Success Story: iMantri

Launching the industry’s first ‘business’ social network for mentoring and coaching within a 60-day window

Challenges


Generate buzz for “yet another social network” at a time when the industry had become increasingly skeptical of the Web 2.0 market. Engage social media and mainstream business press, two disparate audiences, with a unified message.


Results


Activa PR helped secure top-tier coverage for iMantri within the tech blogging community and leading business outlets. More specifically, coverage of iMantri in Techcrunch created a viral effect that catapulted into more than 30 additional blog pick-ups within a week. Activa went on to secure interviews and coverage with other high profile publications including BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times – all within a short launch period.


iMantri is the industry’s first business social network
for mentoring and coaching.


As a “niche-focused” online community, iMantri needed to gain traction within a tech-savvy, Web 2.0 audience, yet also reach a user base interested in career advancement, entrepreneurship and coaching and mentoring. The challenges involved building buzz for a social networking application at a time when the media had become somewhat skeptical of this market as well as helping the company reach two disparate audiences within a rapid timeframe. Activa took a number of approaches that resulted in a successful iMantri launch including:

  • Focusing on developing clear and concise messaging for iMantri. There were no other solutions in the marketplace to help people find a good mentor based on individual competencies and goals. Activa identified the key audiences for the application and went after the top editors and reporters that addressed this space in an effort to generate as many media impressions as possible.
  • Launching the application during January, also “National Mentoring Month” and using this platform to introduce the industry’s first social networking site aimed at mentoring and coaching. Activa employed this strategy to tie iMantri’s story to a larger national issue and heighten “news value.”
  • Developing a strategy to gain as much momentum as possible during the Web site’s initial beta phase. This meant working closely with the editors at Techcrunch to champion iMantri and ultimately break the story of the company’s launch. Activa invited Techcrunch readers to try a beta version of the iMantri service. This effort helped to recruit the first 350 users to the site and provided valuable feedback from a tech-savvy audience.
  • Securing interest from high-profile publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek and engaging those editors who covered entrepreneurship, management, career advancement and HR-specific issues.

Within 60 days of working with Activa PR, iMantri went from a stealth-mode idea to a key player in the online mentoring space with exposure in both the social media and mainstream press. The New York Times, for instance, cleverly labeled iMantri as “the online dating approach to mentoring.” The attention garnered through Activa’s efforts helped iMantri fast-track industry credibility and capture the attention of potential partners, while building a solid pool of beta users on its Website.