Day 512 - Launch notes for Sheet2Bio - https://golifelog.com/posts/launch-notes-for-sheet2bio-1653623283149
I did things very differently this time compared to all my past launches. Jotting it down here for learning:
• Researched and planned my launch by researching best practices of how creators do it on Twitter. I was lucky - Mattia, Kevon and Minh-Phuc launched recently and I was able to take more than a leaf from their playbooks! That was gold and immensely helpful.
• I also did ‘seeding’ this time. Two days before launch, I tweeted out a ‘Save The Date’ tweets, and asked if people are willing to support by RTing on the launch day. I got about 10 volunteers, which really help push the tweet up in the first few hours of launch.
• I also stopped my usual programming and stopped tweeting about writing for creators and other indie hacking/building in public tweets, and focused on tweets around Sheet2Bio. I tweets about the background, some things I learned, some building in public tweets, and plugging the site and coming launch. This helped to build up more awareness leading to the launch.
• I usually schedule 3 content tweets per day, but this time I just schedule a single one for the launch tweet. It was an experiment to see if I can conserve my ‘algo juice’ for just 1 tweet. Seemed to have worked! (Though can’t be 100% sure it’s due to what I hypothesized)
• I hardly do RTs but there were 2 other creators launching just the day before so I tweeted them out in the afternoon too. Didn’t seem to impact my launch tweet.
• I scheduled it to go out at 6pm SG time, which is around noon Central European Time. That means people are leaving work in Asia, and taking a break in Europe. More eyes on it perhaps.
• I scheduled the auto-RTs for 4h for 5 times instead of my usual 6h for 3 times, to get it in front of my audience more. This also syncs well with the time of tweet, because 6pm tweet gets RTed at 10pm which is 10am in New York, 7am in SF, when the US is just waking up. An attempt to catch the attention during the morning commute.
• I also synced updates to my Twitter profile bio and banner with the launch. I changed my bio to highlight Sheet2Bio first, and designed a banner that shows Sheet2Bio with “I just launched this” copy.
• Updated the open graph image for Sheet2Bio to look more dynamic, since this was what they will see in the link image card preview
• I tweeted out a link. They say don’t tweet links as that gets downranked by the algo. But I had to make it easy for people to check out my site, so no choice. Made sure the preview image looked good, and the pre-launch seeding helped bumped it up.
• I only launched on Twitter, on my Facebook and on the Makerlog Telegram chat group this time. No Product Hunt. Oh yes, and Imgur too (random, wild card opportunity since I needed a new direct URL for the open graph image)
• Tweet goes out at 6pm, and I tried to stop replying to other people’s tweets 3h before at 3pm, so that in case one reply goes viral it wouldn’t vie for attention against the launch tweet. I only managed to stop by 4pm instead.
• I hammered out lots of replies to big and peer accounts before 4pm when US and Europe are asleep/busy, to try to get more attention on my account when they check Twitter at 6pm.
More post-launch retros to come!
• Researched and planned my launch by researching best practices of how creators do it on Twitter. I was lucky - Mattia, Kevon and Minh-Phuc launched recently and I was able to take more than a leaf from their playbooks! That was gold and immensely helpful.
• I also did ‘seeding’ this time. Two days before launch, I tweeted out a ‘Save The Date’ tweets, and asked if people are willing to support by RTing on the launch day. I got about 10 volunteers, which really help push the tweet up in the first few hours of launch.
• I also stopped my usual programming and stopped tweeting about writing for creators and other indie hacking/building in public tweets, and focused on tweets around Sheet2Bio. I tweets about the background, some things I learned, some building in public tweets, and plugging the site and coming launch. This helped to build up more awareness leading to the launch.
• I usually schedule 3 content tweets per day, but this time I just schedule a single one for the launch tweet. It was an experiment to see if I can conserve my ‘algo juice’ for just 1 tweet. Seemed to have worked! (Though can’t be 100% sure it’s due to what I hypothesized)
• I hardly do RTs but there were 2 other creators launching just the day before so I tweeted them out in the afternoon too. Didn’t seem to impact my launch tweet.
• I scheduled it to go out at 6pm SG time, which is around noon Central European Time. That means people are leaving work in Asia, and taking a break in Europe. More eyes on it perhaps.
• I scheduled the auto-RTs for 4h for 5 times instead of my usual 6h for 3 times, to get it in front of my audience more. This also syncs well with the time of tweet, because 6pm tweet gets RTed at 10pm which is 10am in New York, 7am in SF, when the US is just waking up. An attempt to catch the attention during the morning commute.
• I also synced updates to my Twitter profile bio and banner with the launch. I changed my bio to highlight Sheet2Bio first, and designed a banner that shows Sheet2Bio with “I just launched this” copy.
• Updated the open graph image for Sheet2Bio to look more dynamic, since this was what they will see in the link image card preview
• I tweeted out a link. They say don’t tweet links as that gets downranked by the algo. But I had to make it easy for people to check out my site, so no choice. Made sure the preview image looked good, and the pre-launch seeding helped bumped it up.
• I only launched on Twitter, on my Facebook and on the Makerlog Telegram chat group this time. No Product Hunt. Oh yes, and Imgur too (random, wild card opportunity since I needed a new direct URL for the open graph image)
• Tweet goes out at 6pm, and I tried to stop replying to other people’s tweets 3h before at 3pm, so that in case one reply goes viral it wouldn’t vie for attention against the launch tweet. I only managed to stop by 4pm instead.
• I hammered out lots of replies to big and peer accounts before 4pm when US and Europe are asleep/busy, to try to get more attention on my account when they check Twitter at 6pm.
More post-launch retros to come!