In this case I would consider social shares more of a vanity metric. Sharing socially could even negatively correlate, because sharing socially is a good way to get the social good will of being savvy and a donor, without actually doing any of the steps listed. List articles frequently have the problem of being shared and bookmarked without leading to action, due to the paradox of choice.
If you do a similar article in the future, it’d be cool to link right through to a donation page, pop a cookie on the persons browser, and see if they end up donating in the next couple months.
I hear you, it’s hard to determine these things fully. I do think social sharing is weak evidence—again, people choose to put their social capital behind it, and it gets post-factum cognitive justification going.
A stronger piece of evidence is this case study from a comment on my personal FB page about someone who was convinced to donate to effective charities from an article I wrote.
Other evidence is important, of course, and I like your idea!
In this case I would consider social shares more of a vanity metric. Sharing socially could even negatively correlate, because sharing socially is a good way to get the social good will of being savvy and a donor, without actually doing any of the steps listed. List articles frequently have the problem of being shared and bookmarked without leading to action, due to the paradox of choice.
If you do a similar article in the future, it’d be cool to link right through to a donation page, pop a cookie on the persons browser, and see if they end up donating in the next couple months.
I hear you, it’s hard to determine these things fully. I do think social sharing is weak evidence—again, people choose to put their social capital behind it, and it gets post-factum cognitive justification going.
A stronger piece of evidence is this case study from a comment on my personal FB page about someone who was convinced to donate to effective charities from an article I wrote.
Other evidence is important, of course, and I like your idea!
In this case I don’t think so. Sharing such an article is bound to produce situations in which other people ask you for your donation habits.
Possibly… at least in the US there seems to be a social taboo against those sorts of questions.
Normally yes, but do you think the taboo would still exists when person shares an article like that?
I went ahead and shared it a couple of days ago and so far haven’t gotten any comments. How did you fare?
I haven’t shared it myself.
Sounds like a good time for an experiment… let’s both share it and see what comments we get.