Tara Hunt – MI4 (The evangelist trilogy)

This story revolves around a small web 2.0 company that dared to dream BIG, (ahh..how cliched) and how it all played out. What may seem to be a “Mission Impossible” for some marketers — to have ONE GAZILLION (nah, 1 million) signups IN 2 DAYs — and how it turned into reality, is a fascinating case study & a must-read for all entrepreneurs and marketers alike.

Company: Riya

What they do?: Photo Search (this is much cooler than you think). Read and learn – via Tech Crunch.

Claim to web 2.0 fame: 1 Million photos in 2 days

Enough said, here are Tara’s 5 steps to be a good marketer

In summary, a good marketer —

1. drinks their own kool-aid
2. is an expert at what they market
3. plans in advance BUT is flexible
4. builds relationships with the user-community
5. is an advocate of the community

By the time I read the entire blog post (tad long, but TOTALLY worth reading for any marketer) and its genesis here, I realized that Tara’s the kind of marketer, we call a customer evangelist and that this post will actually be a part of my trilogy of posts on customer evangelists — the other two of which you can find here (on Kawasaki), and here (my definition).

Feel free to check out the Riya Story in both dimensions – via Munjal’s blog (entrepreneur) or via Tara’s blog (marketer). Tara, feel free to let me know if I’ve missed anything in translation, but kudos on bringing the magic back into web 2.0 evangelism – MI style!

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  1. Tara ‘Miss Rogue’ Hunt

    Thanks Mario,

    I'm honored to be part of your trilogy! 😉

    —————————–

    Heyyy, 

    I chose you over Seth Godin 😦 Just kiddin!

    Jokes apart, Tara, the Riya story is an inspiration to marketers, technologists and entrepreneurs alike. Thanks for sharing. 

    -Mario

  2. Jeremiah Owyang

    Mario

    Riya just launched their new homepage: I've left some thoughts about it here

    http://jeremiahthewebprophet.blogspot.com/2006/06/riyas-new-homepage-features-and-user.html

    —————————-
    Jeremiah,

    Thanks for sharing. I just checked it out. You raise a few interesting points on Riya's re-designed front page (http://www.riya.com/).

    My take is predicated on the philosophy of "simple is cool". More to come shortly.

    -Mario  

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