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One Weird Trick… Not really

This video is all about an experiment I did that seems to be paying off.

The basic idea is about what we call social proof. When ads say 8 out of 10 cats, or websites show you the brand logos of big name customers, they are all trying to suggest that if we are good enough for them, we must OK. Another form of social proof works the other way. People don’t want to be the first to leave a review, in case they say something bad, and everyone else loves it, or they love it and everyone else pans a product. Finally, people don’t like to be the first to like or share something. People much prefer the safety of numbers, and following a crowd.

So, in this experiment I wanted to get rid of the zero that DriveThruRPG puts next to the Facebook Share button on every product page. I have shared each of the products I have released in the past month. As soon as I do that first share, and the counter shows 1, organic shares started to follow.

So how much effect do I think this has?

I really have no idea. I cannot believe that having people share these product pages on Facebook is doing me any harm. In the past month, I have gained nearly 100 Facebook shares. If I make this standard practice, and that is my intention, I could be looking at thousands of shares across all supplements each year.

It is a pity that DriveThruRPG do not append a useful marketing source parameter to the shared url. That makes it very hard to track.

On the other hand, this is potential free advertising. Who is possibly going to turn that down? All it takes is sharing the product page to Facebook, using the provided button after you have set the product live.

When I made the video this morning, Solo Adventures Compatible with Stars Without Number had not been shared. I did share it just as I started to write this blog. You can use the link above to see if anyone follows my lead and uses the share button.

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