This is an adaptation of Big Seed Marketing as referenced here http://pandawhale.com/convo/3274/crossing-the-chasm-with-big-seed-marketing that incorporated strong viral and social hooks to escalate growth.

Tom, great article! Main takeaways:

1. Not all Mashable articles are created equal: "This was the first time an article about us trended on Mashable’s first page, and it made an exponential difference."

2. Feedback loops among bloggers are powerful: "Because of the popularity of this Mashble article, other major publications began picking up the story."

3. Mashable, Huffington Post, and Yahoo all send many more referrals than TechCrunch. Sorry, TechCrunch, but exclusivity is bunk.

4. Feedback loops among consumers are even more powerful: "While we’re used to tweets and status updates here and there, we literally had thousands and thousands of updates every day from people recommending the service, bragging about their BrandYourself Search Score, etc."

5. Numbers 1-4 sent search traffic through the roof: "While you’d obviously expect our search volume and direct traffic to increase after getting press coverage, the difference is staggering."

6. Long tail, baby. Long tail: "Again, while none of these were major sources compared to some of the bigger press pieces, collectively they made up a big chunk. To put it in perspective, these long tail sites alone would have increased our users by 50% in that small 3 day period."

7. Promote one feature at a time. Make sure it's something people care about, and TELL A GOOD STORY. Focus on PEOPLE, not your company or product.

8. Optimize your sign up flow and new user experience. PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS SHARE AN INTERESTING EXPERIENCE.

9. Of course, HAVE A GREAT PRODUCT.

10. INVITE PEOPLE IN: