The book (Influence by Robert. B. Cialdini) tells about an interesting phenomenon called Pluralistic ignorance. This was demonstrated in an experiment by Darley en Latané, in which students faked an epileptic seizure. They received help 85 percent of the time when there was a single bystander present but only 31 percent of the time with five bystanders present.

This is what might be going on with your tweet about cogaoke. I’m not that saying nobody is concerned about your appeal. I’m saying that due to the fact that you have so many followers, a collective state of mind that says “ah well someone else will vote” arises. This might also explain why Tony reported that personal appeal via email of in person were by far the most effective.

I used http://bit.ly/cogaoke to promote myself all over, including in-person, Twitter, ustream, Facebook, email, and more. A look at the statistics shows an interesting breakdown:

http://bit.ly/info/9MZRvf

Nonstop tweeting to my ~1,963 followers got me no more than 200 clicks for the entire run. Compare that to the direct/email stat of 1,589, and it’s clear where the traffic came from.

Personal appeals, via email or in person, were by far the most effective. When I personally got all of NWC to vote for me, or when one of my friends got their whole Yoga class or another group, that’s when you could see the votes really rolling in.

It’s an interesting and sobering perspective on just how effective (or ineffective) your social media networks can be, and just how little it matters what the number is.

Thanks Tara for taking the time to take a look at this, this is a really useful and important case study!

So, for those playing the home game:

Wonky Email > Twitter

I follow you and had I seen your tweet I would have voted for you. I hardly ever see your tweets and perhaps I almost always use the web to log into Twitter. As one Canadian to another, I will vote for you now. When does the voting close?

Avil Beckford @avilbeckford

Thank you for sharing the vote etc. Very interesting.

I only just realized, after reading this, that I can vote with every browser. I’ve loaded up all my other four on my 3G modem, and now I’ll be doing the same on my netbook. Ten votes!

Actually, I’ve noticed that the ‘Percentage of Votes’ seems to drop as you go down the list (with some fluctuations). I wonder if people with less Twitter and Facebook followers know more people in real-life, or if having thousands of Twitter followers affects what you say. Most likely, people perceive you (and their worth in relation to you) differently in light of your hundreds of thousands.

You seem to have more votes, now, which I think proves my theory that blogs are a lot more powerful that tweets. These posts land in my reader, and they’re here until I read them; the tweets, meanwhile, I’ll skim over every half-hour.

But I think the effort you make to CONNECT with your network is what counts. I am constantly sharing links on Twitter, and I absolutely obsess over how my network shares the content I am sharing. Mainly because I want to make sure that the content I am sharing is valuable to them.

And I also closely track what happens after certain people RT a post I have shared. For example, I know if Shannon Paul or Beth Harte RT a link I have shared, that their networks are going to immediately start RTing that link. That’s because their networks absolutely love both of them. And both of them are constantly sharing content, commenting on other blogs, commenting on their own. They invest time in their networks, and it’s obvious they both care about the people that follow them and WANT to connect with them.

And I think how invested you are in your community greatly determines how invested they are in you.