Encouraging actions in Social Media

We already know the phrase "Actions speak louder than words" - what we do says a lot about our personality to others. The following experiment demonstrates this concept very clearly.

Freakanomics author Stephen J.Dubner talks about a marketing experiment conducted by University of California into Pay-What-You-Wish-Pricing. Pay-what-you-wish is a model where the consumer is asked to pay what they think the product is worth. It has now been employed out by a number of organisations ranging from bands like Radiohead to restaurants.

The experiment consisted of researchers at the university selling souvenir photos through a number of payment models. One of the experiments sold the photos for a flat fee of $12.95 where half the proceeds went to charity, contrasted by a model where the consumer was asked to pay what they wished where half the payment goes to charity. 0.59% of the customers purchased the photos through the flat fee model where as 4.49% of the customers purchased the photos at an average price of $5.33 through the pay-what-you-wish model. The latter model generated a significant uplift in profits.

Ed Young attributes the uplift in sales to our concern of others perception of ourselves.

"When the charity factor is introduced, these casual freeloaders balk at the idea of paying nothing, because it’s more likely to reflect badly on them,”

Social Media is about our relationships with others and so we have an incentive to boost our relationships our friends. When we engage our audience this is one of the factors we must bear in mind - what can I offer to my audience that will make them look good amongst their peers?

Donating to charity makes us look good to our friends, how else can we improve our standing amongst our friends in social media?