Celebrity support...?

Sorry, I know I have been posting a lot and am clearly new to maidsafe and acting like an over-excited puppy (sure there have been many like me over the years), but I can’t stop thinking about how we can speed up our growth post launch.

I come from a marketing background (shame on me I know, but it would be nice to put those skills to good use for once); we came up with a few clever ideas back in the day that cost nothing but worked brilliantly.

It occurs to me that at least one these tricks might well apply here.

Why don’t we try to make use of people that are already famous and have a large following of people who would be immediately interested in something like safenetwork.

If we can organise just 10 or 20 of us from here to write emails to people like Russell Brand, Stephen Fry, Alex Jones (nutter, but big cult following) etc etc then I’m sure lots of these people with huge followings would do tweets about us or cover the safenetwork story in some way.

The mainstream will do all it can to ignore us, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore the machine of fame/celebrity it has cultivated if we can use it to our advantage.

Not really a topic for this month, but maybe soon and I think it’s a great idea to get people’s minds mulling over different cheap ways to spread the word about safenetwork without a real marketing budget to work with.

Imagine if we got Patrick Stewart or someone tweeting about SAFE, or Russell Brand bringing back a special episode of The Trews etc… this would do a hell of a lot more than the usual social media bomb between geeks in crypto imo :slightly_smiling:

Thoughts?

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I find it hard to imagine Alex Jones wading through our forums Janitor, but I’ll happily edit it and delete this comment if you delete yours? lol :slight_smile:

Alex if you are reading this then I stand by what I said… I don’t think you’re nasty or evil, just a bit ott and misguided. Some of what you say is true though, so meh. I’m sure you don’t care much what I think anyway :wink:

There, is that better Janitor… such a negative nancy, ooo :stuck_out_tongue:

I think the idea is sound although the timing, messaging and audience we are looking to attract is key. If we are to make full use of using a big name then we would need to make sure that the network is suitably ready for prime time, meaning having a feature complete network with a few slick looking and highly functional and supported apps in place. If we are looking to attract early adopters then it maybe better to focus on attracting well respected opinion leaders/journalists/analysts who may not be household names, but are well respected by technology aficionados.

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Yes agreed, but it feels like momentum is building quite fast. As I said, it certainly isn’t a job for now, but I think these kinds of things are important to be mulling over because that’s how the muse strikes, when you’re mulling over something for some time and an idea just clicks :slightly_smiling:

We can’t expect all the tech guys to be wasting their energy thinking of marketing ploys for later down the line, but the forum community is a great place to start building ideas and enthusiasm for those challenges that are right around the corner.

“it maybe better to focus on attracting well respected opinion leaders/journalists/analysts who may not be household names, but are well respected by technology aficionados.”

Really? I’m not sure I agree with this, surely we want lots of non-technical people also adopting basic services as soon as it is in alpha mode and working smoothly?

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My point is that initially, as the network will still be rough around the edges in some areas, we should be looking to attract early adopters and innovators, users who have are prepared to work with new technology and aid the community with its development. These types of users typically become aware of new technology via blogs, journalists and in the case of companies, analysts reports. Focussing on these groups, as opposed to a more general scatter gun approach, is likely to lead to raising awareness and driving adoption amongst these desired early users. Attracting more main stream users (who expect all the spit and polish) early on maybe counter productive to the networks growth.

We will also partner with appropriate app developers to reach end users.

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Oh well, guess it’ll have to wait a year or two then.

Or Ashton Kutcher technovisonaryextrodinaire

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Well if we’re going to start marketing to celebs I opt Richard Branson. Richard Branson - Wikipedia

SAFE not only sounds up his alley given the anonymity and privacy but also it’s a new technology and because of it’s humanitarian aspects. Also he’s got numerous ties in multiple countries so he’d make a good contact to have on side. Oh and he’s also cryptocurrency friendly. :smile:

Just saying it would be easier to market to someone who’s already into crypto than not. SAFE will naturally work with bitcoin and the two will feed off one another.

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yep, for sure… maybe we could just use this thread to make a good list of potential people, then dig it up in a year or so to email bomb them all about safenetwork?

We could start with the more cliquey and geeky journalists/analysts etc as per Nick’s point, then move on to heavy hitters in second wave when apps are a bit more polished?

Richard Branson should definitely be up there along with Stephen Fry, Russell Brand etc… more from overseas would prob be good lol ;). But perhaps we should focus on the more obscure names in the first wave?

Also, is there anything we forum users can do to help you nicklambert with the first wave (when it comes)? Just in terms of email bombing any opinion leaders, journalists etc with lots of enthusiastic and unique emails asking them to cover safenet? I’m sure it doesn’t require much prep really, but people flit in and out of forum use so it might be good if people knew if they might be needed at any given juncture in the final stages of development or post beta/alpha launch?

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Looked this up - because remembered about something when communicating ‘cold-call’

By the way, remembering someone asking about pamphlets. Nick had brought over a ton for Collision Conference in Las Vegas of 2015. So just wanted to mention, I think for sure @jabba the support is there, timing is coming. Wikipedia quote, going to need to ping Richard Branson 20 times before he buys what you’re saying :wink:

I’ll get some scans as soon as at the scanner again. Dropping these off at the front desk of hackers houses in SF is good fun. Have just a bunch left :slightly_smiling:

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I will let you guys know @Jabba, we would definitely look for your all your support as roll out the network. Thanks again for the help and suggestions.

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Is Edward Snowden aware of the project? If he endorses things it gets mainstream press coverage. Eg Edward Snowden's favourite messaging app Signal comes to to Android | Daily Mail Online

I think your suggested approach is too populist, particularly at this early stage. It is not only important to have some really meaningful apps that are demonstrably powerful in their disruptive capacity but they must also be capable of addressing the seriously important risks of global financial system disaster and war. Planet Earth desperatley needs a replacement for fiat and other reserve currencies.

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I was thinking that it would be beneficial to both the big podcasters, and SAFE Network, for them to host their episodes on SAFE Network.

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True but wouldn’t that require the SAFE network to be up and running in order for them to host said podcasts upon? I’d like to host podcasts on it too but first they need to build it.

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