The Key To Succesful Startup PR: Build Trust Before You Need It
Brian Solis wrote a profound article on TechCrunch called PR Secrets for Startups. He lists many good tips all startups should know about public relations, including Understand You’re Not the Only Story in Town, Don’t Launch on Mondays and Measure Success, Not Traffic.
Many of his advice are very important for startups, where ever they are coming from. Solis writes about the role of the founder in attending and creating conversations and making contacts all the time.
As Solis points out, blogging is one natural way for a founder to get into the conversation. He should comment on other blogs and write articles that link back to his own or company blog. He should of course make contacts with journalists and bloggers at conferences and other networking events. Most importantly, and I can’t stress this enough, contacts should be made and the reputation built before they are needed.
One good example of Finnish startups that are active commentators on blogs and have a good blog of their own are they guys of Scred. I see their comments often at places like TechCrunch and Arctic Startup. But I believe that they could be even more active in their own blog. Other Finnish startups should definitely do the same.
Top 5 Startup Blogs
Here is my very subjective view on the current top 5 best blogs about startups in no particular order:
- FoundRead, which is part of technology blog network GigaOm, gives good tips and lessons for startups.
- Mashable features news especially on social networking and has great lists such as SOCIAL NETWORKING GOD: 350+ Social Networking Sites.
- blog.pmarca.com by Marc Andreessen, former co-founder of Netscape, now the co-founder of free social networking platform Ning, offers good advice for startups, that are definitely based on very extensive experience.
- How to Change the World by Guy Kawasaki, a Silicon Valley VC and author, has good advice for startups from an investor’s perspective.
- And no list about startup blogs can be complete without Techcrunch. It was started 2005 by Michael Arrington and now boasts 2.5M unique visitors per month. Techcrunch has usually well informed news about new web products and services. It has become the archetype of startup blogs both in good and bad.
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