time and money. Millions are gonna see you anyway. You should instead maximize that exposure to get the most revenue, so set up a Facebook campaign but time it to launch right after Shark Tank is over, and target only the audience that will buy your product. Don't worry about the general public because it'll just be a lot of random traffic that doesn't convert into dollars.

If you want to learn or get someone that knows Facebook, and they have a Graph Scraper, they can target "People who like the show Shark Tank and also like Housepainting" or something like that, to have a very granular audience that will most likely buy your thing. Run an ad like "Saw us on Shark Tank tonight? Let us know about it and get 20% off, but only if you share this with your friends as well" or something. I don't know, but there's a ton of stuff you can do with millions of eyeballs on you, just don't waste your energy and resources on general traffic, if your product is a hit with your target audience, it'll become a household name eventually anyway.

 

[smarty]

I think you must capitalize on the idea that you put the paint brush away wet, leave it for a few days, open the package and start painting again because the brush is still wet. A video (or even a side by side picture) capturing that is what will go viral, in my opinion.

This could be a good idea for a video. They call it "a timeline" video.

 

[jon.a]

Ok fellow fastlane members. I'm calling on all Social Media/Marketing/PR "Guru's" out there to help me come up with some ideas for a social media/marketing blitz for the next week.

I'm looking for some creative ideas to get the word out that we will be airing on Shark Tank.

I know Reddit is real big when it comes to making things go viral. @snowbank

Any ideas on what I can do to Rock it this week????

Ok fellow fastlane members. I'm calling on all Social Media/Marketing/PR "Guru's" out there to help me come up with some ideas for a social media/marketing blitz for the next week.

I'm looking for some creative ideas to get the word out that we will be airing on Shark Tank.

I know Reddit is real big when it comes to making things go viral. @snowbank

Any ideas on what I can do to Rock it this week????

Upon more thought, this is a world class play and beyond my pay-grade.

 

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[LibertyForMe]

Ok, so I've been thinking about this.

As far as a Reddit strategy goes, what if you did something like this. Around Tuesday or Wednesday you start a reddit thread with a description of who you are, that your show is airing on Friday, and that you are going to do a LIVE play-by-play as the episode is airing. Take a pic of the paintbrush cover and roller cover next to a banana "for scale" (reddit meme).

Answer a couple questions, but focus heavily on how you will answer questions live as the episode is airing, giving a behind the scenes look. Then, in the meantime you can write a bunch about what happened and create answers to a bunch of potential questions.

Then, we on the forum can help brainstorm fun questions and tell you ahead of time so you can have answers already lined up. Then, we slowly release the questions and use the forum power to upvote those comments so you can respond to them quickly. You can also answer some questions organically, this setup would help save some time and stuff though.

Maybe you could give the redditors a special coupon code to share with their friends; maybe buy a paint brush cover and get a roller cover for half off or something.


I looked at your website, and the buy options are easily displayed. When I clicked the buy link, it took me straight to the paypal checkout page. I have heard a lot of horror stories about paypal blocking people because of sudden volume. I know you talked to your web host already, but have you talked to paypal yet? The worst possible thing that could happen is having 100k people go to your site and not be able to buy because paypal locked you out.

Also, what are you going to do with the roller covers? I see that there is a 3-pack paint brush cover that includes 1 roller cover. Are people going to be able to buy a roller cover separately? What you might be able to do, is when people click the 'Buy Now' button for the single paint brush cover, a pop-up appears and asks if they would like to add a roller cover to the cart as well. That seems like it would be a simple way to potentially get more sales from the people who were only going to order a single paint brush cover.

Also, I am not a mega twitter pro, but maybe you could start a hashtag just for your product. Pimp the hashtag out on facebook, twitter, pinterest, and everywhere else. All of us on the forum could massively barrage that hashtag and try to get it trending. If there are a couple hundred people that tweet 5 or 6 times in an hour with your hashtag, we might get some traction. Plus, the biggest thing you could do is talk to a special investor and have them use their starpower to tweet about you as well, using the hashtag you created.

 

[LightHouse]

To me there shouldn't be a need to advertise that you'll be on Shark Tank, waste of time and money. Millions are gonna see you anyway. You should instead maximize that exposure to get the most revenue, so set up a Facebook campaign but time it to launch right after Shark Tank is over, and target only the audience that will buy your product. Don't worry about the general public because it'll just be a lot of random traffic that doesn't convert into dollars.

If you want to learn or get someone that knows Facebook, and they have a Graph Scraper, they can target "People who like the show Shark Tank and also like Housepainting" or something like that, to have a very granular audience that will most likely buy your thing. Run an ad like "Saw us on Shark Tank tonight? Let us know about it and get 20% off, but only if you share this with your friends as well" or something. I don't know, but there's a ton of stuff you can do with millions of eyeballs on you, just don't waste your energy and resources on general traffic, if your product is a hit with your target audience, it'll become a household name eventually anyway.

This is actually a great idea, build a FB campaign about as seen last Friday on sharktank, and target everyone who likes the show and similar shows. It's almost like re-marketing, even if they didn't watch the episode they would likely still be interested since they like the show enough to like the facebook page for it.

You could potentially do re-marketing across other networks with that data as well. I think the greater gain there, is getting in front of buyers for corporations vs individual customers.

 

[Gale4rc]

Video Idea:

Top 10 things to do with a dry'd out paint brush.

1. Throwing Knife (shows example)
2. Everybody using them as steak knives at a dinner table
3. etc..

Marketing Msg at end of video


Or build a comedy skit around just #2

 

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[Spartan]

After the show, you are going to receive a large amount of traffic from people that want to buy and a lot from people checking out your product just because it was on Shark Tank. In my opinion, you need to put together a couple deals to convert the second type of person into a buyer. Whether it is offering a "Shark Tank" discount, offering a buy one get one free, or any other type of method to increase conversion. I think the best way you can advertise is to increase the amount of people buying your product after Shark Tank. They will do the advertising for you in my opinion. People love talking about the newest product and how somebody that was on Shark Tank invented it!

You said in your other post Likwid24 that a very large portion of your market will be to the "do it yourself" type of people. I personally believe that being on Shark Tank is a great validation of your product to these types of customers. It's a sort of social proof that your product rocks! Therefore, you need to keep the fact that you were on Shark Tank present in the customer's mind as long as possible.

 

[RHL]

help me come up with some ideas for a social media/marketing blitz for the next week.

@Likwid24 , PM me.

 

[NewsletterScott]

Ok fellow fastlane members. I'm calling on all Social Media/Marketing/PR "Guru's" out there to help me come up with some ideas for a social media/marketing blitz for the next week.
I'm looking for some creative ideas to get the word out that we will be airing on Shark Tank.
I know Reddit is real big when it comes to making things go viral.

Here is what I would do....

Think about this question...

When they get to my website how can I get them to buy my product, and be inspired to share it with other people in social media?

Let your mind go to work...and put yourself in the driver seat of your visitor/consumer coming to the website as they are watching the show. Think about how you can optimize this PR hit for SALES/LINK BUILDING/SOCIAL MEDIA VIRAL SHARING (where you lose control of your stuff being passed around).

It isn't as easy as - Do 1,2,3....

As with anything... it all depends.

Let me know if you need some help.

I'd be happy to mastermind with you for 20 minutes... (Just send me a PM)

One thing that is coming to mind for me is running a "contest" of some sort...but I don't know your product and what it is...so it is somewhat limiting in what I can share with you.

I like to think BIG though.

In October I got a clients marketing assets on The Today Show and Good Morning America within the same hour on the same day.

EDIT: Ok just found out what your product is by going to your profile and website.

For a product like yours, I would target something for the do it yourself every day "Moms/Dads who go to Lowes and Home Depot to decorate/paint their house niche." On the home page of your website you can put an offer together that says, "Win a lifetime supply of Paint Brush Covers...just do ABC"

Your ABC can be an "enter to win type thing...that involves a social media image/video that people have to share on their social profiles and hashtag it with something."

Then you can select your winner like 15 days after your shark tank airing.

Then you can use the "announcement of the winner" to create another flood of PR...with the national media....

And then spin the BIG TIME exposure of that into more traffic/sales....

....Which will then open up opportunities to get your product into every DIY retailer around the country and the world...

That is my initial idea, but I would have to think on this more to know what the big leverage points are.

Hmm...

I am thinking: How can he create the BIGGEST domino effect as possible to sell direct through website, and get it in all the major and small retailers to achieve scale...

I liked the idea above about using Facebook to target the people....

What I would add to it would be a specific Retargeting campaign on top of it...using a service like AdRoll.

Where all of the eyeballs that come to the home page of your website and DON'T buy....you can then retarget them with advertising in their facebook news feed AND banner ads across other websites on the web.

Let me know if you have any questions....

Talk about exciting!

Also...now that I am in flow...

I would ABSOLUTELY do a Reddit IAMA campaign...

Make it around the lines of....

"My name is (Your Name), and I secured a deal on sharktank of (Your Deal). (Then insert something that creates DRAMA of some sort that will get people to want to learn more about the story regarding where you are right now, and how you are keeping up with the demand/craziness etc.)."

Again...any questions...just hit me up.

 

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[jon.a]

...but I don't know your product and what it is...so it is somewhat limiting in what I can share with you.

I like to think BIG though.

In October I got a clients marketing assets on The Today Show and Good Morning America within the same hour on the same day.

EDIT: Ok just found out what your product is by going to your profile and website.

For a product like yours, I would target something for the do it yourself every day "Moms/Dads who go to Lowes and Home Depot to decorate/paint their house niche." On the home page of your website you can put an offer together that says, "Win a lifetime supply of Paint Brush Covers...just do ABC"

Your ABC can be an "enter to win type thing...that involves a social media image/video that people have to share on their social profiles and hashtag it with something."

Then you can select your winner like 15 days after your shark tank airing.

That is my initial idea, but I would have to think on this more to know what the big leverage points are.

Hmm...

Good thing I saw your edit before I posted this reply. I was going to lose it.

 

[Daniel A]

What a coincidence! I'm picking out these examples consciously now, haha.

Well I was listening to another recording and I came across another example of how to "build buzz" (PR).

Around 25:03 of this recording Andrew Warner, asks Julie Austin, for some examples of how she builds buzz (PR)...

Here is the link:

http://mixergy.com/julie-austin-swiggies-interview/

I'm really looking forward to April 4th. I never watch TV but I'll be tuned in for Shark Tank on Friday!

 

[codo3500]

There are going to be a lot of people searching for "Paint Brush Cover Shark Tank" or similar, you need to rank for terms like that on Google.

Get a page up dedicated to this ASAP, and make sure it ranks before you air. If you need a hand with some SEO tips for this let me know, but you should be able to rank it before the air date.

 

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[spaxton1]

Any ideas on what I can do to Rock it this week????

Screw worrying about social media, focus on selling your product direct to consumer. That's a huge opportunity to get a ton of sales. The focus should be entirely on selling the product or getting distribution.

With that said, the social part does play a role and can be a great growth hack if you work it into your sales funnel, but you'd be better off to have that option come after the sale not before. ... something such as a special deal or bonus if they share your special on facebook or twitter could work.

>>> BIGGEST CONCERN:

I do a lot of conversion testing and noticed one issue that will cost you on conversion rates. Pay the stinking $60 to Paypal and upgrade to Paypal Payments Pro so you can process payments through your site and not paypal. Your market is going to have a lot of baby boomer aged people who may not have paypal accounts. The biggest thing you can do for your site is to upgrade to payments pro and process transactions on your site. The way it is now will cost you some money and hurt conversion rates. ... even a 1% drop in conversions can be a huge deal.

Make the buying process easy. Forcing people to use Paypal is not ideal and will cost you a lot of sales.

EDIT: I just read your entire progress thread. Epic. But seriously, the advice above can make you a ton more money (its just money sitting on the table waiting to be grabbed).

 

[TedM]

Pay the stinking $60 to Paypal and upgrade to Paypal Payments Pro so you can process payments through your site and not paypal.

valid & important point. keep them on your site.

 

[NickT41]

a lot of baby boomer aged people who may not have paypal accounts.

Confirmed. My mom calls me every time she encounters a PayPal only checkout. I have to buy it and she reimburses me.

 

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[LightHouse]

Screw worrying about social media, focus on selling your product direct to consumer.

Does not compute.

 

[Likwid24]

Hey what's up everyone. I apologize for not answering back yet. It was a longggg weekend and it's gonna be an even longer week. So much to do in so little time. A week's notice is not what we expected. The mad scramble is on!

Just a note real quick - Our website is set to go as is right now. We can not make any changes whatsoever. We have it set up and tested so that everything is good for the night it airs. We do not want to take any chances of having something go wrong. It is definitely way too late to change anything on the site.

When the the crazy week is up, we will be changing around the entire site. We will be adding our own shopping cart, changing all the colors due to our recent re-branding, and making it more user friendly. until then, we can't touch a thing right now.

I'm going to look over each idea right now. Thanks for all the help/suggestions. All you guys rock!!