Are “Shameless Plugs” Worth It? Some data
danmaz74.me
Are “Shameless Plugs” Worth It? Some data
1–10 of 29 posts
Re: Are “Shameless Plugs” Worth It? Some data
#2I guess the desired conversion from promoting yourself is getting a client, not click and tweet count. So: did you get any gigs thanks to that?
Re: Are “Shameless Plugs” Worth It? Some data
#3You make a library for A/B testing. Why didn't you use A/B testing here?
Re: Are “Shameless Plugs” Worth It? Some data
#4The other way to look at it - 97% didn't react to your shameless plug, and probably a good chunk of these were annoyed by it. An ad is an ad, regardless of how you call it.
Re: Are “Shameless Plugs” Worth It? Some data
#5The other way to look at it - 97% didn't react to your shameless plug, and probably a good chunk of these were annoyed by it. An ad is an ad, regardless of how you call it.
>97% didn't react to your shameless plug, and probably a good chunk of these were annoyed by it
I think that's a pretty bold claim. I can't remember ever being annoyed by a blog post which included a brief "This is me and what I do" plug.
Re: Are “Shameless Plugs” Worth It? Some data
#6I guess the desired conversion from promoting yourself is getting a client, not click and tweet count. So: did you get any gigs thanks to that?
Author here: the desired end result is to get clients, but the first step is to get your readers to know what your "offer" is. The objective of the plug was this first step; then you should measure the conversion of the offer itself, but that's probably quite independent from the plug itself.
Anyway, for your curiosity, the end result was only one little gig for now - vs 0 from the first post, for what this is worth. I'll have to work on my portfolio etc I guess.
Re: Are “Shameless Plugs” Worth It? Some data
#7You make a library for A/B testing. Why didn't you use A/B testing here?
I agree that that would have been the best way to measure the effect of the plug. But that wasn't an experiment, I just wanted to get as many readers as possible; the idea to measure the effect of the plug only came later (actually, it was suggested in a comment here on HN).
Re: Are “Shameless Plugs” Worth It? Some data
#8I guess the desired conversion from promoting yourself is getting a client, not click and tweet count. So: did you get any gigs thanks to that?
Author here: the desired end result is to get clients, but the first step is to get your readers to know what your "offer" is. The objective of the plug was this first step; then you should measure the conversion of the offer itself, but that's probably quite independent from the plug itself. Anyway, for your curiosity, the end result was only one little gig for now - vs 0 from the first post, for what this is worth.…
Frankly I was surprised so little of people viewed the 'about' section, I've read it's common to check who's the author, and I do it myself. Until I tried to find yours and it took me a moment. You should expose the menu bar better and maybe get rid of the highly distracting binary crap. It may be one of the reasons why the plug generated more views of the 'about' and 'consulting' section - nobody sees those links without it.
Re: Are “Shameless Plugs” Worth It? Some data
#9The other way to look at it - 97% didn't react to your shameless plug, and probably a good chunk of these were annoyed by it. An ad is an ad, regardless of how you call it.
On the other hand, 99.7% of my readers didn't react to my website in the first attempt, so it is a net positive anyway. And, from a marketing point of view, those who are annoyed by that most likely aren't going to hire you anyway.
Re: Are “Shameless Plugs” Worth It? Some data
#10The other way to look at it - 97% didn't react to your shameless plug, and probably a good chunk of these were annoyed by it. An ad is an ad, regardless of how you call it.
Its not so black and white, a pop up is way more annoying that some text at the end of the article. And what is more relevant, the user just have to stop reading and just close the page, two actions that the user was going to eventually do even if there was no ad; but pop-Ups and video ads make the user lose resources (time) and it requires a special action to be cancelled (look up for the little ex in the corner and click it). Also because is text and not and imagen it does not significantly distract the user from reading the article. Also the fact that is highly relevant (consulting for companies/startups and a scrip to improve HN reading) makes it more acceptable.
In this order of ideas related shameless plugs are better than most other forms of advertising.