Will people use a site that pays them to share?
We have just launched a beta of our website that pays people to share products and services they like with friends in their network who might be interested. We are trying to figure out the best way to get new users and advertisers interested in the product so we can scale it, but it is slow going. How would you approach new potential advertisers and users? There are so many people out there in this horrible economy without jobs who are posting content on Twitter and Facebook all day. I would love to compensate them for it.
Marketing Advertising PPC Social Pay Per Click
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I don't have much of a comment on your actual question :] - but the homepage reads 'magnet' this magnet that... when I have no context of what a magnet is in your world. Consider using some real examples directly on the homepage in your design versus just illustrated circles. You visitor needs to get it a little quicker. Like the design direction though, and it's Drupal, excellent! – Ryan Doom 12 years ago
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@Ben Stewart please put a link to you site in you profile so people can see it. – Ross 12 years ago
2 Answers
instead of $, i would use a Point system. That is becoming a standard.
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+1 for points. if you give out cash people will quickly start gaming it. – James 12 years ago
The first thing I found was that you don't open a new tab when redirecting to content. The moment you show me the content I'm interested in, you already lost me, because I get lost in the content itself and never find your site again.
The more general problem might be that people will likely never go back to a new site for new content when there are already several ways to find content, ways they are used to. It would be a lot better if you offered this service as a widget, similar to the "share it" buttons, or the flattr button. So content creators could add your button to their site, and I could share their stuff effortlessly, and still get paid for it. You shouldn't even require a signup, only an email address, so you can notify them when they have reached the credit limit for payment. Only at that point should it be necessary to sign up on your site.
Also be aware that many people tried this approach (get paid for shares/views) already, and they never succeeded as far as I know. Some people, including Guy Kawasaki think that money is simply not working as a motivator when it comes to sharing content online. Obviously, this is just an opinion, and might easily be wrong.
edit: One more thing, I just noticed you don't have any followers on twitter/facebook, you really should work on that too. even the best service in the world won't be used by anyone if nobody knows you exist.
