How can we *share* Donationcoder.com better in 2010?

[zridling]

Let's help the DC community out in 2010 by expanding our reach. There are lots of assets, but they start with developers and members. Among the software offered, the contests, the free-wheeling discussions, the software discounts, more people should know and benefit from DC. So I'm asking for your suggestions:

How can we market promote and share Donationcoder.com better in 2010?

[mouser]

I appreciate the sentiment but I hate the idea of "marketing" anything.. I'd really rather not think of things in that way.

Nothing wrong with asking how the site can do a better job of being useful to existing and new members and i'm always happy to talk about that -- and maybe even how we could do a better job of explaining what we do and reaching people who don't know about us.

I just think our focus should be on doing good stuff -- let the big sites with public relations people worry about "marketing".

[Cyeb]

Yes, the "marketing" really puts up a barrier for us young people.

[cranioscopical]

I appreciate the sentiment but I hate the idea of "marketing" anything..

-mouser (December 31, 2009, 04:31 PM)

I have to agree. Without wanting to be offensive, the original post had me backpedalling a little.
I'm all for marketing in the right place (I make my living at it) but the term seems out of step with DC.
That sounds like nit-picky semantics, and I greatly admire zridling's contributions here, but it can be hard to expunge an impression.

[TucknDar]

Agree with previous posters, but my idea of promoting the great DC community, basically involves posting about it in various forums and on Facebook

[Josh]

I am in agreement with others. I do my recommending of DC by posting, when appropriate, to various forums so I do not come across as a spammer or give DC that reputation. That said, I have introduced several members to the site who I know utilize its software and have donated. I feel this is probably the best we can do for DC is to spread the word as appropriate.

[cmpm]

I think 'market' is not what zridling is thinking of, in it's commercial world, which DC is not a commercial project.
A community think tank sort of to me.....

A definition of terms would be useful, but his ideas are what is more 'marketable'.
Word of mouth is always the best and the internet is that means.
the way it's worded or spoken of is the key I think.

anyway, zridling, 'marketing' used in a commercial sense is kind of funny to me, seeing your posts and shoot, using Linux for pete's sake!
I get what you are saying.....more involvement would be a good term...

[TucknDar]

Promote seems a more appropriate term than market, IMO But I do understand what you mean, zridling.

[mouser]

All of us who know zaine know he wasn't thinking about "marketing" like they do in businesses or anything commercial like that -- i just wanted to post a clear reply so that people who don't know zaine would not get the wrong impression.

"Promote" is wrong too.

This entire world is filled with people who spend 90% of their effort on marketing, promotion, pr, advertising, and 10% of their effort on creating useful stuff.

I'm very proud that DC is about creating things and having fun being part of a close community and isn't trying to become the next big thing.

That's not to say that it's not important when other sites that we respect write about the things we do, it is.  Some of the events on our site like the NANY programming thing, work best if other people hear about it from sites we respect -- and when we release new software or write a new review, we want people to hear about it.  But let's keep our focus on creating things and having good discussions, and making it easy for people to discover us.

Terms like promoting/marketing/etc just rub me the wrong way -- i think it conveys the wrong impression about the nature of the site and our focus.  Let businesses worry about maximizing profits -- let's us worry about creating the useful content and community.

[Perry Mowbray]

I think it's very important not to get caught up in semantics with this. It doesn't matter what you call it: marketing, promotion, telling your friends, posting on forums -- it's all essentially the same thing. As mouser said, you can't survive without other people knowing about you and what you're doing.

What we're really discussing is the balance, and that's the reason people lean toward "promotion" over "marketing", or another term over some other term: each term carries a preconceived idea of the balance between the marketing bit and the other bit (whatever it is that you do).

Our other bit, as zane said, for DC includes:

There are lots of assets, but they start with developers and members. Among the software offered, the contests, the free-wheeling discussions, the software discounts

-zridling (December 31, 2009, 03:46 PM)

This is why we're here. As mouser said, if we lose our focus on these things we lose the reason for our dc community. But if we don't have some sort of marketing/promotion/sharing the joy we'll lose the dc community too. Any closed community is doomed, but we're not closed... we have crawlers indexing our site that will come up in web searches. The question about that (passive) marketing/promotion/allowing people to find us is, is it achieving what we need; or is something more required?

Reflecting on what you're doing and how successful it has been is a worthwhile exercise, and I welcome zane's question. It may not be the best subject for general discussion though.

[zridling]

Yea, definitely a diction mistake on my part. I should have phrased it like Perry does -- share and promote. There's a lot to brag about on this site, on what it has become, and the good it does year after year. So to get back to the original question:

- Tell your friends.
- Mention on other sites and forums where relevant.
- Be ready to recommend member software where you see a need.
- Blog, twit, and best of all, contribute here.

That's what I meant.

[cranioscopical]

Zaine, my apologies for the pedantry!
I never doubted your meaning.
Cogito ergo dumb.

[Shades]

Experiences of Paul Carr regarding marketing:
http://www.techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/bnttp.html

The full title of the story is:
Bringing Nothing To The Party: True Confessions Of A New Media Whore

Brilliantly written if you can appreciate British humor...and it's still very entertaining if you don't    
Reading it in one go took me several hours, it is sized like a (small) novel.

[zridling]

@Shades:
Holy crap, thanks for the link. That's incredible. If you do read it, don't skip the footnotes. ha!!

[JavaJones]

Promotion aside (as I think we all probably do the best we can without actual marketing, budgets, etc.), I feel like the best thing that could be done to improve DC's visibility and value would be better organization and accessibility of content. The content pages on the main site pointing to most everything in the forums are good, but even once you know about the idea of "coding snacks" and you find the forum area, how easy is it really to find out what apps there are? Browse through the entire snacks forum? A software directory might be an interesting concept to consider, just as one example. Obviously a better way to organize, search, and display reviews is another key...

- Oshyan

[sword]

To grow, a service, product or group should provide perceived value for time spent and it should be seen as different from the alternatives. Rolls Royce bragged that it did not need to advertise and that was a mistake. Spreading the word about something of value is worthwhile. There are some good things on other sites that might help, such as asking if the visitor found what they were looking for or if there are any suggestions about wanted features, navigation or help. Some feedback about which topics should be expanded, divided or followed might be interesting. I did not get why the topic of 'Cheat Sheets' seemed to 'die on the vine'.

[y0himba]

One word:  Twitter (for now)

[Target]

seems like we already have the attention of a lot of people/places (witness the NANY press, and the speed with which some of the submissions have appeared on mainstream (?) sites)

perhaps more events like NANY would be a good way of showing how different we are from most places, and some of the value inherent in the community

having said that I realise how difficult these things can be to organise and administer (BIG thumbs up to Perry Mowbray and Mouser and others for NANY), and that there is a limited resource pool.

it may also be hard for contributors to keep coming up with new stuff (apart from skwire  )

[app103]

One word:  Twitter (for now)

-y0himba (January 05, 2010, 05:39 PM)

We are on Twitter, already. What might be helpful is if you are following and see something interesting, retweet it so your followers can discover us.

We are also on friendfeed, and if you are following there, liking an item and commenting there can make a difference and help introduce it to more people too.

I have been thinking about facebook and cliqset, recently, but I haven't talked to mouser about it yet.

Another thing you can do is share stuff on Google Reader if you use that and have any non-dc members as followers.

Every little bit can help. Just don't go overboard. You know what is good and worth sharing. It's the stuff you like.

[Perry Mowbray]

I have been thinking about facebook and cliqset, recently, but I haven't talked to mouser about it yet.

-app103 (January 05, 2010, 05:57 PM)

I have 

I resisted FB for a long time, but the simple fact that there are a lot of other people on FB means that I'd lose if I didn't join. DC on FB is a whole different question though, as we'll only get out of FB what we put in... so that implies splitting resources -- for a benefit that would need to be assessed.

Concerning the question at hand: There's marketing and there's promotion and there's all the other vectors which eventually add to the static on the net, which are all good and can be beneficial. But as Oshyan said:

Promotion aside (as I think we all probably do the best we can without actual marketing, budgets, etc.), I feel like the best thing that could be done to improve DC's visibility and value would be better organization and accessibility of content. The content pages on the main site pointing to most everything in the forums are good, but even once you know about the idea of "coding snacks" and you find the forum area, how easy is it really to find out what apps there are? Browse through the entire snacks forum? A software directory might be an interesting concept to consider, just as one example. Obviously a better way to organize, search, and display reviews is another key...

-JavaJones (January 03, 2010, 07:01 PM)

If the site is hard to use, or the content hard to find or confusing, then we'll lose all the traffic that we've attracted. That's called "conversion" I think? And it's not much point attracting attention if they leave without what they came for or an understanding of what we are.

Some analysis of the weblogs would provide an indication of what our visitors are doing once they get here. But in the end we should be sure that we're displaying our Talents and Information, etc in the best possible manner.

[JavaJones]

I like the idea of soliciting visitor feedback as often and as easily as possible (without being obtrusive).

I also think, as far as "conversion" and the new user experience, a forum is not necessarily the most intuitive and accesible thing for the uninitiated, and with so much of DC coming from the forums, that may present a problem. I'd be very interested in results of the log analysis Perry suggested.

- Oshyan

[IainB]

You could do worse than use the Holden VBM (Value-Based Marketing) methodology to systematically analyse your market and define how you need to go about building a Strategic Marketing Plan. No stone would be left unturned.
If it's good enough for IBM and EDS Corp., it could be good enough for any organisation.

[mouser]

A the top of my list is improving the ways that member-created stuff can be found, especially dc member written software.

[housetier]

Every little bit can help. Just don't go overboard.

-app103 (January 05, 2010, 05:57 PM)

This is very very important.

Don't sharepromoteadvertisemarket every little thing, because that little thing would have to stand against all the other little things. Only share the stuff YOU like, and you REALLY want others to know. If it's not important to you, it cannot be important (enough to bother them with it) for them.

However, I do think a little more exposure would be nice

[Ampa]

Having a good wikipedia entry might be good? see my update of this post.