Ask HN: How to increase users and awareness for free online service
Hi All, A couple of days ago I posted (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43525481 ) about a news summarization web app. I got some comments but not a whole lot of feedback.
The web app is accessible at https://reveal-app.net
In my small online ad placement I got a click-through rate of 1.3% and reasonable engagement based on the amount of time spent on the website. (I have analytics to track some usages). Also anecdotally folks have said they like the concept. Also there are other services for news summarization which are monetized using ads or subscriptions. So there does seem to be a market needs.
I would really appreciate any advice on what the best strategy to increase awareness for this service. i.e. Should I continue to focus on paid online ads or pivot to some sort of social media marketing using influencers etc. As this is an essentially free service and without any advertisements for monetization, I can't really spend a lot for marketing.
Thanks for reading.
--Jantric Am I missing something here? Why are you spending money to promote a service that doesn't make you money in return...? If there are enough users then it should be possible to devise some other monetization scheme to make the service self-supported. perhaps donations. e.g. Wikipedia is completely free, but no one would doubt its usefulness. I was wondering the same thing. It seems a bit sus.