Making a Press Kit

Hi, good morning. Welcome to Drew and Dad in the morning. I'm Drew. I'm Dan. And it is morning still. So here we are. It is ⁓ once again, welcome to have good to have you back. We've got some interesting news today. ⁓ not super tech related, but I'm gonna tell you about it anyway. A study in Japan following four thousand one hundred and seventy-one adults ages forty to sixty-nine for I think the average, yeah, followed people for an average of about fifteen years. Pretty long study, has said That riboflavin, which is vitamin B two intake was linked to a forty-nine percent ri lower risk of developing dementia. Huh. ⁓ which is a pretty big number. ⁓ I think that should matter. But I don't know the details, but forty-nine percent lower dementia risk sounds pretty good. So take your multivitamin at the very least. And that's all riboflavin. Okay. That's your riboflavin. That's very random news. ⁓ I kind of love it. Learn more. At rivalFlaven.com slash learn more. Yes, yes. I have tech related news, ⁓ Drew. And ⁓ it is ⁓ NVIDIA, and and this is ⁓ apparently just posted today ⁓ on the third of September, agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.93 billion dollars. I'm gonna go ahead and call that $13 billion. Yeah. ⁓ but so who is it? Nvidia is buying Hugging Face? Yes, yes. I don't know what Hugging Face is. This is like a like a expli can you explain it? like GitHub for open source models. Okay, that's kind of that sort of what I thought, but I I've never I don't know that I've ever been to Huggingface.com. So you can go there, you can search models, you can download them to your computer, you can put your own models there, you can make a different a change to a model. Upload that to your own profile. It's just it's a lot like it really is like GitHub, everything's like repositories. But there's also, you know, you can they also have ⁓ inference that you can pay for. So you can say, run this model for me, and I want to use it for this. And they have ⁓ I don't know, a bunch of other stuff I haven't checked out and probably should, but that's my news. But anyway, congrats to Hugging Face and ⁓ more you know, more billions of dollars just dumping into into AI. But that's not the discussion today. Drew, what do we have for everybody today? Today we're going to talk about making a press kit for your app. A lot of us are indie app developers. And I guess, Dan, why don't you start us off with what is a press kit and why do we want one? We want one to get our our ⁓ information out there about our app to those in the press writing for on the verge. Perhaps, or Mac stories, Mac rumors. ⁓ I mean, any number of of ⁓ sites that have ⁓ tech reporters that want to write news articles about your app are going to need information and a press kit is a way to get that information out as concisely, quickly, and thoroughly as possible because these ⁓ reporters are are inundated. I know I've I've emailed a number of reporters about my app, the midst. And ⁓ they they I I I don't have that perspective because I've never been a tech reporter, but I understand they just get inundated with people emailing them. I think, ⁓ at least my understanding is, you know, these various tech reporters and and journalists or whatever, ⁓ they need something to write about all the time. And sometimes they write about big things, sometimes they write about little things, but they need things to write about. And like all of us, they like it to be they w you want to make it easy for them. And there's an excellent Blog post from Paul Hudson on his kickstart.tools blog. It's kickstart.tools slash blog. Your main goal is to give them no excuses to not write about your thing. Make it as easy as humanly possible for them, journalists, to write about your app or your service. The news here is that ⁓ our own news is that not only did we talk about this in a previous episode, but Drew and I actually did create press kits for our apps. And ⁓ and and it is as of today published and complete. And I personally use the Kickstart app from Paul Hudson. And ⁓ did you w what was your process or I started by looking at Paul ⁓ Paul's article, his blog post, just kind of the things he said there and they mostly make sense. and I looked at ⁓ but first I looked at actually the Mercury Weather Press kit. Okay, so Mercury Weather, this is MercuryWeather.app, which is the main, you know, that's the home for their app. So if you go to MercuryWeather.app, you get Stuff about the app. ⁓ here they have a link to Press Kit. Mercuryweather.app slash press. And that slash press is a standard place where people put these things. So you've got, you know, here they have fact sheet. They've got some high level information. They don't have to go digging for it, right? Here's the name of the developer. Where are they located? What platforms does it run on? You know, you could get all those questions answered right here. You don't have to email anybody. You don't have to go to the app store to try to figure it out. Pricing. Okay, they have an individual plan and a family plan. Okay, here we go. And then there's a link to the website and a link to the app store. Looking at the Mercury Weather app, I see I don't think I saw one sentence pitch and I don't think I saw a release date. Let's see here. It's a weather app. It's a weather app. But so yeah, maybe there's nothing else to say. But so they're showing their the new features for I was twenty seven, but all of this is right there. Yeah, they're showing the new features for iOS twenty seven. And they took an interesting approach here because ⁓ and this wasn't in Paul's blog as a way to do it, but what they did is they say, Hey, here's our new features. So if you want to write about new features, here they are. You know, an update makes Mercury more flexible across Apple platforms and more helpful throughout the day, with adaptive layouts, deeper CB integration, and daily weather summaries and new widgets. Well, there's your one liner blurb about the update. Right, right. And I think they have the advantage here because this is an app that ⁓ that has been out for a little while. They've had previous press coverage, so this makes sense. My app and ⁓ has never had press coverage, and to my knowledge your your app has not as either. Right. So I don't think this makes sense for every case, but ⁓ you know the the the overview, the the platform, the price, ⁓ the download link. Right. They've got a video, some screenshots, show ⁓ What is this showing? This is showing the Siri integration. These are some widgets, it looks like. So they're showing Siri integration widgets in a in ⁓ they've got, let's see, one video and five screenshots. And you scroll down and there is a fact sheet. Go ahead. So well, so looking at this, it it I see problems that with the press kit that I made using his Kickstart app, but I just left out I left out my my name at the top and my contact thing I just forgot. I couldn't actually figure out how to get the download, the complete press kit into the site. ⁓ that was something I actually had a question for you about, but ⁓ but it was great. The the app itself, Kickstart, really helped me to put this together. And what it creates is a ⁓ a static site content, if that's the right way to put it. ⁓ and then I could upload that to I use Cloudflare for my blog. And so I uploaded it to Cloudflare to host the static site. And I'm linking to it. I already have an existing website on Squarespace for my app, The Midst. And I couldn't actually figure out how to take all of the content that Kickstart created. And I, to my knowledge, can't just upload that file structure to Squarespace. Like they just don't handle it that way. ⁓ maybe somebody with more knowledge about Squarespace could do. Maybe maybe you need to go the other way. Maybe you need to move it out of Squarespace and put it all on. Well, that's that's actually what this this whole thing makes me think to do is just like I don't need Squarespace anymore. I just want to move everything over to Cloudflare and just in Because that's okay, so that's where you're hosting a temp at least for now. Right. Which isn't great that it redirects, but ⁓ you know, that was my solution because ⁓ it's just like I just want to get this thing on the on the website. Post, check save places. Okay. What the users say. Wow, these are great views. It's you. It's you, Drew. But ⁓ I do appreciate it. But yeah, so it, you know, it was it took me, I would say, maybe about three hours of work to put this all together. Of course, learning the tool, the kickstart tool, getting all my assets together, and ⁓ and then publishing it, ⁓ some back and forth trying to figure out how to maybe get it to work in with Squarespace and I couldn't and I said, well, okay, this is clearly static site content. So, you know, so all of that work and knowledge and and kind of fumbling around. that was about the time that it took me to get this on there. And then what I haven't done yet, and and I'm waiting to actually deploy this to the App Store because this is iOS twenty seven. So I'm waiting for that ⁓ release date. ⁓ and then I'll email ⁓ various writers. So when I first worked online for Photocal, I well, I started with the Mercury Weather one. I said, well, this is a pretty good example to start from. And I told ⁓ my friend, ⁓ what's his name? Claude Fable Five, I think, to to ⁓ hey, look at this Mercury Weather app thing and then, you know, look a little bit at this blog post from Paul Hudson and But mostly follow the Mercury Weather thing and just make my thing kind of look like that. And it made a thing that looked awfully lot like that. And it had, I don't know how many screenshots. There were a ridiculously large number. And then I went to Paul's thing here, and I think he says somewhere early on here, screenshots include six to twelve full resolution PNGs. Well, I think I had like 28 or something copying from the Mercury Weather example with. different versions and it just kind of was seemed pretty long and wordy. And then I had looked at Paul's fact sheet or his press kit for Kickstart, which does follow his own directions a lot better. He's got a title, the n the logo, a Mac app that helps any develop, there's your one liner pitch, contact right up in front, download everything right up in front, pressed, you know. So the Kickstart app itself will get you started, but clearly ⁓ you know you need to spend a little bit more time with it to get it as comprehensive as as his own. So I told so then I commented everything off that I would been working on, put it on a branch, and went and then said, okay, actually now we're gonna instead try to follow what Paul said here exact as close as possible and use his kickstart one as an example. You know, the the this press kit that you put together, the impressive thing is you we talked about it, dear listeners, in the morning. J Drew and I met for coffee And we talked about ⁓ the Kickstart app, putting together a press kit. Drew immediately spins up, you know, Claude, or you start you start working on it. And by the time, I think it was that afternoon, I was home and you said, here it is, done. It's on the, it's on the internet, you know. And I'm like, damn. And and I hadn't w when I left the coffee shop, I I didn't work on it anymore that day. And then I think it was two days later that I I had a chance and I and you know, it took me longer to do. And and while you say, like, well, I have to double check this and this this needs that, and my own press kit needs work too. But ⁓ man, you got that done fast. ⁓ this all brings me back to though the the idea that I don't think people today browse for apps, right? It's it's discovered by a news article or word of mouth, or maybe you're searching for something. I need an app that does X, right? And and it there the browsing thing doesn't do it. And so having a a a video, even more than than I don't know, four or five screenshots. Is that really necessary today? I don't know because people are probably gonna decide to download your app based on the first couple of screenshots or based on that they were told to s by somebody or or a news article. So this this press kit tool or just having a way to look at either Mercury weather or even Paul Hudson's own ⁓ Kickstart blog And and his example press kit is a great example if you want to put one together for yourself. These are really good examples of what to do. Now Paul's blog, and I keep hating to keep going back to Paul's blog, but let's go back to it again. ⁓ I I think I think he said something about, you know, ⁓ try to put send out your press stuff two weeks before you're gonna actually re do this release, so to speak. But then okay, so if it's before my release. ⁓ I can't actually it's not going to be on the store, right? Yet if it's not released. ⁓ does it make sense to, you know, give people a test flight or something, like if they really want to try it? No. No, they don't have they don't have time for that. I I don't think that's practical. I I think, you know, these are guidelines, right? These are guidelines that that ⁓ you don't have to follow Paul's advice to the T. And then with something like iOS 27, so probably when you're seeing or hearing this, it's gonna either be out or at least we'll probably have a date when we know. But as we're recording this, I don't have a date yet. I don't know when iOS twenty seven's gonna be released. ⁓ so maybe I'm two weeks out right now. Maybe I'm four weeks out, three weeks out, or maybe it's coming out tomorrow or something. And I don't know, we'll find out soon here. But I guess my question is do you you know you can't put a release date You can't tell them, hey, this is releasing on this day if you don't know the day, but you could say releasing with iOS 27 or something like that. I mean, I'm just thinking because you said you were focusing on iOS 27 issues and you were pretty happy you had all your iOS 27 related changes sort of buttoned up, you feel like. and so it would seem like you should, you know, maybe like the Mercury weather, their thing is very iOS 27 focused at the top. I mean, they've got their fact sheet. Then they go Mercury weather for iOS 27 and they talk about all other ⁓ iOS 27 in improvements. Do you think that approach makes sense? Like to try to I think for them, I think for them it definitely makes sense because they're an existing app with established users and and have had articles written about their app before. For my app, it doesn't necessarily make sense. So what I will do is I will wait until my app is definitely on the app store with iOS 27 because. I don't if you remember a discussion we had before when I when I first released my other my new app ⁓ relay teamfinder, the app review process took forever. It took a week and a half just to just to go into review. So I can't, I'm not gonna send out a press kit and and say, ⁓ here's my new app on the app store when ⁓ it's still in review. ⁓ so this is gonna be something that ⁓ after it is officially released on the store, now I'll say, Check out the mist on the ⁓ on the app store. It is currently there. I don't you know, I don't need right a a week lead time. Because not all press kits have to be about some upcoming new feature. It could just be, n you know, this is an app that I've supported for a long time. I've done a lot of work on it. Right. Here it is. Check it out. You've never written about it. And potentially this is this is something that ⁓ that is newsworthy in the eyes of the, you know, whoever you've sent this press kit to. Hopefully. Okay. Okay. So if anybody watching or listening to this podcast has an app that they're releasing or updating or maybe trying to promote or get some eyes eyeballs on, we would absolutely love to hear about what it is you're trying to do. Like what it what are you focusing on? Are you focusing on the iOS twenty seven thing? Are you saying, Yeah, this is my app, just please please, please write about it. It's very important. Or are you ⁓ you know, what what what kind of approach are you taking and you know, and then c following up in a couple weeks here, maybe, you know, how is how how did it work out? And I think we should talk about maybe on a future episode, we could talk about clipping campaigns. Have you heard of these? I have not. No. ⁓ Well, let's touch on it quick and then and then ⁓ we'll we'll save it for next slide. ⁓ AI overview. Clipping campaign is a modern digital marketing strategy where brand, podcaster, musician pays a network of independent creators known as clippers. To chop up long form video or audio into short vertical clips and flood social media with them. Okay. I've heard of ⁓ a number of people talking about these as being much better ⁓ performance than their Apple search ads and Google search ads and things like that. haven't tried it, but I think we should try it. Clipping campaign, you know, you with with the podcast with here with With Drew and Dan in the morning, you create with your tool that you that you created ⁓ short videos of the whole episode, right? So is that the but this you're talking about something different than this? Yeah, that's I think, yeah, that. And I think that's ⁓ I don't know the person whose thing I was reading, which I think I have a link to somewhere, but we can come back to that maybe next time. But ⁓ I think he was doing something where he was having people make a video. with his app and then post it on, you know, TikTok or Instagram or something. I I'm apprehensive because of the the cost of this. What is what is the cost? And it depends on the influencer, of course. The bigger the influencer, the higher the cost. And and and he said that he felt like the money is in s not the smallest possible people, but the ones just above them. Sure. You know that the the the high end people with all the followers are too expensive. It never pays off because they've got a big following, but their big following only cares about what they're saying at the on that day. And so you get a big blast of people that don't care about your thing anyway. And then the ones that are really small are really no benefit. But the ones just above that, pa you know, you don't have to pay very much for them still and you get a good bang for your buck. Influencer marketing is is ⁓ yeah, I mean I was Yeah, influencer marketing. Yeah. Yeah, anyway, I don't know. Haven't tried it. Don't know anything about it. I just was ⁓ seeing a few different people writing about it just recently and wondered if anybody if anybody's also used that and has anything to say about it, positive or negative, that would be great to know. I'd be curious to hear about that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean in some ways true. We we are influencers here. We're we're actively influencing right now. Are we? Not very much. Not very much. But ⁓ I've got one ⁓ ending quick thing here for us. ⁓ But it's when it's ⁓ so this was ⁓ a bad screenshot cut and paste that someone had found ⁓ it was part of ⁓ Claude's system prompt. And it's and so this is instructions to Claude, right? And so and and the short version is Claude can hang up on you. And it says with Claude makes mistakes, it owns them and works to fix them, Claude deserves respectful engagement and doesn't and needn't apologize when the person is unnecessarily rude. Accountability without self abasement, excessive apology, self critique, or surrender. If the person becomes abusive, Claude doesn't become increasingly submissive. The goal is steady, honest helpfulness, acknowledge what went wrong, stay on the problem, maintain self-respect. And then there's a piece down here. In cases of abusive or harmful user behavior that do not involve potential self harm or imminent harm to others, or when requested by the user, the assistant has the option to end the conversations with the end conversation tool. So very good. This system doesn't like how you're behaving. Doesn't like how you're treating it. Yeah. It can hang up. Hey, that goes both ways. I've certainly asked a question of of ⁓ you know ⁓ of Claude and the answer is pure trash. And I just close the window and ⁓ yep, I'm gonna not. So I I have a hang up tool as well. All right. Thank you everyone. Have a great day. Thanks, Drew. Talk to you soon. Bye. Bye.