I did an experiment
A few months ago I decided to try an experiment. I posted a page on my blog offering free stumbles to anyone who placed a comment with the urls they wanted to be stumbled by me.
There were no strings attached to receive the free stumbles. It was just a free gift for visiting my website.
(You can get your free stumbles here.)
I also asked people to stumble the site if they felt this was useful but that wasn’t required.
Since that time 25 people have stumbled the page up and the page has received thousands of hits. It only takes a few stumbles to get traffic.
One of the reasons I was able to get people to stumble up this particular page is that I first gave something away for free. And then I asked for a favor to stumble up the page.
Not everyone was willing to do me a favor but quite a few were.
Rule of reciprocity
This follows the rule of reciprocity which basically says that if you do something kind for someone else and then ask for something small in return, the person is likely to do it.
This concept is covered in depth in the book by Robert Cialdini called: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. If you haven’t read this book I highly recommend it!
Has anyone else done something like this? Where you give away something of value for free and then ask for a favor?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Nick…
On my last comment I asked about stumble… well I should have looked first because I see you have a few posts already on this topic, so I'll check those out…
Thanks again
Brye
Thanks Nick for the great tips. I'm learning tonight. Again, thanks.
There is certainly a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points additionally.
That is an interesting idea. I haven't used stumbleupon that much to promote my site but every now and then I'd get a ton of traffic from there.
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that is a very nice idea for promoting the blog from stumble upon