 My name is Kevin King, and I'm the Communications Lead at Quorum, a Washington, DC based software startup. Thank you for joining us. I will be your moderator for today's global innovation through science and technology or GIST, TechConnect Conversation on getting publicity for your startup. Effective marketing and public relations are critical to the success of a startup, but they can be expensive. Which is why being able to create positive publicity for your startup is a vital skill to develop. Remember, you can join the conversation by sending us your questions and comments through the chat space next to the video player or through Twitter at hashtag GIST, TechConnect. Let me begin by welcoming our panel of experts. Joining us today from Istanbul, Turkey is Dr. Almas Alon, a former GIST Tech Eye competition finalist and professor at the Federal University of South Carlos and Brazil. And connecting with us from Mexico City is Pedro Lopacella, an instructor for the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps and the Chief Imagination Officer at Canoe. And joining us in the chat space to help answer your questions and share links to resources is Josh Mandel, policy director of policy and international programs at the Halcyon Incubator. Thank you all for participating today. As we wait for viewers to send us their questions, I'd like to kick off the discussion by asking each of you to explain the value and purpose of publicity for a startup. Almas, let's start with you. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to have you and thanks for inviting me for this chat space for this TechConnect. Well, the question is about the value and the purpose of the publicity. Of course, I mean, your startup is like, you know, on your baby. So what it is about your product, you need customers to know about that. So definitely if you know the customers, you know about that, you need to do publicity for this. And when you do publicity, it's actually something that also makes you aware of the product that you have. So you can do the product improvement by the feedback that the users that they have. And also, when you are doing your publicity of the startup. So actually, what happens is you are exposing the team out there. So you can have many new partnerships and also you can attract new investments as well. Great. Pedro, what are your thoughts on this? Hi, thank you for having me. Happy to be part of TechConnect again. I think that when you're talking about publicity for me, the first thing is to take into account that the first thing that you want to do as a startup is get the word out to let know people that you exist, right? And since you're a tiny organization with a very small amount of resources, then the one thing that you should start doing is actually publicity. Because if you do it the right way, if you work hard on that, then it's going to be very cheap to be very well known. So I definitely think that the purpose is important because it's about just getting the things moving, getting the ball moving, and that's the only way to start. Great. I completely agree. I think both brand awareness as well as getting the ball rolling are key aspects to the value of publicity. I'd also like to quickly go over some of the outlets of news and information we'll be discussing today. Both traditional forms of media such as TV and radio, newspapers and magazines, along with digital platforms such as podcasts, blogs, and social media. The latter we'll dig into with the poll results. So Almas and Pedro, what are your experiences in using these diverse media sources for publicizing your product to different audiences? Almas? Well, these days I feel that publicizing your product is a lot easier because of social media. Of course, without publicity, no one is going to know about your product. This is really important. But what I would like to highlight here is about my experience with the GistTech Eye competition. So this was actually the first time when I, basically as people know that I am a researcher by the way. So the project that I had in my PhD that was on the lab scale, so I tried to scale it up and made a business model. So this was completely a different experience for me. I learned a lot from that. And the people also got to know how science works and the projects that we do, they have a lot more importance. So this was something really wonderful. Certainly. Pedro, can you share a bit about your experience with these diverse media platforms? Definitely. The organization I work at has been doing company building in many countries for a few years. I would say that there is no right recipe for doing publicity. It really depends on the country and it really depends on the product and the market you're addressing. It's not the same thing to work for a company that is producing something that is going to be addressed to the consumer than something that is addressed to a business. It's not the same thing to sell a retail product than to sell high engineering, nanotech, bio or stuff like that. And it's not the same also to be selling a product in Chile to say a country than Japan. The culture is different, the media that people are consuming is different and the way that people get their information from is different again. Certainly. I think that there's really important consideration about the diversity of platforms that you approach and that audiences are in different places. And how can you be hitting audiences in each of those channels? With this discussion, I think it's important we can now dive into the poll question that we asked on social media in the days leading up to this program. We asked, what is the best way to get the word out about your startup? And you can see the results on the screen now. Social media was the top answer at 81%, so overwhelmingly social media, followed by TV and radio at 8.5% of responses, then blogs at 6% and lastly print publications at 4.5%. So thinking about this chart, Pedro and Almas, what are your reactions to this poll? And Pedro, how about we start with you? I think it makes sense. I think one of the great things about social media is that nowadays you basically, through some social networks, you can reach to almost anybody, which is a great thing. The thing is that you have to take into account that most of the times social media moves with content. And a lot of the times that you're posting or tweeting content, it comes from regular media. So that's kind of a question that you have to ask yourself every time you want to share something. Yeah, certainly. Almas, what are your thoughts on this? Actually, I completely agree with Pedro. And the question we need to ask about this poll is that our customers, they're not just the ones who are sitting on the Internet. So social media is important, obviously. We can reach anybody, but we cannot ignore the importance of other conventional systems like TV, radio, covers, or newspapers, for example. Because social media, what it uses is the way it works is like it keeps sharing the content. And most of the times, when we look at the authenticity of any news, we go back to where it came from. So actually, if it belongs to some TV or a nice magazine or a good newspaper, so obviously, customers, they give more importance to that. And the part of it can gain more confidence. Certainly. I think you both raise a very important consideration, which is that social media by no means is the only avenue to reaching your audience. And that there are certain parts of the world where traditional means such as radio and newspapers provide a really strong opportunity to still build your brand and get the word out. Are there any specific strategies you might both recommend as far as reaching out to newspapers or radio or your more traditional news outlets? Pedro, any ideas? I think the first thing that you have to take into account is that you really have to know your customer. And if you're able to know the customer, then you're able to understand what they perceive as value. And that would be the first thing I would do. It's easier to get out content that people consume if they perceive it as valuable. So the first thing for me would be understanding really the problem that I'm trying to solve or the opportunity I'm trying to attain. And then after that, just trying to match what I'm trying to share the message with what they are trying to hear or understand. I think that's the first thing to do. Great. Almost any final thoughts on this? Yes. I think for having attention from media, it's really important to know what's a different thing that you're doing. I mean, what you're offering? Why should people give you importance? Why are you unique, by the way? So I think these are the questions that you need to ask from yourself. And definitely if you have put answers to these questions, there's no way that media is not going to get attracted by your idea. Great. Now let's move on to take some questions from our online viewers. Rosetta at the American Corner in Getega, Burundi asks, how can companies use media attention to differentiate themselves from their competitors? Either one of you want to jump in here? I think differentiation comes before the media. It comes with the message and it has to do with what Almas was just saying. You have to understand what makes you unique. You have to find what makes you innovative and what makes you different. And from that value proposition, then it doesn't really matter which media you go to. You're going to be different from the other competitors that you're competing against. Almas thoughts? Well, yes. I think it's about the feedback. I mean, if the companies are using the media, so I think the feedback is really important. Certainly. One question for our panelists comes from the US Embassy in Monrovia. Our viewer asks, do you have to be a publicity specialist to be effective at publicity? I don't think so. It really certainly helps to have a bit of expertise or experience. But in the end, most of the times when you're dealing with media or people that have a big group of followers, it really has to do with a lot of social intelligence. It's more about how you work the words in the conversation and how you reach out to people and how you engage with them. I think it's more about relationships than expertise. I like that. Relationships over expertise. Almas, your thoughts? I guess, let's say, for example, in your company, in your team, if there is no publicity expert, so why don't you hire one? Or maybe, I mean, you need to show, I mean, you need to find out maybe the guy or the person that you are thinking about the one responsible for publicity. Maybe he's actually not the face of the company. So maybe someone within you exists who will be good in publicity. So I think it's just about looking around. Certainly. I think there's a lot of power towards dedicating resources in this specific capacity. I know in my personal experience, when I stepped into the role of doing communications for the startup I worked for, there was a lot I still needed to learn about publicity. So hopefully, at least in the chat space, some folks are getting some good resources from Josh because there's a lot you can learn on the job. And I think that tends to be a common trend in startups. You weren't expecting to have this skill, but a few months then, all of a sudden, you've learned a new skill. Exactly. I mean, this is also a way to think if you don't know something. So even you can do it. You can learn it because these days we have so many outlets and free sources that we can utilize. So if you don't have that skill in case, I think you can build it very easily. Great. Moving right along, and I think this is a nice segue. So after getting publicity, after you've gotten some attention and folks are visiting your website or learning about your company, how can you convert that interest into higher traffic, more customers and sales? I think the first thing you have to do is to have a clear objective of what you're trying to achieve. It happens a lot with some startups that I've worked with that most of the metrics that they have have to do with likes and posts and stuff like that. And what I believe is that when you're at a starting phase, what you need to do is to sell. So I think that as long as you have a very clear objective, what you want to do with that, then you need to map out every touch point that you need in order to achieve it. So you might start with social media or any other kind of publicity activity, but you have to have a very clear idea of what are the next steps after that. And if you're trying to build traction for your startup, then you have to have a very easy to go funnel that has to do with selling what you're selling. Almost your thoughts? I completely agree with Pedro. And once you get publicity about your product, I think it's really important about the quality. I mean, how you convince the customer to stay stick to your product and come back again and also recommend that to others. So I think product development is also really important apart from publicity. Once people they get to know about your product, obviously the next step is to go buy it or to hire your services. It really goes by the quality at the end. Certainly. One of the things we've been very intentional about at Quorum is when we're seeking publicity that we have a specific place we want to drive the interest. So a specific link or landing page that at least will provide more information to those who are interested to really help capture email addresses or to capture interests and wanting to see a demo of the product. And so some of those things have been really valuable in our practice of continuing the interest beyond, oh, wow, this is cool. But oh, wow, this is cool. I'd like to learn more. I'd like to use this product. Moving to our next question from the Nicaraguan American Cultural Center. They ask, in your experience, what products or services are more challenging to advertise? Should I answer this? Sure. I think it's a very relative question. It's really hard to tell, you know, because every culture has, you know, different needs. And let's say, for example, if one product is very important over here in Brazil, so maybe it's not going to be that much important in a place where people, they don't have any access to the internet, for example. So obviously, whatever you're going to or you're trying to sell on the internet, people, they're not going to get it. I mean, even if you make publicity about that, it's not going to work. So I think this question is quite relative. Heather, what you would like to say on this? I totally agree. And what I would add is I would take a step back and say that it really has not to do with the media or the product. It has to do with the purpose. I think the harder product to publicize or to sell is a product that you're not in love with. So I think that it has to do a lot with motivation because if there's a means, there's a way. And if you're very much in contact with the purpose of the problem that you're trying to solve or the product that you're trying to take to market, then you're going to find a way. It doesn't matter where you are, which industry or which country. It has to do with motivation. Great. Those are great answers. Our next question. How should a startup incorporate getting publicity into the overall marketing strategy? So where does the publicity part of the equation fit into the overall approach? I think as a startup, it has to be the starting point because you do not have the budget to make TV commercials and Super Bowl BTLs and stuff like that. So basically I would say that the first thing that you have to do is create content and then just work on publicity as much as you can. And there might come a time where you have the resources that can allow you to do traditional marketing. But at first it's easier to start with publicity. It's cheaper if you know how to work it out. Almost your thoughts? Yeah, definitely. I think no product is a super product that you're going to make it and then it's going to be a kind of a bombastic thing in the market. No, you cannot just keep on waiting to the last step of your startup. I think as soon as you have the idea stage, even since the idea stage, I really recommend you need to start pitching your idea. You need to start pitching your product. It's really important. Publicity is everything. And there are so much competitors in the market and people have so much stuff to see on a daily basis. You have so much social media, you have so many outlets for communication. So it's really important for you to start making space since the beginning. Excellent. Our next question is from Rosetta again at the American Corner in Getega. She asks, how can the use of media help to prevent startup failure in the early stages? Pedro, your thoughts? Assuming that you have a great product and you did find a big problem that a lot of people are trying to solve. Because one of the reasons why startups fail is because they do not have customers and that is not really about awareness. Sometimes it has to do with just the product not being the right fit. Assuming that you have all in place, I think it has to do with what we were saying at the beginning of the program. It's about letting people know that you have a better solution than what is present in the market. So if you're able to change the status quo with some technology or some service or some offering, that people might find more attractive because it's cheaper, because it's better, because it's more durable. It has a value proposition that makes sense to the customer. Then you use publicity to communicate that and that's going to allow you enough footprint to develop traction, I think. Certainly. I think this question is quite relative because your startup, it depends. It's something, you know, it's a product that is a need-based or it's a product that is a wish-based product. And still, how many competitors do you have and what's different that you were offering to them? This is something that you yourself need to see. There is no exact formula that we can apply to say that, hey, this startup is going to have success and this one is not going to have success. So again, this question is, I think, also relative. But definitely, you need to be in the market to assess yourself, to have a feedback from the consumer, because at the end of the day, he is the one who is going to buy your product and your services. Absolutely. And I think one of the roles that publicity really helps play as far as preventing startup failure is to really build that credibility at the beginning in the early stages of the company to establish yourselves as players in a certain market can go a long way. Our next question comes from the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia and they ask, our viewing party, is the question is, what is the best way to pair traditional media and social media to do effective publicity? So how do you combine both traditional and social for your publicity strategy? I think it depends. I mean, are you bootstrapping? Are you on a very tight budget with less financial resources? So if it's that case, obviously, again, the cheapest thing that you can mean, the less resources that you can do is to write a blog, for example, or hire someone who can write a blog for you in a nice way. Other than that, maybe you can also contact your local press like TV or newspapers. You can try that. And if it works, that's really fantastic. But still, if it doesn't work, still, you have a cell phone, just take that cell phone, make a video of yourself, put it on the Facebook, put it on social media, on YouTube. And here you go. Pedro, your thoughts? I agree. And I also think that you have to be very aware of all the resources that you have around you. It happened to us not so long ago that we were helping some scientists develop a startup from a technology they had been developing for quite a while. And it turns out when we started doing publicity, they had more resources than we did. And that is because they were part of a community that had to do with the problem and the product that they were trying to push. So I would say you have to leverage both traditional and new media, but you also have to be aware of who's around you. And in the end, at least from my experience, usually people are trying to help everybody. So just reach out to your network and there might be someone there that might have leverage and help you just put the word out. Absolutely. Another thing I might add is using the form of media to your advantage and what's most effective in those areas. So social media is more conducive to hashtags and the ability to promote content digitally, whereas traditional print media is about making sure it's circulated in the market you want to get to and really play to the strengths of the different types of media I think is something important to consider. Moving on to our next question from the Nicaraguan American Cultural Center. They ask, what is the best recommended way to advertise in an environment where access to social media is very limited or restricted, including censorship? I think that being an entrepreneur has to do with being resourceful. So you just have to be aware of all the limitations that you have, both from the point of view from technology, which are the social media that are being used by the people that might be able to or might be interested in consuming your product. And also that whatever has to do with special restrictions as it was said in the question, you just have to leverage what you have. And sometimes it might be harder for someone to put a product into the market than to someone else or to a different product. But it's just about being resourceful and understanding where you're standing, what's your gravitas and then understanding what's around you and just pulling the levers and see what works for you. I think that's great advice. I have one point to add here. Because this made me think about so many things because in different cultures, things, they work in different ways. For example, if you are at a place where there's no internet or people, they don't have that culture of using Wi-Fi or if there is some social restriction, political restriction. I think you can use the community centers because let's say there's a hospital, there's a church or a mosque or any place where people, they gather at school or college or university. Definitely there are lots of people around there. Who would be interested in your product? So maybe you can have some kind of traditional pamphlet distribution among them or maybe you can take a sample over there. You can give a nice short pitch, you can pitch your idea, you can distribute those small samples. So definitely you need to, if you have a startup, you need to know how to tackle with those adversities and how to still be successful and go ahead as Pedro said. I totally agree with what Almas is saying. There's a strategy that we use a lot that we call go where your customers are at and basically what that means is that if you really understand your customer, again you're a startup and you have very limited resources, you should be able to understand where they gather, what media they are consuming, what kind of interests they have. And it's easier for you to go there than just to call them and try to pull them where you are at. So I think that that's very, very important. Here I also would like to add that I'm from, I'm living in Brazil, but I'm originally from Pakistan. So I recently got to know that there are some villages where people actually they don't know how to use the internet, for example, or they don't give that much attention to those areas. But one thing that is really common is the SMS, for example. So in Pakistan, what I see when I go there, once you don't make a purchase, I just come back home and then there are sequences of, you know, SMSes that I get. Because there are so many packages of, you know, 5,000 SMS, you know, per month, things like that. So nobody is going to use, you know, those 5,000 messages. But what you can do is you can start your campaign according to the resources that you have. That's for example, if you're in a place where there's no social media, definitely telecommunications system, it might can help you as well, apart from the community centers that I said. That's great insight. Moving on to our next question, a viewer in Morocco asks, how can you make your press release attractive? How can you attract the print or broadcast media's attention? So two questions here. The first one being how can you make your press release attractive? I think that's a great question. By promotions and offers and, you know, buy one and get one free, for example. Now, this is something quicker, but the thing is that you can, I mean, definitely at the end of the day, what you are trying to solve, people that are interested to know about that, you know. So what's different? What is unique in you? Why people, they should go for your product and not the one that is, you know, in the market already. Pedro, your thoughts? I agree. And I would add that I think it has to do a lot with relevance and with empathy. You need to make your product relevant. You need to learn to tell the reporter or the people in the media that what you're trying to do is important. And then you also have to be very clear of the message that you're trying to send because you need them to react empathically to what you're trying to do. So I agree. It has to do with the difference, but it has to do with the difference with that specific person that is going to write the article in the media that is going to get the attention of the viewers, right? Absolutely. And I think that one of the additional things I'd add on that is the ability to really tell a story with the press release and that you're communicating both, here's what makes this different. Here's what makes this valuable. And here's kind of the story or message that you can take away from that. And in conversations, I, yeah, and in conversations I've had with, oh, go ahead, Almas. Yeah, and I completely agree with you. This is a very interesting thing. I mean, instead of saying that, hey, I have this product and, you know, buy this, no, you need to create a story, a nice one, you know, you need to especially see that who is your target customer. And you need to put some emotions as well in your story because again, I mean, this is really important how you convince your customer to go for your product and not someone else. Great. Our next question comes from Juan Urbina in the chat space. And he asks, is the impact of advertisement on TV and radio the same or equivalent to social media when targeting youth? Are there any metrics available for how you distinguish targeting youth on those platforms? In the case of Mexico, for example, and some other countries in that America, the challenge that we usually have is that there's very little data that we can support decision making in these kinds of topics. So there are other countries where you have a lot of information where you can leverage and contrast the information. So I guess it would really depend on the country. For me, the typical guidelines is that at the moment there is less people, younger people watching traditional television and listening to traditional radio stations. So if you ask me, I would go to social media or at least some outlets where I can reach out young people. That were the case, obviously. Almost your thought? Yeah, I think the same. This is the social media era and every youngster has a smartphone that makes access to all the social media platforms a lot more easier than having access to the TV and radio. And the second thing is that obviously we are not in front of TV or radio all day long in our homes. Let's say I just have the chance of listening to radio just when I'm running my car. And the TV, I just watch, let's say, the evening for one hour and a half hour, but not more than that. But the smartphone is something that I have all the time with me, so it makes sense, obviously. Most of the youth that we have these days, they are more attracted to using smartphones. And yeah. Certainly. I think one thing, if you are pursuing getting publicity and TV and radio to be asking are, you know, what is the reach of this television station or of this radio? Or what audiences are available if I'm going to pursue placing a story here and making sure you're clear with whoever you're working on on what their audience is and making sure that matches what you're interested in. So for those of us who are just joining, you are watching the Just Tech Connect conversation on getting publicity for your startup. I'm joined by panelists, Dr. Almas Awan, Pedro Lopez-Sella and Josh Mandel in our chat space as our chat expert. We are currently taking live questions from viewers and you can submit your questions through the chat space next to this video or on Twitter using hashtag Just Tech Connect. So here's a question I have for both the panelists. Let's say you're not getting the attention of reporters, popular bloggers, etc. What are some things you can do on your own to get your product visible to audiences? Almas, let's start with you. Yeah. You can use the social media platforms again. One thing is to have your own accounts, but also you can have some kind of a reference from the other members of the community that are around you. And yes, I think it's not about just having a conventional system and having media and having someone coming and having your interview. I think this is a time when you can do lots of things by your own as well. Pedro, your thoughts? First of all, I would say that I think that you have to be aware that you have to build reputation. It's not like you're going to have this amazing idea and from day one people are going to start paying attention to you. And reporters are going to call you to your home for asking you for interview. It's a lot to do about resilience and fighting for that. Starting from there, I would add that you have to do research. You have to understand of those people that are influencers and have certain outlets that you want to leverage. You need to understand who might be empathetic with your costs specifically, with what you're trying to achieve. And if you're able to find them, it's going to be a lot easier to have a starting point of your awareness and reputation and communication and all those things you want to do with publicity. I would like to add here something that I mean, if you're not getting attention by the media. So maybe it's a time that you start thinking about reshaping the message that you're giving for your product. It can be the same product. Obviously, you have one product with the message that you are giving. Maybe you need to change the shape of that message. You need to analyze it. Why? What's the reason behind this that you're not getting attention from the press or from the media? And one more thing is that sometimes what happens is that, especially with the tech companies, it's really difficult for common people to understand what you are doing. If you're the journalist, maybe he is more into understanding the common terms instead of you explaining your high tech technology with high and difficult terminologies. So maybe it's, you know, you need to maybe change the way you pitch your idea. You need to make, you know, a common person understand in really easy words what is the problem that you are solving and how it's going to work. Because many times people who are trying to let the person, I'm interested to buy a cell phone, but I'm not interested to know how you have made this cell phone. So I think maybe it's time, if you're not getting attention from the press, it's time to think, you know, about reshaping the way you are, you're presenting your product. Certainly. I think there is often no one way to tell the story of your company or of your product. And being open to brainstorming and trying out new strategies and pivoting when you need to can really be helpful. Now we're going to go back to some questions from our online participants. The U.S. Consulate in Juarez and Ash B. Torres from Venezuela have a similar question for our panelists. Can you recommend a customer outreach strategy to determine if a product will solve the needs of potential clients? I think that the most common way is making a survey that is really common. So whatever questions you have, are you confused or you are thinking that customers they might accept or not accept about your product? Maybe you can do kind of the survey in the market. Pedro, your thoughts? I agree. Also, I'm a big fan of customer discovery and that basically means doing one on one interviews. And I guess the main difference would be probably that if you develop a survey, you're going to have quantitative information. And the other one, you might have less sources of information, but maybe with more insight of the customer specifically. And to a point it has to do also with the stage you are at specifically. It's not the same thing when you're starting that when you have some velocity already, some traction and some information, especially when you're developing the business model, but either of the way you do it, you have to go talk to your customer. I agree. I think both of those strategies work in tandem really well. That if you have a client survey, you can get a lot of feedback. And if there's one specific client or prospective client that you find really interesting, the answers that they gave to do a follow-up conversation with them to really zone in on what are the strategies that you can take away. Our next question comes from a viewer at the U.S. Embassy in Brazzaville. They ask, what is the most effective way to contact journalists and media when you are trying to launch a product or if you want to tell them to come report about your event? Almas? I guess one of the effective ways that these days people are using or I mean that we can use and it's effective is taking you know the help of the influencers. Because you know influencers are people who actually have, I can say that psychological effect on the consumers, they can affect their ability to decide you know whether they should buy or not buy your product. So I think if you have recommendations from some influencers is also one of the best. I mean there are many other ways but I think there's also something really interesting that you can have this strategy because those bloggers or influencers, they also have a lot of connections as well so maybe it can also help you increase in your networking. And again you know you need to look around, you need to be, you cannot run a startup you know sitting inside your house for example. You need to go outside, be interactive with people in different communities and different you know hotels, restaurants, bars, wherever you see people you need to interact with them. Definitely you're going to have you know outlets where you can deliver your message to a bigger community. Pedro, any additional thoughts here? Sure, I think for me there's a, it's a two-way strategy. You may start with social media and trying to get direct contact with them. If you want to talk to someone or if you want to be interviewed by someone specifically, it might be easy for you just to reach out to, I don't know, Twitter, LinkedIn and just send a direct message. And in case that person is not part of your direct network, you might want to try instead of just cold contacting and trying to reach out with someone from your network. And usually you kind of know who you're related to and this kind of three points, four points in contact with the people that you're trying to reach out. So I would say just work it all the time both ways. Search for the cold contacting and then just search for introductions as well. One thing that I would like to add here is LinkedIn because when we talk about social media, so most of the times we are more into you know, hey we need to you know emphasize our product on social media that is Facebook and Twitter. But the thing is that I think LinkedIn is the way where you can find many people you know in the professional networks and as it's something like it goes on how can I say your connections as well. So if you are especially in contact with some of the friends of the journalist community in your own area, so I think it can really be helpful to you. So I would really recommend you know to use LinkedIn for this purpose because it's really helpful. I think those are great strategies and one additional thing I might add is once you are able to get in contact with them that the first thing you ask might not be hey can you write about the story or hey can you write about us but let's meet in person, let's talk and I think forming a relationship with reporters I've learned has really gone a long way in building trust. Yeah first building is a key you know. Absolutely. Our next question comes from the embassy in Monrovia and they ask what are some barriers to using traditional media for your startup. Pedro your thoughts. In my experience one of the first things it really depends on the country and the topic specifically but it has to do with a lot of brand awareness. Sometimes depending on the source of information they are more used to covering news from big brands so that might be a challenge and again it has to do with what you guys were saying it has to do with relationships. If there is some kind of trust in the relationship if we know each other if I have some kind of credibility because of something or because someone introduced us it might be easier for me just to reach out and have that conversation. But that might be one of the things I need to be kind of known at least if not well known in order to just have that kind of conversation with someone that has the outlet. I completely agree with Pedro and one of the constraints also is they again do you have money and financial resources for doing paid advertisement because social media in one sense if you have money it's really productive because it's going to target the ideal market that you're looking for. Because they have different kind of algorithms that they use so I think money is also one of the values on one hand social media can be really effective to go straight to your target audience. Well on the other hand obviously if you don't have money then you you're just on yourself so you need to have good connections and you need to be known you know in your community and then abroad as well so yes. Great. Our next question comes from the Salvadorian American Cultural Center and our viewer asks do you recommend the use of shock advertising for businesses with small budgets. Almost your thoughts. I think I would not do that. Because if you're going to spend all of your resources on shock advertisement while you have a small business it's on high risk I feel. Pedro what do you think. I totally agree. I think again it has to do a lot with relevance. So it's it's about having a validated value proposition understanding the customer and then just reaching out to the people that that would be empathetic to what I'm trying to do or what I'm trying to build. And you have to it takes a bit of time and a lot of patience but you have to just put the word out and be resilient and keep on shaping the message if it's not working but it's had to do a lot with relevance. Absolutely I think if you're going to if you're going to be shocking to make sure that it's on message it's on brand and and that it's not just doing something to get attention for the sake of attention. So I think that's great insight. Our next question comes from a viewer at Inyan or Libya Liberia and they ask what types of publicity are best when you are trying to maintain your customer base. So to keep your customers interested. Pedro your thoughts. I think you have to base it in content. Again I think I'm repeating a lot this word but it has to do with relevance. You have to put in your customer shoes and as long as what you're saying makes sense to me as long as the content that you're giving me is useful for me then I'm going to be part of that community that you're building. And the moment that you lose that kind of focus then it's very likely because of all the offerings in the market that I'm going to be gone and I'm going to go with your competitor. Almas any additional thoughts here. Yeah I guess I agree with Pedro. You need to be empathetic. You need to put yourself at the place of the customer because customers not having your product for free he's paying for that. So it is something that you need to think. I mean why he's going to pay for you. Absolutely. A good follow up question on this is what are some strategies to recover from bad publicity. I think first of all if there is something bad that happens you know to your product or to your company or anything whether it's a true propaganda or it's a false propaganda. One of the things is that the company should not need patience and if it's their fault the best thing to do is to accept that because this is something you know that public bashes a lot. They really get angry and the company lose their trust when they try to negate that bad propaganda. So I think the first thing to do is to be patient you know to get back to people ask for apology and then get back to your company. And apart from saying I mean asking for apology you need you also need to set you know some future goals in front of that. Hey it has happened but we are trying to sort it out and in future I mean hope is not going to be bad something like that. And definitely then you need to go back and fix that because this is I mean this was your company that happened and it's something really common. I mean you should not panic because social media on one hand it's really productive it's really nice to have it. I mean everything is so quick these days but I mean sometimes it brings a lot of sufferings as well because of you know this much quick. Flow of information it can be true information can be false information but of course as you've been the holder of that company you would not like in fact to go these things you know in the press. Pedro I agree I think we've seen in the past months a few examples of some companies that have done a really good work and others that just haven't. For me the first thing would do is just phase it and the sooner the better because the longer you wait to to make a standing. It's very likely that things are going to get worse so so you better just move fast and just phase your your customers and the audience. I totally agree with Almas when when you're putting the word out there you just have to be transparent and say what really happened and if you messed up you have to just face the consequences. But it's not only about admitting your guilt it's about fixing it you have to do it it's not just saying that you're going to work on that. It's about really doing it and then communicating with them and just it's for me again just empathy and thinking about how would you react if you were on the other side of the problem. Absolutely transparency goes a really long way. Our next question comes from a viewer in Liberia Liberia and they ask can traditional media be used exclusively without social media. I guess these days it's very I think it's not viable. Yes unless you if you're talking about you know somewhere where people they they are known they are still not in contact with social media. But I think as far as I know it's very difficult you know to have such place these days. But of course yes if you think that there is an area where people they can't afford having smartphones let's say or laptops and they're more into the traditional ones in watching TV or radio. So definitely I mean both of them they are important. But for me without social media this is a bit difficult. Pedro I agree. I think that first and foremost most traditional media outlets have presence in social media. For me the question might be different. It would be if in a place a specific place there would be both social media and traditional media. Would I be interested in just participating with traditional media and not social media. And I guess the answer might be not really because what I'm trying to achieve with publicity has to do with with the perfect mix that allows me to have the most awareness and the largest footprint as possible. So so I would say just focus on on the media that might help you the most. And if you end up having some conversations in those other media that you were not targeting at first then good for you. Great. And it looks like we have time for one more question from our viewing audience. How does getting publicity differ in different countries. Almost your thoughts. Again I think it depends a lot on the culture where you're trying to but besides your product it depends a lot on the culture the way people think so actually you need to be part of those people. So let's say if you have made one product in an African country so maybe with the same propaganda the same advertisement that you're going there in Africa is not going to work in the US for example. And the same thing goes for the US. I mean if you have one product for people in US and you are telling them that hey we are solving this problem. Maybe people in Africa are not having you know that that product you know for solving their that problem like let me give you an example like let's say for example in umbrella. So in a country where it rains a lot you can you can make it's publicity like hey it can save you from rain but when you go to a country where it's a lot sunshine. So you need to change you know the words although the product is the same. So you need to literally you know you need to go and live with the reality of that area of that region where you want to sell your product. Pedro. I think it has a lot to do. I agree with culture and it has to do with the types of media that people have in that specific country. And even the media that they have in a specific industry or the type of product that you're trying to sell because I mean thinking about one specific country. It would be different to sell one one product that is address to consumers that you're going to be I don't know buying in a supermarket then a technology that you're going to sell to industry for example. So it's not only different between countries but it also has to do with the product or the problem itself. And I think it's totally different and I agree with what I almost was saying it has to do with the culture and the type of customs that people from media and from social media are being used to consuming and developing content and information. Certainly. Well it looks like we are almost out of time. Before we conclude though I would like to ask each of our panelists. What would you say is the most important takeaway for our viewers from today's discussion. I'll must have a start with you. Yeah I would like to say that if you have a product startup so you need to you need to flow that idea you need to talk with people you need to be in the communities. Because I mean and don't fear that what will happen if your idea or if you're starting to fail because the thing is that the faster you fail the faster you learn and faster you. I mean and you should have you know the courage to stand up again you know and improve your product and come up again. It's definitely going to work. Great. Pedro. For me I think the first thing after validating my value proposition would be raising awareness and the cheapest way and the probably the most efficient way to do it is with publicity. So just understand what your customer needs develop that solution and validate it. And as soon as you have that start talking to people about what you just created. Let them know. Wonderful. Well thank you both for joining us and a shout out to Josh Mandel for contributing in the chat space and a special thanks to everyone viewing today especially to the host groups viewing around the world bringing entrepreneurs together to be a part of this conversation. We had audiences at the American Corners in Toronto and Valora Albania the Embassy in Monrovia with the Youth Network for Reform. We had American Spaces watching on at CCNN in Managua Nicaragua, Universidad Catolica in El Salvador, ICC in San Salvador, CCSA in San Salvador, CCS in San Pedro Sula Honduras, IHCI in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The Binational Center in Monterey, Mexico. The U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The Thomas Edison American Corner in Paraguay. The Aracana Binational Center in Argentina. The U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria. American Corners in Getega and Camanga in Burundi. The American Center in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. The American Corner in Cacata, Liberia. CDEA in Tanzania. The American Corner in Kigalia, Rwanda. The GIST iHUB in Egypt. LSPACE in Tunisia. NILAB in South Africa. Botswana Innovation Hub. CTIC the Car in Senegal. And PSEEA in Turkey. Please continue the conversation on Twitter at hashtag GIST TechConnect and check back here on gistnetwork.org for information about other upcoming events. I hope you all enjoyed our discussion today and thanks again for joining us. Goodbye.