SAFE Bomb...BOOM!

Marketing
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As we near ever closer to a release we should begin planning our collective marketing efforts in the way of an initial ‘social marketing bomb’ for lack of a better word.

We’d have our material, our resources and our ‘game time’.

Material might be the main website or a YouTube explainer video, press releases and a hashtag to go along with the main resource being of course the release page/download page, maybe a countdown timer, whatever.

Resources would be all of the common ones; YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, reddit etc…

Game time would be a planned and precise start, run and stop time with the stop time being the point of release and the start time being the point at which we begin counting down to the stop time/release time.

So we could aim for 72 hours of continuous posts, discussion, replies, re-tweets, shares, linking and tagging. Each member would essentially aim to contribute by posting to each of the resources every hour at least.

If we have a very modest amount of people even just 12 posting every hour during the waking day (say 12 hours for example) thats a total of 432 posts/replies/hashtags and new incoming links over the course of just 3 days.

Expand on this, instead of one dozen people, make it two dozen, instead of 3 days, make it five days, you get the picture…very powerful stuff if planned and organized correctly.

Add to this a press release or two from MaidSafe itself, one or two large media firms picking it up and boom!

Who’s in?

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Count me in. I have all the major social media

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Definitely marketing does happen and all for the spirit, though we will have to come up with better than safe bombs? ?

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Echoing the wisdom of those before me, I beg anyone down with this not to let their excitement for this project cause them to misstep. Advertising beta software with potentially ephemeral data retention could cause people to dismiss it and misinform prospective users in their social circle. Please wait at least a month or two after the first public network is made available. Bugs, resets, or some catastrophic issue of some sort would likely hamper rapid adoption when resolved.

Keep in mind that they’re still many critical components of SAFE that will not be implemented at the launch of first the public beta. Please maintain your enthusiasm without jumping the gun so to speak. A media bomb could do more harm than good. Again, I beg you to heed these humble words. Forgive me if I’ve dampened the excitement of this thread. I strongly believe strategically timing our announcements will improve user acquisition immensely.

Trust me when I tell you that I know how explosive these sensations related to this revolutionary software can be. I literally get the impulse to walk up to random people and melt their ear off with mention of SAFE and the impact it will potentially have on society. Luckily I have you guys and some friends with reinforced ears. :yum:

WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT, YOU CAN COUNT ME IN!!!
But until then, lets keep it on the low… :wink:

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I too would encourage caution in these precarious early stages of the network.

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I side with Tonda here, not to dampen the spirit of course, but to take a more measured approach.

From a social media marketing standpoint, there would need to be a strategy, not just a certain number of tweets per hour per forum member for example. I definitely don’t want the SAFE Network to be associated with “social spam”.

I’d hold that the strongest marketing “weapon” any online technology team possesses is the “let the platform speak for itself”. Sure there will be a few bugs at the outset, but as kinks get worked out, more and more new users get amazed by the polished system they experience and enthusiastically tell a few of their friends/colleagues and they in turn do the same.

The second most powerful weapon, and a more difficult ploy to pull off, is a creative campaign, that no one has seen before, linked to what this platform promises. Let’s think along these lines because the former weapon will honestly take care of itself. What truly creative “campaign” idea (for lack of a better term) can you think of [and others chime in so we can crowdsource]?

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I think we should consider low tech marketing as in flyers, brouchers, posters and other hard copy printable things people can distribute offline. Remember people CAN set up the SAFE network independent of the internet, you might not be able to connect to the grand mega safenetwork, but you would be able to set up a functioning mesh. And for some people who are living with no internet or very limited internet that could be a vital resource. The SAFE network will open up networking options never before dreamed of. I know plenty of people who have computers but no internet, and I’m in a first world country folks. Lack of internet can be caused by poverty, it can be caused by lack of line of sight to the transmitter, it can be caused by interference (trees, clouds, buildings, whatever), it can be caused by geography (just being out in the bush somewhere), it can be caused by a lack of population density (not enough people for the big telcos to care) or any number of reasons. Being able to build a local SAFE mesh network is a BIG thing. It’s a big thing because it would allow people to download data from the internet once and then share it repeatedly within a local community, and when you’re spending all day trying to download a 500mb file or spending hours trying to download a couple mb that’s saying something. I have had slow internet before.

I don’t want to turn this into another “Mesh is God” rant. I’m saying some people don’t have the net. Some people won’t hear about SAFE from social media. Here in town the local culture is more offline based. People tend to network offline more than online. So while the internet is used you’re more likely to get the word out about something by posting on a bulletten board with a piece of paper than posting about it on social media. Better of course if you do both and have a large network of friends to spread the word via word of mouth.

But yeah what I’m getting at is if we have panphlets or something we can hand them out to people on the streets as we’re doing our daily lives and start local conversations. We can get people talking about the SAFE network on a local level and thinking about the possibilities. We’lll have easy access to information so it’s easier to field questions and provide information to inquirers. “Oh you’re sitting at a free internet hotspot? How would you like to make free money while doing that?” “Setting up a computer lab? How about getting all those computers to farm safecoin so you can earn profit while they’re not in use AND users can log into the safe network on the fly.”

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There’s no reason why one shouldn’t market an incomplete product, but it’s important to do it right. Shooting off tweets at this point is imho a waste of time and potentially leads to frustrated users who expected to get something with which they are able to play.

Marketing has many faces. Currently the best way to market is to find potentially interested professionals and get them interested in the project. From my understanding that’s what @ioptio does and in comparison to many other project the outreach ia pretty impressive. As long as core development ia decisive it’s the best to leave it with Maidsafe.

As soon as the product is there we can get in touch with multipliers in media and tech who can think and talk about usecases. It’s more important and more effective to care for single trees than throwing around seeds. This ia going to take long time and it will take a lot of effort to reach some attention, so I guess we are doing best if we take the time and spend it wisely.

My best guess from being involved in several campaigns is: don’t send, make friends. Information vanishes quickly, real supporters last. Also, it’s highly important to approach potential partners in media and tech professionally. Planning a proper campaign will take more time than it will take the developers to create safe, so I don’t see why one shouldn’t start right now.

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So long as this is coordinated with MaidSafe. I think it’s important we and they agree the when and to maximise impact work together so we don’t confuse people with different terminology, messages, outdated links or information etc

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We should remember that SEX SELLS!!! so we should get some saucy women involved somewhere along the line here.

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As long as it doesn’t create a confusion with SAFE SEX, I’m in!

By the way, as others have pointed out earlier, “bomb” isn’t going to sell, but Safe Sex Bomb might.

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I think you make a good point…sometimes just asking questions eg; are you the type of person that values freedom?..(or something more subtle :smile: ) around a flyer, or wearing a badge etc can be very effective (offline-to-online)… v’s pandering to the media for coverage (although i do appreciate the power).

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What do you mean exactly better? Whats better than social marketing? Its cheap (free almost), requires little resources and its ability to bring in traffic and potential virality is huge.

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Replying here quickly to all as I dont have much time (being dragged to a x-mas do…boring).

People seem to be echoing much of the same.

Firstly the word bomb has nothing to do with anything, other than getting attention to this thread which it has. Dont get caught up with names of things, its just a way for me to get whats out of my head here for all to see.

In terms of when. Obviously this is not something we would NOT do now. This is something that would be organised just prior to release, it would go hand-in-hand with the release. It’s been done many many times before and has always been a sucsess, will post examples later.

And third regarding caution. I understand. But there is a time when SAFE must be dangled in the eyes of the masses, that time will soon approach and I dont think we are jumping the gun by any means if we are beginning these discussions now. In fact SAFE has been almost too cautious one could argue.

Sorry I didnt have the time to think about the post in depth.

Lets keep the topic rolling, lots of good ideas.

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i used to work for an interesting man, a journalist…he published the 1st national newspaper on the internet. The Daily Record, online…a Scottish tabloid. Still friendly, i can ask them to take a look, (was going to months ago, but decided to wait) perhaps they might have some useful insights.

I remeber as a young guy listening to him chat with the leader at Alta Vista and others…it was really great .

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It’s very important that we develop strong counter arguments against the offensive usage of anonymous networks. Dispelling negative misconceptions is key to wide public adoption and improving social acceptance. The more articulate orators of the community then need to organize and begin a social media campaign before eventually targeting key news stations for interviews. We have to order these events properly. Otherwise it could backfire. Careful planning is crucial if we’re to have a thriving network free of stigma within the next 2-3 years.

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What do you mean by “offensive usage”? To use the network for cyber attacks?

The network can’t offend me, and even those who can be offended by the network can’t do anything about it whatever their arguments may be.

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That post was pointless. I see you take your boredom out in this forum. If people have to nuance everything they write, communicative progress would slow to a crawl. Apply some deductive reasoning and lean towards the more logical.

This needless nitpicking is common behavior from you janitor. You stand at the border of trolling and fluid discussion. End it now or suffer endless social repulsion. I’m reaching for my swatter as I type this. I’ll be forced to call a new janitor to clean the remains of the old one.

This is why I limit my participation here. Your abrasiveness deters community growth in respect to this forum. Awaiting more waste from your end…or is it your mouth. Get it? :grinning: No? :unamused: That’s right. Such requires reasoning. :pensive:

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I said simply that I can’t be offended and even if I could be, I’d just not access the content I don’t like.

So what kind of “arguments” would you come up with?

I didn’t want/need to mention that anyone who wants to offend (or just post whatever content they see fit) would care about your arguments, even in the unlikely case they read them.

What you propose, then, amounts to a corporate fine print type of Disclaimer that the network doesn’t endorse and promote this and that, and that MaidSafe will assist Law Enforcement if compelled by the government. But these would be legalese statements, not arguments, so I don’t see what you can do about it. We already know that any arguments will be ignored, so how is my asking about it pointless and your proposal isn’t?

Can you provide just one example of your “argument”?

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I will @janitor, as once again your imagination seems to have deserted you to when it comes to finding something constructive.

How about we make sure we’re familiar with and can easily list and explain all the positive things that SAFEnetwork offers, and which would be lost if it was suppressed.

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