Strategic “Spread the word” plan for my project

Hi folks, this is my first article, bear with me :-(
How it looks? I'd like to write as a native, please help me.

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Let me first say that I’m pretty new in this field, I’m a community manager and Linux Sysadmin not a marketing or salesman, so addressing these topics is hard for me. However, I lately decided to get out of my comfort zone and make a run for it, so the first action I was taken was asking for advice, looking for people who are at ease with these arguments: editors, writers, press people.

My aim is quite clear: spread the NethServer word effectively everywhere on press online, social media, blogs.

During my research, I collected every suggestion, comments and also constructive criticism of my project or how my project looks like. This article helped me a lot and now I’m ready to write down a brief plan for my next actions, trying to sort it by priority and necessity.

Site Refactoring 
The first claim I often receive is that NethServer site doesn’t contain enough information on the project, and I think a good first step would be a clear statement of what it is, what it does, and how it does it. Many stuff, already scattered in other pages would be essential right up front instead of graphic animations. We have to bear in mind that as new visitors rush through web pages, they have time to read only a quarter of the text and using the Page Fold concept for our home might be a great idea. Users do scroll, but only if what’s above the fold is promising enough. What is visible on the page without requiring any action is what encourages us to scroll. This is true on any size screen, be it mobile, tablet, or desktop: anything that’s hidden and that the user must uncover will only be seen if the user deems it worth the hassle.

Content Strategy 
Yes, I have to admit I have ever missed this point. My fellows community manager constantly repeat me the same sentence: content, content, content. Without a story, a narrative of your product and also of your community is very hard to spread the word effectively or ask people to review your stuff.

Summarize what happening between people and what’s new in the latest version or in the current development becomes mandatory. I can’t avoid that anymore and sincerely this post is my first step in the “Work Out Loud” path, “Working out loud = Narrating your work + Observable work”

Collect a list of journalists to pitch 
My experts suggested me to collect a list of journalists to be pitched, making sure your pitch is relevant to what they write about. I have to look for writers who cover topics in the area of my project.

A big advice here: when I tell my stories or create announcements of a major release make sure it explains why they should care. Writers want to entertain and inform their readers, don’t want to sell my product

I already started to bother people that work in the OSS space for a while, it turns out they’re really amazing persons, more than helpful. Who couldn’t help me directly was full of advice, telling me their process for deciding what to look at (the first step in deciding what to write about) and also what turns they off. I must admit that Twitter is a super-powerful tool in this case, it permits to reach out people in a very straightforward manner.

Social profiles 
Establishing our social media presence is very important, starting with fresh contents and stories, they relay the message for the project far better than news stories. This invites me to need an active Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ presence, using tools that I already know as Buffer, and trying to be constant with daily/weekly posts depending on the type of network.

Reddit deserves a special mention in this context, a few links about NethServer posted there have generated several contacts so master this site would be awesome! Remind, redditors hate you since they aren’t big fans of self-promotion and can smell marketers from a mile away :-)

Advertising 
Last but not least is the advertise approach, working on sites that already give good visibility to the project, like for instance Distrowatch . Another way to tackle the challenge might be working on Google Adwords to attract more visitors, reaching the right people at the right time. I need to be sure NethServer gets found by people on Google precisely when they’re searching for the things that it offers. I should take a crack at it, starting with a low budget and see how it goes.

Looking for good keywords basing on google analytics data and community discussions would help very much, what people are looking for when land on NethServer website or download it? I have to get it and base on it all my advertise and also content strategy. Our website could benefit from this information as well, not only regarding the SEO optimization but also to structure effectively contents showed on the home page.

Over to you 
I’d love to hear your thoughts. How have your marketing efforts gone? Is there anything new you picked up in this post you’re going to try? What’s worked for you in the past? Are you an editor/writer? Please help me, I’m a real noob in this field.

Let me know in the comments. I’m eager to hear your experiences and can’t wait to jump in and join the conversations.