Comments on: Win the Bowl!

By: Dave Doolin | Website In A Weekend

Dave Doolin | Website In A Weekend — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 20:14:18 +0000

I’m in! I’m in!

Came here from Kevin Kelley’s “1000 True Fans” comment.

My experience with contests and giveaways: these take work too.

There seems to be a lower threshold under which people will NOT take action. For example, I’ve had trouble giving away money. $7.13 is not enough money to inspire someone to fill out a contact form and press “Submit.” Crazy! But it’s true. $15 isn’t for a gift certificate. I did give one away, but I think the person that won it… won it by accident (being the 1000th comment on my blog).

Subscribed.

(And Merry Christmas!)

By: Keith Burtis

Keith Burtis — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:24:28 +0000

The hing is this. The contacts are made. I am opened up to 200 people I would not otherwise know, and I think it’s important to be open minded. We talked about seeing if this project “worked”…. I know it will. More people will be aware of my work because of it and on top of that I know that I will gain contacts. I always do! The reason i always do is because i engage with my community.

Keith

So far it’s been a huge success.

By: Jennah

Jennah — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:12:05 +0000

Sean Cier. oops!

By: Jennah

Jennah — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:11:32 +0000

Yes Sean Crier, but if you do reach 1 in 50 people with a free tshirt, that’s a few people you wouldn’t have reached otherwise! Sometimes it’s the best way to get attention - you know everyone won’t stick, but the ones that do will remember you fondly.

People love free stuff! It must be a fact of nature.

By: CreativeGoddess

CreativeGoddess — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 16:06:07 +0000

Sheesh! Some people are just way to intense…

I was thinking of doing the same thing, Keith, but didn’t want to be a copycat. Hmm…

By: Sean Cier

Sean Cier — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:54:23 +0000

“can’t buy love” was meant mostly as a joke, but it nonetheless always surprises me when people assume that giveaways will lead to meaningful communication. I just spent a week at a conference where we stood in a booth and gave away more T-shirts and pens than I could count, and of the people who stopped by our booth to get a shirt who wouldn’t otherwise have listened to us, I’d honestly be surprised if more than one in fifty still remembered our name and what we do. It was effective in that scenario because they payoff was big (find the right person, and you could end up with a business connection worth millions), but it was still soul-sucking.

Good communication results in good communication. Sometimes new media work, sometimes they don’t — Twitter has worked surprisingly well thus far (a lot better than I’d've ever guessed), but you’re right that there’s a bit of a bot problem. Either it’ll be fixed or it won’t, but I’m not sure that band-aids in the form of Free Stuff will expand your network in a meaningful way, or at least more so than if you spent that time writing more content. But hey, it’s your (beautiful) bowl, and like you say, it’s an experiment. Experiments are good.

By: Keith Burtis

Keith Burtis — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:17:53 +0000

Honestly, no…I don’t. I am talking about being followed by bots. I just don’t follow the back. Also, I’m really not interested in buying your love. I’m more doing this as a way to get my work in front of more eyeballs. I guess thats social media, it’s an experiment. Maybe this isn’ the best way…just giving it a try.

Thank you for your comment.
Keith

By: Sean Cier

Sean Cier — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:17:33 +0000

You do realize that

“It’s simple really, all you have to be is HUMAN with a real live account.”

and

“If you only engage in one way communication, don’t bother following because I will not follow you back and you will not qualify for the prize.”

are contradictory, right? And that the second part really isn’t possible for you to enforce with 10 people, much less 200?

And that you can’t buy love?