An Experiment with No Bunsen Burner

Last year on the BwhoUR Network, I ran an experiment. A couple of dozen bloggers took part in the experiment with me. I was wondering if a person reading a blog would be more apt to leave a comment if they saw that others always commented? You know what I’m trying to say? I was wondering if a reader would notice the site’s ‘culture’ of comment-leaving and be more prone to leave a comment too…

To test my idea, we all agreed to go daily to each other’s blog and leave a comment on the recent post. The ‘experiment’ was supposed to run 2 weeks, but we ran it a few weeks longer.

In the beginning, the feedback I received and noted myself too, was that the experiment was proving my hypothesis to be true. It seemed that each blogger was receiving more comments than usual and from other readers, not just the ‘experimenters’ who were reciprocally commenting.

But then it changed. About the same time that we, the bloggers, began to wane in the committment to leaving comments on every blog, the experiment went south.

In the end, I don’t think it was wildly successful, it was mildly successful. Since then, I have become more wise about blog posts in general and have completely gotten away from the idea that comments are important. Don’t get me wrong, I love it when you guys leave me comments, but ‘comments does not a good blog make’ -yes, that is my own quote.

I had to realize this myself, but I’m passing it on to you. Comments really mean nothing in producing a successful blog. Like most everything else, it’s a numbers game. You need the traffic. Traffic will, literally, take you anywhere you want to go [literally!].

So, how do you build traffic to your fantastic blog? Of course your blog is fantastic, I’m sure it is! But you and I both are trying to figure out how to help show others how fantastic your blog is, so they will read it too! Oh- and of course I need to mention this VERY-IMPORTANT-CAVEAT:

You want to do it on the cheap. As in free… at least I do!

So I am devising a new experiment.

I am going to ask a select group of bloggers to take part in my new idea. My new plan stems from the action of sharing status updates on Facebook. It goes something like this:

If Blogger A, B, and C each have 500 friends on Facebook each (hypothetically speaking, I mean who really has 500 friends?) and Blogger A posts a fantastic sentence and link to entice readers to his/her blog on Blogger B and C’s wall (therefore visible to their collective 1000 readers), she has the opportunity of touching 1000 new potential readers.

Of course, Blogger B would do the same and post to Blogger A and C’s walls and again, the same formula for Blogger C.

With this general overview of how the plan would work, there are only three bloggers with 500 friends each. Imagine how many new people you would have the ability to touch if you added more bloggers to the experiment!

Here’s the math (and I’m using the number 500 friends just because it makes the math easy):

3 Bloggers with 500 friends:  each will touch 1000 potential new readers.

6 Bloggers with 500 friends each:  each will touch 2500 potential new readers.

9 Bloggers with 500 friends each: each will touch 4000 potential new readers.

Okay, so now you get the idea. I did this last year to spread news about some horses we had for sale. I hunted through my friend’s list and wrote on their walls and linked a photo of my horses for sale. I wasn’t really thinking that the particular friend I posted to would buy the horse, but when I posted to their wall, my post suddenly became visible to all of their friend’s in their timelines.

Guess what?

All the horses sold using this method. Not just sold here in the States, either. Sold internationally!

If you would be interested in joining my experiment, I would love to consider you. Obviously, we will need to be friends on Facebook if we already are not. Send me your friend request!

Next, your blog has got to be something that I would be willing to promote on my wall, therefore it must be PG rated. I reserve the right to refuse any and all blogs to my experiment because, well- it’s my experiment!

Also, this is as much ‘give’ as it is ‘receive’. In order to receive more looks to your blog, you have to potentially be able to give more. That means that you must have at least 100 friends on Facebook to be considered.

Other criteria: only one blogger per category. What does this mean? I will only accept one cooking blog, one parenting blog, one news blog, one horse blog, etc… you get the idea, right? So yes, if you’re interested, by all means, let me know… first come, first serve.

Sign up to be part of this traffic-boosting experiment! Let’s hope that the results of this give a new meaning to “traffic jam”.

Looking for 5 other bloggers who want to try this with me. Let me know!

****** READ THIS UPDATE*****************

Right after I hit ‘publish’ and went live with this post, I went to 4 gals on Facebook that I dearly love and that I think would be interested in promoting their blogs. On each of their walls, I wrote about this post, gave them a photo (photos are important, VERY important), and of course, the link… With four wall posts, guess how many people I virally touched (adding up each of their friend’s together):

2434 people!