Promoting a website is the same as promoting any other product:
1) Identify your target market
2) Find a distribution channel
3) Pursue your target market
Many startups go the TechCrunch route, but unless your target market is Silicon Valley technologists it's probably not a smart move. Put another way, not all customers are created equal.
When I was first launching Appaholic (now Adonomics) I posted aggressively in the Facebook developer forums. Beyond that I pursued SEO.
Most startup people I know think a bit about (1), very little about (2), and jump right into (3). Be methodical and data-oriented, instead.
At Stormpulse we created an embeddable version of our Stormpulse map and got it on The Palm Beach Post and a bunch of other news outlets that no one in Silicon Valley cares about before we ever made it to TC.
But those 'unknown to the world at large' news channels are where people go to find our content, so they were the right places to distribute. Target customers first, buzz second. In our experience, if your product is solid, eventually you'll get noticed by someone that really needs to write a tech story (that's what happened for us); and once you're in to the stream, other, larger press (TC, etc.) will tend to follow.
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Promoting a website is the same as promoting any other product:
1) Identify your target market 2) Find a distribution channel 3) Pursue your target market
Many startups go the TechCrunch route, but unless your target market is Silicon Valley technologists it's probably not a smart move. Put another way, not all customers are created equal.
When I was first launching Appaholic (now Adonomics) I posted aggressively in the Facebook developer forums. Beyond that I pursued SEO.
Most startup people I know think a bit about (1), very little about (2), and jump right into (3). Be methodical and data-oriented, instead.
Steve Jobs emphasized the same 1-2-3 in that NeXT pitch that floated around HN and VentureHacks recently: http://venturehacks.com/articles/steve-jobs-pitch
At Stormpulse we created an embeddable version of our Stormpulse map and got it on The Palm Beach Post and a bunch of other news outlets that no one in Silicon Valley cares about before we ever made it to TC.
But those 'unknown to the world at large' news channels are where people go to find our content, so they were the right places to distribute. Target customers first, buzz second. In our experience, if your product is solid, eventually you'll get noticed by someone that really needs to write a tech story (that's what happened for us); and once you're in to the stream, other, larger press (TC, etc.) will tend to follow.