Fear the hole!

[James81]

YOU HAVE JUST SEEN THE HOLE. NOW YOU ARE CURSED.

In order to lift this curse, you must email this link:

The Power of How – 1/4 – Redefining How To...Redefining How To...

and copy/paste this message to ten people!

If you do not email this link to ten people, you will be cursed with cursed luck and be cursed from this day forward.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. FEAR THE HOLE.

****



Ok, so my REAL question here is, where do these types of things get their start and do you think this will be an effective way to get people to share your link and drive traffic to a website?

[Criseyde]

No, it's spammy.

Have you read Steve's articles on How to Build a High-Traffic Web Site (or Blog) and How to Make Money From Your Blog?

[DBV]

Chicks love this kind of emails but it is usually a theme related to romance, life and very positive stuff, advice or magic stuff like predictions of future etc..

It can work, but I don't think this particular picture will:P

[Solipsist]

James, I haven't the foggiest idea where people come up with this kind of stuff, but I will have to tell you that I came very, very close to simply exiting this thread after reading the second line. And had it not been you posting it, I would have. Because it was you, I read further, expecting a punchline.

Otherwise, and as you can see, I view this kind of stuff in the same vein as penis enlargement emails--they make me long for an "Auto Delete" button.

That's my $0.02.

[Johnny Metal]

I am plastering Twitter, FB, RSS buttons all over my website, then I'm gonna try guestblogging to try to create the snowball effect. You're a good writer, you could try that too.

I doubt the GLORYHOLE CURSE will take off (worst case scenario is that the penis will pop out), but I admire your unconventional approach to building traffic - you, sir, are truly an explorer.

There was also another thread with ****ing awesome ideas on building traffic, it was called "dismal traffic, feeling suicidally depressed", or something like that. If you look through my posts, you will find it, cause I posted there trying to cheer up the agonizing soul.

[James81]

I dunno, that kind of crap seems to work really well on facebook. LOL

I've seen the whole "They will charge you unless you copy/paste this" thing like a hundred times in the past couple of days.

It's made me realize that there's something provocative about it. Like, it provokes people to share the link. I'm not sure why.

[Denver]

if you want to ur fanbase to be naive 14 year old girls with the attention span of a naive 14 year old girl than by all means use this method. im sure it will do more harm than good however as real interested customers will likely shy away from you all together.

[Denver]

also after reviewing your website, you have great content but i believe ur site is not visually appealing. you may want to think about giving it a more modern feel as I usually close out of pages like this after first glance.

[Cochonette]

Originally Posted by James81

I dunno, that kind of crap seems to work really well on facebook. LOL

I've seen the whole "They will charge you unless you copy/paste this" thing like a hundred times in the past couple of days.

It's made me realize that there's something provocative about it. Like, it provokes people to share the link. I'm not sure why.

You need to find some new friends. I've only seen that pasted into my news feed once, and I recently removed that person from my news feed anyway. And that was only someone I met online. Most of my friends are not foolish enough to fall for that, and if they are, they are not in my news feed.

I also hate spam. If you're going to do one of those "paste this into your feed" things, it has to be altruistic or motivational or entertaining or funny... not something that feels like spam. If you spam your friends on Facebook, the good ones will remove you from their news feed, or from their friends list entirely.

[VinceG]

It all comes down to knowing your audience. If your audience is the type to feverishly forward chain letters to everyone in their address book, than this type of tactic would work well. If not, then you'll get exactly the sort of replies you got in this thread.

I once had the idea to sell my computer services for really cheap to people who'd never be able to afford Best Buy's Geek Squad. I had the thought to market by taping flyers to mailboxes. I mentioned the idea to a psychologist friend of mine, and she told me that would get her to never want to call me, just because of the way I marketed it. But it must work, obviously, because there are lots of people who market in precisely this way, and they wouldn't do it if it didn't work. Guy's gotta eat, after all.

I decided that if I was going to do it, I could deal with ticking off a few people. I decided not to do it because I realized that it wouldn't provide enough risk/reward to make the effort worthwhile.

[Shift]

I think this approach screams desperation. That's all I can really think of.

I think the reason the Facebook message is spreading is because it's plausible. Recognisable brand, huge user base... there's money to be made. I wouldn't put it past them.

If we consider getting traffic akin to marketing, then I think there's a serious mismatch in your approach. Your website seems to target adults with a higher level readership and this approach will attract young teenagers, who will quickly leave.

[Criseyde]

You could try contacting other bloggers and asking if you can write a guest post for them.

[James81]

Well, in the way that I have it put in the first post (which was over-the-top and a bit facetious), it may come across as a mismatch for my site, yes.

But the underlying point that I'm addressing is the nature by which we share links. We all share links or email forwards or jokes for *some* reason...and that reason is that it provokes us or it moves us or it creates some sort of emotional reaction in us or touches a part of our psychology.

So, in essence, I'm more curious about a way to do this that is more congruent with the site. Like how Steve will throw out a controversial article (such as the Modern Day Nazi article) every now and then just to get people talking about it and sharing the link, etc.

[Johnny Metal]

Originally Posted by James81

But the underlying point that I'm addressing is the nature by which we share links. We all share links or email forwards or jokes for *some* reason...and that reason is that it provokes us or it moves us or it creates some sort of emotional reaction in us or touches a part of our psychology.

So, in essence, I'm more curious about a way to do this that is more congruent with the site.

This should help, written by Steve:

One of the most efficient ways to build traffic is to create content that people want to share or discuss with someone they know.

If your readers aren't doing this yet on your behalf, then the problem is your content. You're most likely telling them what they expect to hear, so they soon forget it, and if they forget it, they won't tell others about it.

If your content violates people's expectations, however, they'll remember it, perhaps even years later. The longer they remember it, the more people they can tell about it.

There are many ways to violate expectations without being controversial. Stirring up controversy is only one approach among many, and personally it's not my favorite.

You could write an unexpectedly deep piece on a topic where everyone else writes shallow pieces.

You could share a very personal story that people didn't know about you.

You could share a unique solution to a common problem that gives people hope.

You could be disgustingly honest on a topic where most people are spouting superficial B.S.

The majority of my high-referral articles are not particularly controversial IMO, but they still manage to violate expectations.

One of the most common ways I violate expectations is by going long where most bloggers go short. I'll write a 6000-word article on a topic where others in this field are churning out 500-word pieces.

[Johnny Metal]

James, I've found the thread which I was talking about. I scraped the traffic generation ideas from there, and implementing them one by one:

Driving Traffic To My Website

[scorpio1980]

When I see those I get really annoyed. I wouldn't do it if I were you.