Category — new media

A couple weeks ago, my friend Stepan wrote a post about using new media/blogging as customer service. About using new media not only to get your message out, but to work on it and maintain it on an ongoing basis. It’s a good post, and he makes a good point. EVERYTHING you write is your startup copy. That includes your frontpage copy, sure, and it includes your blog and your twitter. But it also includes your Blog comments sections, and your twitter @replies. It includes stagnant content you put out there, but it also includes content you put out there dealing one-on-one with clients (or potential clients).

Some people get this… and a lot of people put time into it. That’s good. But time is not enough. It’s not enough to just do new media as customer service. You have to do it well. I know, wild.

For an example, take CrowdSpring, a Chicago based startup that matches companies looking for design help with designers looking for work. The twist with them is that they allow people to post a job, and allow designers to do the work beforehand… the company picks the one they like best. Keen freelancers know this as ’spec work’ - designers (or writers) doing work, and only getting paid if they get picked (and often getting ripped off if they don’t). It’s basically asking a professional to do free work (which they may be paid for later)… something that just doesn’t happen for say, car mechanics or brain surgeons (to name a few).

The other day, former-freelancer Andrew Hyde got on them through his twitter account, and through his blog. He even called them evil. That’s decently big stuff… Andrew is a pretty influential guy (at least in his circle), and along with the people (like me) who joined up with him (in calling out spec work), there was a decent blip against CrowdSpring. Certainly something they had to be on top of. And to their credit, they were there. They contacted Andrew, me, and others through twitter, and tried to smooth things.

But, they didn’t do it very well. They were nice and courteous, but they didn’t bring much substance. They didn’t really defend their concept, and couldn’t really counter Andrew’s claims of evil-ness (at least not substantially). They didn’t blog about it, they didn’t ask to write a guest post about it. Last I checked, they didn’t even comment on Andrew’s blog. Instead, they tweeted about ping-pong, and rapped about SEO.

That’s cool, mind you. I’m the last one to criticize people for playing ping-pong (it’s one of my favorites). And really, I’m the last one to jump on a company. I generally like CrowdSpring. They have a decent (albeit slightly off-center) idea, a good design, and good website copy. They seem like good guys. But I think they dropped the ball a little on this one. I don’t bring it up to pick on them (I think they’ve had enough of that for the time being). I bring it up to illustrate something that goes beyond them, and goes to a lot of startups all around the Interweb. You need to do new media as part of your startup writing. But you need to do it well. The same rules apply - you need to provide substance, and you need to provide value. Being nice is nice. But you need more.

So.. do that. Do new media. Keep track of what people are saying, and respond. But please, respond well. Write good copy in new media. Do that, and you’ll have a better brand, top to bottom (and that’s good).

I talk a lot about copywriting (well, duh), and most of the time, I mean it as frontpage copy… what people see when they first get to your site, what they see in the ‘about us’ section, and so on. But I also talk about it as the content that combines to form your brand. For a lot of startups, most of this is on the frontpage. But then again, for a lot of others, it’s not. More and more (especially for startups with a central and visible founder/leader), the brand is being formed elsewhere online, in new media. On blogs, on Qik, on twitter, and on… well…. twitter.

People like AJ Vaynerchuk are doing a good job of covering the basics and the specifics of using social media (and twitter) to build your startup brand, and really, I’m glad, because I don’t want to write about that here. But I will write about it somehow… about how everything you produce - blog posts, tweets, and video scripts included is an opportunity to communicate who you are. An opportunity to do startup writing, and of course (as far as I’m concerned), to do quality startup writing.