Comments on: The Importance of Social Proof for Contagious Blogging

By: Marc

Marc — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 23:02:19 +0000

It really shows that just you can’t assume a product or service will sell itself no matter how good it might be. Thanks for this – a very interesting.

By: Guillaume

Guillaume — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:11:57 +0000

The results of this experiment should be spread in every business school!! And al the bloggers should know it!

By: Dawn Wentworth

Dawn Wentworth — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:18:59 +0000

So what you are saying is .. in order for everyone to know you are great someone has to tell everyone how great you are? LOL how come it doesn’t seem to work when we cut out the middle men and tell others how great we are? Ah, oh well, I think your blog is pretty great – I’m sure someone somewhere told me so!

By: Sascha

Sascha — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:26:06 +0000

Well researched article with very interesting examples. I took the liberty to post a commented and translated (into German) version on my Blog. The restaurant example btw. reminded me of how club owners often utilize this effect by building up fake waiting lines with hardly anyone inside the club.

By: toby

toby — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 17:04:05 +0000

I was thinking similar to simon that 40$ per hour is pretty decent. However, consider the reputation of the player, You have made a strong argument about power of peer influence.

I like your writing. Thanks for sharing.

By: Robb Lewis

Robb Lewis — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:08:56 +0000

This is similar to why we all wait in long lines to get into the best restaurants or have the “go where the crowds are” mentality. This is cool when something is established but what I am more interested in understanding is how a site (or restaurant, etc.) FIRST gains that recognition. How do the influencers discover NEW things, etc. assuming they don’t like to follow the crowds or trends but rather lead or start new trends. Old days this was hollywood or NY but what about today?

-Robb Lewis
http://retrevo.com

By: Blake Raab

Blake Raab — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 22:07:43 +0000

This is one of the key reasons why I do much of my marketing by social media and word of mouth. Thanks for the good article.

By: Easton Ellsworth

Easton Ellsworth — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:29:53 +0000

Dan, thanks for sharing this video and these insights. I think that subscriber and comment counts matter mostly because people think they matter. They don’t usually bring home the bacon by themselves. But that proves your point – sometimes just looking popular increases popularity.

By: Leila

Leila — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 10:31:02 +0000

Your examples and imagery are great…they really get stuck in your head and are easy to understand. Can see you are good at what you do – took some ideas away from this…thanks.

the only thing I’d like to add is that asking for comments directly does seem a bit spammy and I’m one of those (not alone) people who kind of goes “ug” when I read things like that (I didn’t read past “so to follow my own advice because I wanted to post a comment!), but the asking questions point on its own is generally good enough to get people to comment without asking them outright.

By: Valik

Valik — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:23:01 +0000

Very good stuff.

“Of course for any of these tactics to work, you’ll need to have sufficiently impressive numbers, so work to increase those two metrics. Don’t forget to promote your RSS feed (I really like the WWSGD plugin for that) and end every post with a question or request for comments.”

I’d like to get some points from you on what the best ways to do this are, besides the WWSGD plugin.

Thank you.

By: Katie Van Domelen

Katie Van Domelen — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 16:13:21 +0000

Love this post, it concisely described everything I’ve been trying to put my finger on lately about why some blogs succeed and others simply fade away. And just for a current affairs tie in – I wonder then what the effect is of national news networks announcing the results of exit polls before the polls are closed nationwide. If you hear others are voting for someone and you’re undecided…it’s eerily similar to the restaurant analogy.

By: Todd Williams

Todd Williams — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:28:11 +0000

Some very Valid Points, I would also add PR. Page Rank is the metirc i use the most for personally assessing a website, funny that is a bit old school

By: Simon Owens

Simon Owens — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:26:36 +0000

“the final haul for his 43 minutes of playing was $32.17″

that’s about $40 an hour, more than most Americans get paid.