Marketing feels so cringe, how do I get more confident?

I completely understand that it feels cringey, but I think this is one of those cases where you just have to embrace it and go with it (I know it's difficult, I've been there).

When you have < 100 followers I would mainly focus on replying to people in your niche (e.g. indie hackers) with some valuable insight instead of just tweeting into the void. Of course you should still tweet some stuff, but it shouldn't be your main priority (definitely use #buildinpublic, the people in this community are the best).

As for Reddit, there are definitely ways to go about not getting your post removed for self-promotion. I actually wrote all about it here and have been applying it the last week myself (check my profile).

Just keep practicing and posting and eventually you will learn to stop caring when strangers say negative things about you on the internet 🙌

Stop focusing on lead generation and start focusing on demand generation. Don't promote what it is, share the problem that you solve and how you solve it.

That’s because it is cringe…For starters, there is a huge over emphasis on marketing in this space.

It’s too the point we refer to the broader “Make Money Online” world, as “Internet Marketing”.

Most newbies learn marketing before they have a product to market. That’s the tail wagging the dog if you ask me.

Needless to say, don’t overthink it. And whatever you do, don’t try and sound like a marketer.

I make a point to let people know I am NOT a marketer - which has lead to many people saying “That’s great marketing”, ha!

But here are the principles I use:

1. When writing copy, write in short sentences, and make it sound exactly how you would talk in real life.

2. Be genuine, sincere, and authentic. I don’t don’t mean to “Try and sound” that way…

If your product does 10 things great, but lacks a one or two features then Point those out; “If you want B2C Leads this product is NOT for you”.

Being honest proves that you are honest #deepthoughts 😂. People tend to like honest people, I’ve found.

— This is actually very important for marketers to comprehend right now…in 2023, as most everyone here knows, the overwhelming majority of people in this space (nearly everyone) are failing. They are bleeding cash with high expenses and no or little income on the other end. That’s a recipe I lived, and it doesn’t end well. Theu have financial stress, people close to them doubt them, it all sucks! So provide some hope to them by articulating the truth of their situation and how you can help.

I would have loved for someone to cut through all of the crap for me. Instead, most marketers use false or outrageous claims, in some cases 100% lie…and all that does is waste peoples time and money - your two most important resources when starting a business.

3. I’ve lived it…I failed big and it was painful for 2 years. It was the worst time of my life, but it’s the reason I have a need to help others now…So they can avoid the same experience.

*My hope would be most people are this way. If not, you shouldn’t be proud of it. It’s always about the customer and always will be.

I have had calls where I have told ready buyers that they should go with an alternative SaaS because I knew mine was not a great fit.

So that’s most of it. There’s a million things you can learn - most don’t have a huge impact on conversions.

Keep it real, have empathy, provide over the top with value as much as possible, and offer solutions that actually help people succeed. That will feel the opposite of cringe.

Sorry for the lengthy rant, I blacked out for a minute there…

It has worked very well for me, in large part because it’s so rare to find when surrounded my marketers who would take your last dollar and not lose any sleep.

I’ll end it there. Thanks!

The secret to marketing is that it is NOT advertising. What I mean by that is marketing is the act of creating a market. Unfortunately, you might've done it backwards which is very common. Instead of creating a product and searching for a market to sale too, which feels "salesly" you might agree, the best way is to find a market first, then create a product that solves their existing problem. Don't worry! There's still an "authentic" way to go about marketing. Today, content marketing is all about "teaching people DIY." Then, if a person cannot DIY, that's where your product comes in! So, in order to create a "market" you need to start publishing content that gives away all your knowledge on "How to DIY" (solve a problem yourself for free!) This creates so much trusted and loyal traffic to your content that you can then "advertise" to them from there. Now, it doesn't have to be "pushy" it can be as simple as "don't have time to DIY, I'll do it for you for $$." So, instead of using social media to push your product on others falling upon deaf ears, instead use social media to share your knowledge. Helping people with your generosity will gain you their respect, and in turn trust enough to follow you. Remember leadership is standing out against the daunting wind of social pressure. Only then do you draw attention to yourself. Thereafter, you may lure a few followers, and it compounds overtime. Give yourself at least 6 months of continuously sharing knowledge for free, and leave breadcrumb trails for how they can find your product/service offering therein. No discount. Just pure unbridled time savings for $$. Cheers!

🚀 I was exactly in the same boat as you, but I managed to build a 1000 member discord community in the span of a month and a half from self promo through organic means without even having our product OR website out (it still isn't out lmao, but the website is), so I have some advice for you:

Firstly, regarding the social anxiety. I was just like you when starting out. Every time I got a more downvoted reddit comment, I would freak out. I don't know which culture you were raised in, but I was always taught not to stand out or step on toes, so diving into a world like this was daunting.

However, I've noticed it helps to consider what's at stake here.

You're an anonymous random posting online to other anonymous randoms. Who cares if they don't like you? What effect will it have on your life? Will you lose your job for it? Will you lose friends?

The answer to all of these is no (within reason).

Keep in mind there are people who specifically rile people up on the internet and get enjoyment out of it.

So at some point, just stopped caring at all and chugged along with my marketing.

Here is some more technical advice:

Twitter: stop making so many tweets and start replying to others tweets instead. Stand on the shoulders of giants. Find tweets by big names early and reply.

Reddit: Read the rules of the subreddits you post in first, I can't say much else there. I would also advise you use more natural rather than "marketing" language.

But the main benefit I got from reddit was NOT posts, but rather comments! I usually post a relevant comment or reply in my preferred subreddit and then drop a self promo at the end.

Mods are very unlikely to remove because they're less disruptive than posts and because they probably have bigger fish to fry lol.

Do the same on IH and product hunt, and also promote your twitter outside of twitter

In fact, this comment is an example :)

Feel free to follow and take a look at my twitter: https://twitter.com/TheRealEtch

As you'll see, it's mostly replies and not a lot of tweets.

And if anyone reading this is curious, I'm working on Evoke and AI as a service.

Turn it around. What kind of marketing does feel okay to you? Where do you draw the line.
Don't follow the growth hacks you see posted, but put in the marketing effort that are genuine yours.

Congrats on getting your project going! That in of itself is always a feat to be proud of so kudos to you. As far as marketing goes, I totally feel where you are coming from. I used to be in the social media/product marketing realm for some time and there were definitely moments where I absolutely despised the day to day work for the exact reasons you mentioned.

I think your explanation of emotions as being “cringe”, “anxiety”, and “fear of social rejection” point to the fact that you may feel a sense of hopelessness in you efforts. This was my case at least as I would often send countless cold emails, post to my audience of <10 people on twitter, and get lukewarm responses from my friends and family on a project that took me months to build and iterate upon. There’s this sense of vulnerability and embarrassment when something you worked so hard on doesn’t get the recognition you thought it would.

What helped me was realizing that marketing shouldn’t be about convincing people to buy into your product, rather, it should be about finding the people that already want to buy into what you have and letting them know you exist. Once I was able to change my focus on that mission, I ended up having greater success not only with my marketing efforts, but with my mental health.

You want to put your product in front of people who are actively trying to find it. Sometimes, these people are in your immediate social circles, more often then not, they aren’t. I would recommend spending more time really trying to hone in on who would want to check out what you have to offer and locate where they go to find out about new products like yours.

Everyone gets this feeling when they get started you just have to overcome it. The secret is not to be salesy on Reddit and write a personal story with regards to the project that you're launching and you will see results. As on twitter use #buildinpublic hashtag and also launch your product on Product Hunt.

Organic social is dying and pretty much dead already, because Meta, Twitter (everyone) is there to make money so they push paid posts over organic.

A couple of things you can do;

1. Organic - Use gpt or any other platform and write an article on one of your listings/events every day. Post that and make sure that you mention whoever you're talking about - how awesome they are. They'll share and like.

2. Paid - Boost that same post with as little spend as you can. Because it will have some organic traction (social proof) it will get more reach

3. Make sure that you have your SEO 100%. WordPress - just install yoast as a start and make sure you optimise images well. Filenames must match the article and alt text. Focus on this for long term growth.

Hope this helps

Oh, I can relate so much! I would say, in the beginning, it's always like that.

Maybe try to find ways to bring more visibility, like trying out another channel that has more potential for growth. Then you can direct the masses to Twitter?

Not entirely sure which industry it is that you're working on, but exploring many different channels has been working well for me. Also, use hashtags and try to post in the right hours for your target audience.

Ugh, social media has become so toxic though. I'm also considering changing career but not sure yet.

Good luck!

Show yourself some patience as you switch from "this is cringey" to "this is exciting!" Over the years you have convinced yourself that this type of activity is not enjoyable. So it is going to take some time to destroy that mindset and develop a new one. Start by writing a mantra that you meditate on before you start your marketing tasks. Something like, "I love doing marketing because I am learning a new skill and it will net me new customers. People will love my marketing ideas because they are creative and new. I will keep track of my progress so that I can see how my skill has developed and how many new customers were gained." Next you can research successful marketing gurus that will inspire you to do the same things in order to get the word out and spark discussions. After a while, marketing will be no problem for you. I would like to read an update on how you have accomplished this dream of yours?

I can totally relate to this. I am always excited when I'm building a product, but once I launch, I get confronted with the reality that I have to beg for the first users, and just like that, all the energy and passion I had for my product dissipates.

Running a marketing agency myself, even i sometimes feel embarrassed when i tried one of those outreaches out.

And i dealt with it this way-

Instead of asking people our for a meeting or water test, i started writing contents that solve my prospects' problems and shows of my expertise.

For example, i provide SEO content strategy as a service. So i started tearing down biggies like Canva or Similar Web's SEO content strategy and came up with actionable advices. This, founders found helpful and had a good first impression about my domain knowledge as well.

I've seen a world full of difference in attitude when i could outreach someone vs when someone contacts me after reading one of those articles. And this way, i didn't have to come out of my introvert shell. Plus, my dignity is intact to myself.

As someone who stinks at marketing, I don't have much advice except to say that I feel what you're going through and rooting for you!

For me, the best way to make it not cringe is to be 100% confident that your product delivers value, which means refining your idea and execution. Although this is counter to a lot of marketing-first advice, I find it's the only way I feel bold enough to sell and market without feeling cringe or spammy. If you're creating REAL value, then you're doing everybody a favor by making it public.

I know this might sound a little too "easy", but I swear this worked for me: use ChatGPT (v4).

Describe what you want to do, what your business is, who you're targeting.
I swear that it makes miracles. The hardest part is coming up with something. Once you got it, it might seem way easier and less cringe to GPT's version to fit your own style.

With time, coming up with ideas by yourself will seem easier and you might invert what you were doing first: redact, then ask ChatGPT it it has suggestions to improve your text.

I'd say get onto LinkedIn and give value in posts. That platform is a wealth of golden opportunities in many realms.

Youre also able to connect with the right people, from your area so that you 'talk' to the right audience.

Try ChatGPT;) Write out what you want, and get it to turn that into a marketing message. The voice/brand comes more natural.

Marketing for engineers're like going on a first date back in highschool. Everyone is clingy so we should get help, aha.

I totally feel you Sharon. I'm going through the exact same thing. I launched my indie startup 2w ago and I'm trying to do a marketing 2w and don't feel comfortable with any of it! :) I got some traction from posting on LinkedIn as I have more followers there, but it was more of a show of support. I got zero traction on Twitter where I just feel like the crazy guy mumbling to myself on the street corner :).

So, I'm taking a step back and really looking at who my target audience is and trying to do some grass roots outreach to folks that are active on that subject and honestly just asking them to check it out and provide honest feedback. I just want to validate the product and make sure it's providing some value.

My product is an AI powered private alternative to social media, www.reflectr.ai, so I'm trying to find introvert websites to target for example. We'll see how it goes!

I agree, I came to realise marketing can be cringe, but most of the time, your target audience won't see the 'cringe' but rather the message.

I also believe everyone has a style of marketing that can be natural and easy to them.

Like others said, it takes practice. But some advice I got is when you speak to clients, they genuinely think you're an expert at what you do- even if you think the imposter syndrome has got you.

I feel this on such a deep level you don't understand. Unfortunately I don't have any advice since I'm literally in the exact same position. The marketing part really sucked out the fun for me honestly. So thanks for posting this, made me somehow feel a little better like I'm not all on my own. :)

I feel the same way about marketing - not fun
Regarding anxiety etc, the only way to get over it is to expose yourself to it
(or I suppose, pay somebody else to do it for you?)
I used to be painfully shy etc, now... can say that nothing phases me. I don't have any magical powers, just exposed myself and forced myself to do things that I didn't feel comfortable doing. In time, you'll look back and laugh at this anxiety :)
I'll follow you on twitter, send me your handle
I'll share you to my 9 followers :D

TL;DR; not feeling embarrassment is a super power

It does feel a bit cringe, but something, something, do things that don't scale. Cold emailing, posting where nobody knows you personally, I feel disconnected enough from strangers that marketing to them doesn't bother me because they probably either like my idea/business or they don't care which is fine! Marketing to friends will always feel a bit cringy though haha!

Reframe: you have a great product which will genuine make your customer's life easier. Marketing is simply informing them of this fact.

Since your site is a local directory you have a non-cringey old school option available to you. Simply design and print up a bunch of fliers with a QR code. Leave them around at bars and libraries and university physical bulletin boards (maybe make a list of places). Make sure you clearly show the reader what they will get out of visiting the site.

This type of marketing removes you from the equation as it is pseudonymous. You are not your website. Most types of businesses can't do this because their audience is not physically local.

Best of luck!

If you are doing a local event guide, it is unlikely that social media will ever be a major marketing channel. I've done a lot of research on this for a friend with a popular site.

For event sites, SEO is the primary traffic source. You won't have to do much public promotion to start ranking. Just publish comprehensive listings that have good on-page optimization. Make sure you have the proper schema for event listings.

Once you start getting traffic and build an email list, you can add social media to the mix.

Your primary keywords will be:
"things to do in kitchener"
"things to do in kitchener this weekend"

One of the best sites to copy for this is todocanada.ca.

Another key factor is automating the event listings so that you can keep a comprehensive list of events without manually populating everything yourself. Go to Fiverr and find a scraping expert to automatically download events from the top event sites.

An even better business model is to do "Things to do in" guides for cities around the world.

TheCrazyTourist.com is the best site to model for this. They get 2.7m monthly visitors and probably make around $50k per month with MediaVine.

Nice job getting it out the door! The movie "Stutz" on Netflix actually helped me a lot with this. It is a bit cheesy but it is a documentaryish film about a famous therapist. They really dive into feelings of insecurity and anxiety around creating things and putting yourself out there. It is also just a nice film about life, so if you have a free evening it might help you confront some of those feelings.

My experience share, tweet once a day about progress, things you learn or anything, i might be even remotely OK with.

Follow 10 people everyday, comment 15 times a day.
They will come.
Started with zero, although i only have like 450 followers (not about numbers) I met great people, some physically in other countries, got invited to podcasts so i'm happy to keep giving value and meeting more people.

Hi Sharon, don't worry I feel the exact same way. I've been promoting my upcoming Product Hunt launch for the past month or so and it feels uncomfortable every step of the way. It brings up all kinds of cringy embarrassing feelings.

My best advice is to not overthink it. It gets easier once you put the blinders on and just go for it. The other thing that helped me was taking some time to put a plan together of what I need to do. Marketing can feel very wishy washy and overwhelming at times, but it has helped me to give myself a list of things to do that I believe in. Feel free to find me on Twitter. https://twitter.com/matttli I've been doing #buildinpublic for the past year and went from 0 to ~300 followers with semi-frequent activity.

I've found that authentic content like this post really resonates with people. In fact, look at the engagement that this post has gotten. You are doing it without even knowing it :)

Outsource? I hate this part too, recently we found that a content strategy works like crazy (from 1k/month to 20k visits within 3months).

Find someone to do keyword research pump out articles on this topic like crazy or hire writers. Alternatively you could think of a side product made for promotion like a list of events in the city that’s weekly?

That could answer questions like “what to do in x” “what’s happening in x”. Social media is not best for every brand!

Lots of good replies on here!

I'd add in to take a look at customer acquisition channels that suit you better. If it is not social media, maybe it is a blog about your city? A curated newsletter? Or maybe only onsite SEO?

An easy and way less cringy way for outreach is to contact others who are relevant for you, eg other bloggers, city council, businesses in your city that might be intested to subscribe, or set a backlink, or...just talk :)

Hey Sharon,
Marketing can be intimidating, especially if you're not used to it or if you have social anxiety. It's completely normal to feel this way, and it's important to remember that everyone has to start somewhere.

One thing that may help is to focus on finding your authentic "voice" for your brand. This means being genuine and authentic in the way you present your product or service to potential customers. This can help you feel more confident and make the marketing process feel less cringe.

It's also a good idea to practice your marketing skills. This could mean starting small, such as reaching out to a few friends or family members to let them know about your product or service. As you gain more experience and become more comfortable with marketing, you can expand your efforts and reach a larger audience.

Finally, remember that rejection is a normal part of the marketing process. Not everyone will be interested in what you have to offer, and that's okay. The important thing is to keep trying and to keep learning from your experiences. With time and practice, you will become more confident in your marketing efforts.

I would question why you think it feels 'cringe'.

Really dig into that.

What are you primarily concerned with?

It might just be a self limiting belief, or maybe you need to make the product better etc.

I know that feeling, for people who is not so friendly or sociable, it´s difficult to get people to your product, service, or in this case, an event.

One approach is reaching people of your niche with your own experience, try to maintain the message simple and authentic, and what is better that things that you´d has live before, is from there that you start to make real connections.

Trust me, I really had experience it and it is not the best feeling on earth. Hope this advice is worth for you, so you can find a path to follow.!

Hey Sharon, I've felt the same way. I think the trick is to get to a place where you feel so proud of what you've built that you feel bad for NOT telling someone about it. Like you're doing then a disservice by keeping quiet.

Takes practice and feeling icky sometimes for sure. You're not alone haha.

Congrats on getting your project out the door and trying to work on your marketing!

I know it might feel cringe in the beginning but doing it everyday, you'll get used to it. Even if you have no followers, just tweet and try to engage with the content or tweets of other people.

Maybe try LinkedIn as well if you have more of a visual content related to your project, in my experience they seem to do well.

All the best :)

Hi, Sharon.

I feel your pain on this. I've been quite passive on social media and I recognize how difficult it is to get people interested in your tweets when you haven't been active.

2 things I'd suggest.

1. Just tweet. It doesn't matter. You have to remember that everyone else wants the same thing as you and attention is an invaluable asset in the world we live in, so there's nothing to be ashamed of. Don't think too much of rejections.

Tweet helpful stuff and try to market your tweets by contributing to relevant discussions.

2. Do some cold outreach. This is easier to do if you can find contacts.

I feel this so much too, but I think consistency is the key of marketing especially when you don't want to spend money for marketing.

totally relate to this.

As many of the other commenters have said.... I feel this. A lot.

A few things we've done with my company to try to make it less painful:

1. Post things that do not promote your product but might be helpful to others. I've published a couple articles on medium that had practical info – one that summarized key insights from a bunch of research we'd done, and another that included tips and tricks for keeping fast-moving, globally distributed teams aligned. You can then cross-post on other platforms to share why you wrote it

2. Remind yourself you're doing this for your product/company, not for yourself. Somehow it really helps me to tell myself that this is part of my job as an entrepreneur and something I need to do to help the company.

3. Find others to help hold you accountable. My co-founder and several of our other early employees are also not comfortable with this type of stuff. But we do weekly check-ins to share what we've done and what worked, so it makes the process feel a little less lonely

Change the way you approach this. Instead of "cringy marketing", think of it as "finding customers who can use your help". It won't be for everyone so it's your job to show it to the people who can actually benefit it.

Have you ever found the perfect product after an extended search? You love it so much and would share it with anyone and everyone?

You probably wouldn't have found it without the company marketing it.

There are systematic ways to see who can use your product and why. Check out Founder's Cafe and see the strategy they use.

Yo I feel this so much - I'm in a similar position as you (15 followers on Twitter, low single digits elsewhere, never posted on social media, lots of anxiety)

I've been doing a "marketing week" and I also feel gross bugging friends and family to try my tool out. I thought it wouldn't feel as annoying since I'm building a FREE study tool for software engineers (which a lot of my friends are), but I still ended up getting that icky feeling when asking for feedback.

I think part of it is because it feels like I'm imposing - I'm asking them to do something for me without giving back anything in return. So to combat that, I've decided to change my mentality - rather than posting stuff with the expectation of receiving something in return I've started to just post for the sake of being friendly and helpful. That way I'll at least make a friend or two even if I don't get any new users. Being a solo Indie Hacker can feel pretty isolating, so engaging with a community can go a long way for motivation and general mental well being.

I don't have the definitive answer here, as It's something I struggle with as well.

Here are a few ways i have mitigated shyness and awkwardness:

• Linkedin:
  I love that this platform is MEANT for business. Makes me feel less cringe to post and make content that demonstrates my expertise.

• Avoiding Facebook:
  I have found that I am more confident when i avoid facebook and instagram, where so much of my network is friends and family who are more interested in pics of me, my wife, and our cats, than what i have to say about business and tech.

-Reddit:
It's the MOST anonymous platform. People on reddit may have profiles, and even work sort of as influencers, but since the main component is communities and not profiles, each piece of content stands on it's own, with no correlation to how many followers you personally have. And if you post to a subreddit you just found, it's like a fresh introduction to a new network of like-minded folks.

• Reverse ghostwriting:
  This is a very new one to me, and I haven't tried it with more serious content. The anonymity provided by alternate accounts and reddit was something i found compelling. somehow, removing ties to my real name allowed me to actually be myself. as counterintuitive as that sounds. This week, after almost a year of running a meme page on instagram, I took my hobby obsession with ancient history and mythology and launched a newsletter under a pseudonym.

Called "The Epic Life", it purports to be written by "a Resurrected Odysseus of Ithaca".

I research things like cunning, travel, friendship, communications, bravery, and survival, then use AI to get the tone and sentence structure to be distinct from my own. I write it in first person as Odysseus. The back story is that "someone" (me) has resurrected odysseus, and urged him to start a newsletter in which he shares his wisdom with the modern world. It often refers back to the events of the iliad and the odyssey, and im working on "guest posts" by people such as Achilles, Julius Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, and Hercules.

That's what I got!

TLDR:

• Avoid people you know in real life, find strangers with common interests.
• Consider starting under a pseudonym.
• Try not to judge yourself!

Hi Sharon, I completely feel you lol

I've been building products for years and even the hardest time of building felt safer for me compared to marketing. I spent weeks reading so-called "tactics" online to sell/promote my products (and don't get me wrong - I respect those who put the effort - but that was just not for me)

Years later, I now have 3 businesses generating over +$1M but still avoiding marketing whenever I can loll.

I know I'll keep building more but from what I've learned along the way, I've recently started working on my 4th business which is a "AI growth partner for non-marketers" literally to never do marketing myself again :DD

You sounded very relatable so I wanted to drop a quick note here "You're not alone".

Happy to chat if I can help in any way!

Btw - the tool is Evercopy if you wish to take a look - still building it but already kindda working for me!

Congrats again on your launch and good luck on your journey!

Hey Sharon, first of all, kudos on your launch!

I can relate to the frustration you're feeling. I've been promoting and selling different products online for the last 15 years, and I've seen it all.

In this thread, there's already some great practical advice for marketing. I want to share some less practical tips, focusing more on the general mindset. I hope they will help.

1. Don't Confuse Marketing with Promotion

When hiring a marketer, I like to ask: "Explain marketing to me like I’m 5."

The best response I've ever heard was: "Marketing is like fishing. You need to know where the fish are, what they like, and crucially, where all the other fishermen are."

It all boils down to:

• Identifying people with a need.
• Developing a product to solve that need.
• Telling them, "Hey guys, if you have this need, I have a solution. Here's how it works…"

Not everyone will have the need. That's okay; they are not your audience. Don't spend too much time on them.

Promotion is just the last, and arguably the least important, part of marketing. Understanding your audience and their needs is far more important.

So, don’t confuse marketing with promotion.

2. You Are Not Your Product

It's common to start associating yourself with your product. If the product is successful, you feel successful. If someone dislikes it, it feels like they dislike you. And if someone doesn't buy your product, it feels like a personal rejection.

This isn't correct. Imagine walking into a store. A salesperson suggests the latest deal, but you're not interested and decline. You didn't reject the person; you probably barely registered them.

The same goes for promoting or selling your product. If someone buys, it's because they have a need your product solves, not because of you. And if they don't buy, it's not because of you either; they might not have the need or prefer another product. Either way, you're not part of the equation.

You are not your product.

3. Failure Is Nothing More Than an Opportunity for Learning

If it were easy, everyone would do it, right? The truth is, most of the time, whatever you do, you'll initially be bad at it. Everyone is, at first.

But it's helpful to view the process through a different lens.

Consider the "great dividers":

The first one separates those who do nothing from those who start the journey. You've already passed that one. You developed the product and started promoting it. Great job!
However, since you're new to this, you're probably not very good yet.

The next great divider separates those who can't handle the struggle and give up, returning to their previous lives. I'm not judging; I've been there myself when I closed my startup and laid off 20 of my friends. I know that a company's most important resource is the founder's energy.

But there's more. The third great divider separates those who mindlessly grind day in and day out, hoping to either win big or die trying, from those who treat each attempt like a science experiment, constantly asking, "What happens if I try this? And what about this? How do others solve this?"

I guarantee none of your business problems are unique. Many have faced similar challenges and written about their lessons.

I can suggest a few books if you're interested, but the main thing is the mindset. If you try something and it doesn't work as expected, it's not a failure. It's a learning opportunity.

Failure is nothing more than an opportunity for learning.

I would say leverage your friends and their local networks. Have them help promote it to their networks and build trust and then slowly their friends will trust it and it will slowly grow from there.

It is deff unscalable at first but the first 100-500 users is a scrappy game.

Congratulations on launching your events and community website!

Some strategies to try from a marketing pov

-Leverage Existing Networks: Instead of starting from scratch, tap into local community groups, forums, or organizations that might be interested in your website. Engaging with these communities can provide a more receptive audience.

-Content Strategy: Focus on creating valuable, shareable content. This could be local event highlights, interviews with community members, or insights into the city's hidden gems. Good content naturally attracts followers and shares.

-Collaborations and Partnerships: Connect with local influencers, event organizers, or businesses. They might be willing to share your content or collaborate on events, giving you access to their followers.

basically, try and answer the question; how can i show my knowledge and create a proof for others that im worth hiring or that my service is worth trying out?

It all sounds very familiar to me.
There are ways to promote your product without bothering people via social networks. But they can't be applied to all products.

• Post articles about your product in communities (subreddits, Facebook groups, LinkedIn, Medium, dev to). All relevant communities may have "no self promotion" rule.
• Publish articles in product's blog and wait when the search engines will index them. Waiting time may be too long and you have little control over the result except for writing better and better articles.
• Send the link and description to your friends directly using WhatsApp or other messenger. Not much but better then nothing. Sometimes asking to do a repost in direct messages helps to boost the post.

If have at least small budget on marketing there are more options.

• Paid ads. I believe this is the best option. Especially, a video ad. You can precisely choose your target audience and start with a very small budget to check how does it perform. Try multiple platforms and different ads.
• Paid ads with influencer (blogger). Find an influencer with the required audience and buy an ads integration.
  No need to spend all the money on ads. At least try to start with a minimal budget to see whether the people will click and use your product. If the conversion will be good it will give you the required motivation to proceed.

yeah, i had the same issue. i had spend so many time on developing my product. when i start to promote it, i found that finish the developing work is just the first step. and as a developer, promotion is harder than developing it. how to get X follower is the most important problem.

I appreciate this post. I am in a situation as well where I feel like self-marketing aka building the personal brand on X / LinkedIn etc. is critical. I slowly am getting more used to the idea of simply not caring what others think. I think with time / age it gets easier.
Especially, as you amass any type of following. Personally, I think content / personal brand is becoming a vital piece of all startups. Creators make great products now and buyers prefer a self-guided journey. So just take it as "you gotta do what you gotta do."

I think all the advice so far is spot on. What I will say is you should drop your social handles so we can all follow you and get you started!

Yeah, had the same issue. I think with more stuff you do, you feel less cringe.

At the same time, I think I just turned off my brain to feel cringe/shame for that stuff. I just don't give a damn if people think I'm cringe for doing it because I'm sure there 10x more people who think I'm not cringe.

And in the end, if it's going to bring me closer to the goal, I don't try to focus on the negative. I focus on the results.

A mindset I like to have is compartmentalising the idea of marketing under the domain of "work" and thinking about it separately from a social situation like trying to make a friendship. That way, it feels more like a task rather than a social risk, and hopefully makes you less insecure about "promoting". I also struggle with this and I definitely know that it's not easy!

Cringe Factor is high with socials, to be honest, if you copy what you see from others and not overthink it, you will manage. Just don't be edgy and post the mainstream boring stuff.

Pretty much exactly how I feel too! I almost never post on social media so it feels weird posting about my project. I think perhaps the difficulty is coming up with what to actually post about. Posting tweets during development like problems you've encountered, and tweeting about any updates you've made are good ideas for posts I think!

Being an introvert founder, i can relate to the post big time.

But since we're helping SaaS founders to get quality eyeballs, i can suggest something.

On top of social and referral marketing, try writing helpful blog posts for prospects.

i.e. if you're building zendesk, write everything a founder needs to know about customer support.

Eventually you'll hit the pain point of your customer, and pitch your product to them.

Best part is, based on the niche, there are 100-1000s scopes like this.

And this doesn't question your confidence. Rather, it makes you a friendly expert to prospects. Good for your branding as well.

Personal Advice:

First of all, congratulations on getting your side project out the door! It's a big achievement and shows your dedication. It's completely natural to feel uncomfortable with marketing, especially when it involves putting yourself out there. You're not alone -I have no social media experience and started to grow on twitter to >100 followers. Here are a few personal suggestions to help you navigate this challenge:

Start Small and Be Patient:
You don't need to conquer all social media platforms or achieve massive visibility overnight. Begin with one platform where your target audience might be most active. Slowly build your presence and followers over time.

Focus on Genuine Engagement:
Instead of just promoting your website, try engaging with your community. Respond to comments, answer questions, and share valuable content related to events in your city. This approach can help you build meaningful connections and establish credibility.

Overcoming Fear of Rejection:
It's completely okay to feel fear of rejection, but remember that rejection is a part of growth. Not everyone will resonate with your project, and that's alright. Focus on those who do find value in it. Over time, the fear might diminish as you become more comfortable with the process.

Professional Advice:

Authentic Voice:
Finding your brand's authentic voice is crucial. Think about the values and personality that your website represents. Craft your messages in a way that aligns with these aspects. Being authentic will resonate more with your audience.

Consistency is Key:
Marketing is not a one-time thing. It's an ongoing effort. Create a content calendar to plan out your posts and engagement strategies. Regular, consistent activity can help you build a following over time.

Utilize Partnerships:
Collaborate with local influencers or individuals who are active in the events or community space. Their endorsement or support can help you reach a wider audience without the direct pressure of self-promotion.

Storytelling:
Share stories about your journey in creating the website and the reasons behind it. People often connect more with personal narratives, and it can make your project feel more relatable and genuine.

Progress Over Perfection:
Don't aim for perfection in your marketing efforts. It's better to have imperfect content out there than to wait for everything to be flawless. You can always refine and improve as you go along.

Seek Support:
If social anxiety is a significant barrier, consider seeking support from a therapist or counselor. They can help you develop coping strategies and techniques to manage the anxiety that comes with promoting your project

Oh boy, I can totally relate! I've also recently started my journey on LinkedIn and Twitter, kicking off with zero followers.

If you're reluctant to put yourself out there, one option might be posting ads on Facebook and Instagram. It's quite straightforward, though it can be costly, and you could miss out on valuable customer interactions and insights.

What I'd recommend is to just start posting. Find the platform where you receive the best response rate, and focus your efforts there. But remember, it's not just about promoting your business; it's equally important to contribute to the community. Share posts about interesting aspects within your domain, then occasionally plug your own business.

To maintain consistency in your posts, it could be helpful to jot down 20-30 ideas for future content. This way, you'll have a catalog of ideas enabling you to post daily.

So, keep posting, and good luck! It might be daunting at first, but persistence often yields results.

Someone has probably already said this but there's a strong likelihood that the "cringey" efforts you're making are simply misaligned with your brand and/or not the best way to market your new venture.

Lots of folks make the mistake of thinking "marketing" is going straight to socials to plug their thing relying solely on organic reach (which, on the scale of Effective Marketing Tactics of 2023 registers at a -3) when they either ought to be building relationships with people who already have the audience you want +/- appreciate the value of your offer, and or doing paid ads.

One costs time, the other costs money. One provides an asset (your relationship) the other can get you off the ground quicker (if your ad hits).

I'd suggest instead of trying to deep dive into your own psychology you ignore all that and instead ask intelligent folks with experience, "If this were your business, how would YOU be getting the word out about it?"

We can be our own worst enemies, sometimes. And frequently, it's just best to ignore "the ego" and move on to being productive rather than try to fix some kind of perceived big inner problem that will likely resolve itself with success anyway. 😇

Thanks for posting this @sharon_nomadic_labs. This resonated very strongly with me, down to the social anxiety. A book that helped me tremendously in changing my mindset and I strongly recommend (if you haven't read it already) is "How Good Humans Sell"

Your project is helping a group of people (otherwise you wouldn't be making it). So there is nothing wrong with helping that sector become aware of your project via marketing.

Put differently, if you had created a 1 inch by 1 inch cube, that with 100% centrality solved all the world's problems, would you feel bad about marketing it? It's very unlikely you or anyone would.

Your project is the same, it's just helping at a smaller scale.

Authenticity. Authenticity. Authenticity.

People can smell marketing bull from a mile-off and are now increasingly becoming more averse to it. Gen-Z, in particular, do not want this at all and would rather see the imperfect over the typically advertised glamourised and polished marketing of the past (to learn more, see 'genuinfluencers')

For you, I would advise pushing out brand storytelling as part of your marketing strategy. Tell your authentic story. Tell us what was the problem/unmet need and why you have created your product to fill this need. People want relatability and to see themselves in you. Within your brand story, you need to show people that your problem is theirs too, and that your product/service can fix it.

Best of luck!

Same here. I do not feel cringe, but I do worry. I exhausted the available means. Now I keep trying to reach a little further, every day trying something new, and it fewer and fewer visitors to my website :(

My experience with other things tells me perseverance is the key, so I'll keep trying.
My product is very niche and it doesn't work yet :) It is a page that describes what I am going to build. I keep promoting it in forums and chats.

And on Reddit, I reply to posts where people ask how to resolve the problem my website resolves.
Just as I was writing the previous sentence I realized that I replied only to the most recent posts, but I should reply to the old posts as well. When people search for their problem, the search results by default are sorted by relevance, not by date.

Sounds valuable, you should post some more marketing tactics

It's completely normal to feel a bit cringe or uncertain about marketing, especially if you're new to it. Building confidence takes time and practice.

This sounds like a local product, why not spread it locally?

Good old fashioned pieces of paper on coffee shop bulletin boards, at the community center, a classified ad in the local paper, etc.

Try to come up with some sort of incentive for the first few people to sign up and use the service, as well as an incentive to spread the word. As an example, we previously offered a 30 day free trial of our product to a limited number of users, and we are now offering a free month's service to anyone that posts an authentic review of our product anywhere on the web.

Believe in what you're marketing and tell the truth. Find your voice now while you have no followers.

Firstly, congratulations on launching your side project - that's no small feat! I completely understand your sentiment around marketing, especially as a creator. However, remember that every great product started with zero followers at some point.

Don't be disheartened by the initial responses, or lack thereof. It's all part of the process and with time, the right audience will find and appreciate your product. Focus on genuinely connecting with your community rather than on numbers.

Building an authentic 'voice' is definitely key. Share the story behind your project, your journey, and the value your website brings to your city. The passion behind your project will resonate with like-minded individuals and they will naturally become your supporters.

Experiment with various marketing channels and strategies until you find what works best for you. You could consider collaborations with local businesses or influencers, guest blogging, or content marketing to gradually build awareness. Remember, it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Hang in there and keep refining your approach. You've got this!

Totally empathise with you on this. But if it helps, being sales doesn't really cut it. In fact Seth Godin said that hustling just "bothers people". But if you speak to someone and find out what their pain points are, then you're able to ask questions as to why they're struggling to reach 'X' before Q4 - and how your product can help them. It's like getting blood out of a stone sometimes but it'll be worth it.

Hi . I understand it can feel strange to do marketing if you're not very outgoing. And you're right, just posting on Twitter and Reddit is not gonna bring anything, due the size of your audience. Marketing is not about changing yourself and becoming a very loud salesman. You built something great and you want people to have a look at it.
You're working on an event and community website. You could go message directly people involved in this industry/area. You could target specific music band, sport club, cultural association that would be willing to test or use your product for their next event. Starting at a local stage can help you getting insightful feedbacks and get started.

I feel the same way now that I thinking about to build in public.

I think that something that could work for people like us that feel cringy when trying to sell is to not take thing to serious.

To talk in a relaxed tone not trying to sound like an expert. Just like a friend trying to share something cool with other friend

I totally resonate with this.
Personally, with all my "engagement", I'm trying to do one of the following

1. Make people laugh
2. Make people cry
3. Make people think

So for example, I might write an article about the product area. But on twitter, post some memes about something in tech (as my product is developer focused).

Think sometimes you can focus too much on spamming links than just being yourself and sharing knowledge.

Maybe it could help to create an anonymous avatar for social media. You use it to share your project and increase your followers organically

Marketing can be a bit difficult because you see things from your perspective, but your audience actually sees the message you're transmitting. So nothing to worry about.

One way to boost your confidence in marketing is to focus on the value that you can provide to your target audience. Instead of thinking about it as self-promotion, consider it as a way to help others by providing them with a solution to their problems. This mindset shift can make marketing feel more meaningful and less cringe-worthy.

Additionally, you can work on improving your marketing skills through practice and learning. There are plenty of resources available online that can help you develop your marketing strategies and techniques. Don't be afraid to experiment with different approaches until you find what works best for you and your business.

Remember, confidence comes with practice and experience. So, keep pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, and soon enough, you'll start feeling more at ease with marketing.

i am facing the same issue. Not only that I can not post any comments either.

You mainly feeling so since you're more advanced when it comes to things you're trying to advertise, while your average audience might not be as advanced hence won't notice the "cringe".

One of the folks I know said same about a lot of ad designs, since I think he was doing some for Weby Corp https://webycorp.com/ for some time :D

Oh man. I'm terrible at marketing. It was never my circus and now I don't know what to do with all these monkeys. I am deathly fearful of making the "wrong step" - whatever that means and I have done 0 marketing for my up-and-coming startup. I'm about the launch but am hoping to start selling before actual D-day.

I'm also a designer first and foremost and I suffer from this most irrational guilt that marketing and reach outs "aren't work". I know it is! People do this as their day jobs. They earn good money from it but I just can't beat it into me enough that I'm not being lazy and fluffing off from the "real" work of designing.

Like one of my best mates (who's a brilliant marketer and a go-getter) said, "If you're not doing the work to get you to the end goal, who do you think you'll even get to design for?!!"

Still tough though. For better or for worse, we're now founders and we'd best accept that sales and marketing are part of the job.

Sounds really dumb, but, just do it more often. Engage with people on Twitter, talk about your product, ask for feedback, post on other reddits...

I totally agree with you, especially because I get in my own head when I reach out to potential new partners or clients and talk about the strength of my product - I know they can just go on Twitter to see I have only 20 followers, which in my own mind kind of devalues my pitch (it shouldn't though!). I think we both need to realize that we are new to marketing our products and this will take time and deliberate effort to grow :)

Gotta try everything. I read this book called the One Page Marketing Plan that really simplified things and showed me how much of what we do doesn't actually count as marketing because we execute poorly. This typically comes from feeling like we are a nuisance to others, we don't know how to communicate our product or service, or we simply avoid it altogether.

If you care about the success of your project I urge you to find at least one outlet for you to speak about it--I'm sure there is one that is less painful and perhaps more fun than the rest. Good luck!

Sharon, it's totally understandable to feel uncomfortable with marketing your project, especially if it's your first time doing it. It's great that you recognize the importance of finding an authentic voice for your brand, as this can help you feel more confident and connected to your message.

One suggestion is to focus on building relationships and connections within your community. Rather than just promoting your website, engage with others on social media and in local groups, offer value and support, and show genuine interest in what others are doing. This can help you build a following and generate buzz in a more organic way.

Another tip is to experiment with different marketing strategies and channels to see what works best for you and your audience. Maybe Twitter isn't the best platform for your particular niche, but Instagram or LinkedIn could be a better fit.

Remember, marketing is a process and it takes time to figure out what works. Don't be too hard on yourself, keep practicing, and keep pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone. Good luck with your project!

I never had the thought of "cringe" in marketing, I don't even like that term, it's childish to think about.

I have the same issue to be honest... I feel like someone should make a product that just helps the flow of marketing. Automatically post on Reddit, HN, Twitter, etc... something like that could be useful.

It's less cringe if you genuinely believe in your product and are confident in how your product solves your customer's pains! Always put yourself in their shoes--how do they want to be spoken to? How can you genuinely bring value to their life?

I agree with your overall sentiment and totally get the anxiety side of it all, but you have to step away from what you think marketing is! Why do we use social media or anywhere else where we might need to 'market'? It's to be part of a community, connected to people and ideas.

Marketing and advertising doesn't have to mean what it used to. Whatever you're building, you're bringing a personality into it - social anxiety and all! It's your own mission and vision, and you'll learn what authentic marketing means the more and more you do stuff based on what you feel is best for the brand. Post stuff you might want to see, engage with people where you WANT to, not where you have to.

And just keep going! If you believe in what you're doing, others will to. Think about why you started this, and what value you're bringing. There's all sorts of ideas about marketing out there, and tips and tricks, but being present in online communities and sharing information, collaboration and engaging with real people is invaluable.

Share value, I think that's what marketing should be.

Marketing is the most complex part, or at least resources taking.
Try to generate as much content as you can: articles, posts, product videos if you don't like promote your project personally. Digital content will do it in a passive mode 24x7

It's super hard to get going and I totally understand but what I would do is clearly identify your target audience and then create a piece of content that is genuinely helpful to them. For example, a monthly (or weekly) newsletter that rounds up all the events going on in the city, it could link directly to your site.

Then when you're engaging on social etc (as per the other comments) you've got a valuable, lower barrier to entry talking point that will help get people into your database and engaged with your product. It can be longer term strategy but by offering value up front you can help build trust with your target audience!

Like what someone else said, when 'no-one is listening' it's the best time to test and learn too!

When you start out with marketing, it's the perfect time to screw up. When no one's listening, you can screw up all day and no one cares.

It's the time to practice, work on your presentation, hone your skills and your confidence will build.

Post like someone is listening and talk with high / positive energy.

1. First, prepare your product to a level, that it works flawlessly.

2. Find the right name / domain: it must be easy to remind, make sense & functional

3. Try to create accounts on all big SOCIAL NETWORKS, with the name you just found for your website / app

4. Sign up at indiehackers, producthunt etc.

5. In the beginning marketing must be very careful:
   Maybe your product is not ready / you will have to re-code something
   Other competitors could use this time, to copy & get beyond your head-start

• Therefore, best way is to throughfully test your product, with close friends & family members and listen to their FEEDBACK.

6. NEWSPAPERS: Nowadays, it may be a somewhat old school way of marketing, but in fields of service / customer care (locally) this might be the best way to go.

7. Otherwise, BLOGS or social INFLUENCERS might be your right choice.

In the end, it all depends on your fiancial situation.

It may feel cringe, if you have to reach out to potential clients by PHONE.

Therefore, try to do it via MAIL, if you feel uncomfortable.

I am feeling the heat too...

Start where you feel comfortable. It needs to be authentic and sustainable. I was very new to Twitter so I didn't go all in on that initially. We all start from 0 followers but slowly you will find what works for you, it doesn't have to be right now immediately.

For Geeks and Experts I did a lot of outreach on Slack communities, I used LinkedIn outreach to cold email potential customers and I used platforms like Kernal, Indie Hackers, Product hunt to share the idea with users.

Unfortunately, it's gotten a whole lot more cringe in the last 12 months or so.

I've been marketing for over a decade and even I am feeling it.

That said, the best differentiator is to be yourself. The urge to regurgitate these Twitter templates that are inundating your feed might be strong, but try to avoid it.

Everyone has a unique insight to offer. Find what that is and share it in a way that is easy to digest as possible.

Honestly embrace the hustle on this one! in the beginning do everything that doesn't scale. We started out by creating a very small slack community for our open source repo where we was talking to a vacuum for 3 months. We realised that it is not enough just to create the space (or write the marketing articles) we had to bring people to the community (or marketing content pieces).

I send out 50 invites to people I didn't know (from my potential customer group though) with a friendly invitation, and it ended up growing little by little.

The best way to get better at marketing your project is to simply keep practicing. Start by researching and studying successful marketing strategies and tactics that other businesses have used. Then, try to create a unique "voice" for your brand that resonates with your target audience and reflects your values and goals. Finally, practice making posts and engaging with others on social media, even if it can be uncomfortable. As you become more comfortable with the process, you will find it easier to stay consistent with your messaging and build relationships with potential customers. Good luck!

For the various projects that I've started or was brought into to help unlock its identity, I like to start by taking and putting myself in the shoes of the particular project and ask, "What would make me be remotely interested into this business, it's product or service?"

From there, I can then run through things like... a) How would this business sound like if it was a person? b) How would its content be shared? c) What is the overall value that my business is giving to my ideal customers, and how can I segment this value that can be advantageous to traffic?

Just my two cents!

Hey there!

Have you ever heard of social listening? It basically listens to the internet. We use that internet chatter to create "lookalike audiences" that are more likely to be interested in your brand and ultimately lead to more growth and subscriptions.

If that sounds cool, check it out :D

https://hypercrowd.carrd.co

I feel the same way! It helps me to think that I have nothing to lose by trying. No one will remember in 100 years either and we should not believe that we are the center of attention for our friends. Everyone has their own problems and stories. Hope that this comment helps.

I think you shouldn't only do marketing, but first of all, and probably even first - sales.
Find people who could use your community website. Invite them to sign up, and ask them for feedback!
And yes, talking to strangers... it doesn't feel good, it's really hard - but believe me, it's hard for all of us!

In the beginning, we think all it takes is a great website, a great community, a great app - and the rest will take care of itself.
And then we hear that we need to do marketing.... But marketing the wrong product, without proper product marketing fit, is expensive
and useless. Therefore, go backwards. Start selling first, find leads, and start talking with your customers and prospects -
Talking, engaging in dialogue, is really the most important thing. At the end of the day, your community website is most probably ;) for the community, not for you...

I learned this the hard way myself, and am currently doing lead-gen and sales for my email marketing app Maildroppa. But what
I learn from leads and customers by just talking to them, is gold - it inspires me and speeds up the development of the app - in the right direction.

Wow. I feel the same right now. Especially that 'tweeting to 0 followers' thing and Reddit xD. Indeed, it's a time taking process. I think communities on facebook & linkedin groups really help to get people's attention on your product. I also understand your fear of rejection in terms of social media, but I guess sometimes we need to get out of our comfort zones to get what we want :) social media platforms are the best form of marketing other than content and video marketing. You just have to give your time and get things done for free (Ads can be expensive though xD)

Marketing can be intimidating, especially if you don't feel confident in your abilities. Here are a few tips to help you boost your confidence in marketing:

Educate yourself: The more you know about marketing, the more confident you will feel. Read books, take courses, and attend industry events to learn as much as you can.

Practice: The more you practice marketing, the more comfortable and confident you will become. Try out different tactics and approaches and see what works best for you.

Get feedback: Ask for feedback from colleagues, mentors, or industry experts to learn where you can improve and to get a sense of your strengths. Well, I probably can help you with this.

Focus on your strengths: Everyone has different strengths and abilities. Focus on your strengths and use them to your advantage in marketing.

Believe in yourself: Confidence comes from within. Believe in yourself and your abilities, and don't let self-doubt hold you back

I completely feel you Sharon.
This week is my first ever marketing week.
It feels weird not coding or not working on my products.

I have been developing iOS apps for more than 12 years now.
Until now I haven't find the time or will to get out there and share my learnings, failures and anecdotes.

All I can say from talking to other indies, is that persistence and consistency is king.
My goal is to stick to this 1 week rotation between marketing and coding for 2023.

What is your goal? For how long will you try it?

Congratulations on your release!

I have the same problem. I've noticed that when I worked for other companies before, I didn't have a problem sharing about them on social media, asking people for feedback, etc. I think I can attribute it to a couple of things:

• It was not "me", it was another company, so it didn't feel so "personal".
• It was just a part of my work, nothing more. Just another task on the board to do.
• When there's someone depending on me or expecting me to do something, I can't disappoint them. When I work on my own stuff, I can tell myself "well, maybe it can wait another day".

I've noticed that sometimes I do manage to get rid of my anxiety and think of my own products as "just a job", and then it becomes easier. I need to practice more though :).

Does this sound familiar at all? :)

Try and invest in automation tools, they will handle the human interaction better and eventually as you jump back into marketing the space you'll be better off since there's a path already set for you.

It feels cringe,because its very cringy. I have almost 4k twitter followers and I hate it, I just can't cope with.

All you can do is...do it,if you want customers...

I'm glad you asked this, because I've always had the same feeling about marketing. In my old startup I always tried to stay away from the marketing side of things, even though it seemed necessary (but not sufficient) to have a chance at customer success.

I see a lot of great feedback on your post.

I like a quote by Leo Burnett - We want consumers to say, “That’s a hell of a product” instead of, “That’s a hell of an ad.”

Read the book “100m $ offers”. If your marketing is creating a compelling and unique offer than it doesn’t need to be cringe 😌

I think you should start engaging with people, build relationships and connections first, then focus on building an audience and growing your business

I think marketing feels cringe when you think of it as some mass psychological manipulation tactic, which is mostly one way and IS cringe.

The more I think about it, the better way to do marketing is to be genuinely curious about the relationship between the customer and your product at the individual level and community level. This makes it a two way and is as genuine as you are willing to be.

First I’d like to say congratulations on getting your product out into the world. That’s a big step.

Second, I think you’re just gonna have to do whatever you need to do to get your first 100 users. Even if it means going out and pounding the pavement. Shaking hands and introducing people to your new product. I think founders do whatever is necessary in the early stages to get people on board.

To get some marketing confidence and maybe a plan of action I’d read Contagious by Berger and Purple Cow by Seth Godin.

On page 31 in Purple Cow, Godin talks about getting early adopters, or “Sneezers” as he calls them. They will spread your remarkable idea. You need to go to them and seduce them to try, like, and spread your “ideavirus”.

Here’s some action from Lenny too. Good luck.

https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-the-biggest-consumer-apps-got

-JJ 👍🏾

Well Sheron, coming from a marketing background Twitter and Reddit will be super wrong place to promote a Event/Community website. Think from your audience perspective and where will they prefer to hangout.

What you're feeling is natural - everyone who's not a marketer has felt it. As someone with a software development background, developers have a native aversion to marketing—some absolutely hate it, even. So transitioning into doing marketing when you dislike it is quite a paradox.

What did it for me is really taking a look at the paradigm of why we use marketing at all. The best product is useless if no one knows about it. And a good product will help people—offer them relief, make them have fun, save them time or money, or provide some other benefit that makes their lives better. So by that virtue, you're helping those people by making them aware that your product exists.

Another piece of it for me was the feeling of narcissism that comes with tweeting, blogging, and otherwise posting and sharing content. Similarly though, if you're sharing useful information (just make sure it's useful and relevant) you are helping people. We have knowledge of our domain, and in a way we owe it to the world to share it—since it'll make the problem we're solving easier for someone else. And if we also mention that our product can help with this, people have the option to use it for a reasonable fee, or keep consuming your free information. Either way, the mindset of helping people with this problem that you're good at solving is what helped me grasp that "marketing" done right is really just helping others; you ultimately make money off of it, but as many have said before, you're giving 90%+ of your value away for free.

Hey, I have started being active on twitter to and we will be launching our product in next one month and it was extremely weird for me too to tweet but it becomes easier with time.
https://twitter.com/_girlintheframe
This is my twitter handle lets connect over there and we can help each other grow :)

Congratulations on successfully launching your side project! That's a significant achievement, and you should be proud of it. Marketing, especially when you're promoting your own work, can indeed be challenging, especially for those who aren't naturally inclined toward self-promotion or who experience social anxiety. Here are some tips to help you get better at marketing your project in a way that feels authentic and comfortable for you: Find your authentic voice and let your passion shine through; prioritize quality interactions over quantity; engage in meaningful conversations related to your niche; leverage existing communities and networks; consider content marketing to provide value; accept that rejection is a part of the process; set achievable goals and practice patience. Remember, building your brand and promoting your project is a journey, and with time and persistence, you can find a marketing approach that aligns with your authentic self and values.

it's not cringe but all depends on your interests and how do you feel doing that. do that work in which you get happiness like, I am doing my own work there https://bdsmquiz.co

Passive thought is required to get confident. Build up your leadership quality. Overcome Crisis management. Learn more about Mr. Pravin Chandan Sir says in his blog: https://pravinchandan.com/blog/post/5-steps-for-successful-crisis-management