In the summer of 2011 Fast Company Magazine went on a mission to find out who was the most influential person on the internet.
They got about every celebrity on the planet to participate. People who had millions of followers. Shaquil Oneil, Britany Spears, Ashton Kutcher, etc etc..
The rules:
The rules were simple. See who could influence people to signup for the project.
Here is the quote from their website:
Our definition of influence was basic: Each participant received a unique URL; every time someone new clicked on your URL, you got credit. In addition, if those clickers decided to sign up as participants, you received partial credit for any clicks they obtained.
The reward:
Fast Company said they would include the photos of everyone who participated in the magazine… although with all the entries most will be microscopic – Everyone would be included.
The person who won… Would get the cover of the magazine!
Ok now we are talking! I was in!
Hrmm so how was I going to try to win? Well really this is no different then what I do every day.
This was simply telling a story that gets people to accomplish the goal I want. Usually that is selling a product. In this case it was clicking a link and signing up for the Fast Company influence project.
So what compelling story was I going to come up with this?
Well in my opinion it sold it self. The winner would be able to say they were in Fast Company magazine for the rest of their life in their marketing campaigns, resume’s or whatever. That is powerful stuff. It was that easy.
As Seen In Fast Company Magazine – That was the title of my blog post and subject of my emails.
The content went something like this:
“Do you know how powerful it is when you can say you were in Fast Company magazine? Not only will you be able to say “As Seen In Fast Company Magazine but you will be able to say, “As Seen In Fast Company Magazine – Most Influential People On the Internet Article”. And to make that happen all you have to do is take 10 seconds and sign up for the project here:
==> http://www.fastcompanyinfluencelink.com
P.S. This is for a VERY limited time. Don’t miss out on this HUGE opportunity!:
Again here is the link to sign up (takes less than 10 seconds):
==> http://www.fastcompanyinfluencelink.com
That was it. One blog post, One email, one Tweet and one Facebook post.. How are you not going to do that?
As I had hoped many people retweeted and shared the Facebook post. God knows how many forwarded the email to friends. It went super viral. Why wouldn’t it though.
Anyway I won… Big surprise.
Our top finisher is Jeremy Schoemaker, credited with more than 500,000 clicks. He is a blogger, search-engine optimizer, serial entrepreneur, and the founder of ShoeMoney Media, an online marketing firm. He says he took a straightforward approach to generating response to the Influence Project, tapping his 110,000 Twitter followers, blogging to his 60,000 daily readers, broadcasting to his 20,000+ Facebook fans, and using his mailing list to activate his network.
But this did not make Fast Company happy. They could not believe it.
After all.. They clearly wanted a celebrity to win. Now, I don’t know this but I am sure they paid agents to get the huge celebrities to participate. They would use them to further promote their magazine.
They also reneged on their offer to put you on the cover if you won. So we made our own cover:
In the end this was simple and its one of the reasons why the Par Program has been so successful for all the companies that have signed up. We build a relationship with their one time web visitors and easily turn them into customers by showing them what their products can do for them. And companies might know they should be doing this. We just take it off their plate to allow them to do what they do best.
Let us know if you are ready for us to take it off of your plate and explode your companies revenue.
No comments:
Post a Comment