Having spoken about advertising last week, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at a product that does something a little different. Publicity Wheel combines a banner exchange with a game of chance. Once a week a site in the network is chosen and then promoted by all the other network members. The result is a large influx of traffic for that period. Mark Schumann, the sites creator explains the concept and a few things he has learned.

Publicity Wheel

The Publicity Wheel is a new concept for generating website traffic and exposure. On first look it may seem very similar to a traditional banner/link exchange program, but this is far from the case. Unlike these programs, there are no ratios or hard figures to be concerned with, and rather than a steady trickle of traffic, when promoted the resultant boost in traffic can be quite considerable.

It works by allowing its members collaboratively promote one website (per category) at a time through banner/text links on their site. In doing so, they earn “publicity points” – effectively “tickets” to the next spin which generally occur each week. Once completed, the winners’ banners/links will replace the previous winners’ and forward all clicks to their site. The more publicity points users have, the better chance they have of winning, and to stop the same websites winning each week, publicity points for winners are reset to zero.

The Publicity Wheel certainly isn’t for everyone, but it provides a more interesting approach to online marketing, one that may even be enjoyable or even exciting to be involved with. As users do not need to have the highest number of publicity points to win, it provides low-traffic sites a chance to hit it big without spending all their time managing banner impressions and ratios.

The idea was actually grown from another concept known as The Fame Experiment. I had often wondered about the “internet fame” phenomenon, and the way many internet users had achieved it by accident (i’m sure you can think of many examples). I considered whether it was possible to artificially generate fame by pushing a single image of one person to as many places online as possible. Over time, I noticed that a few users were hoping to achieve “fame” for their website rather than themselves, which of course sparked the development of The Publicity Wheel. The Fame Experiment is still running, but I certainly learned a few lessons throughout the process:

Choose a manageable niche. I know The Fame Experiment is an interesting and unique idea, but it is very difficult to market. Who do I target? Actors? Musicians? Many people who would be interested in something like that aren’t necessarily in the entertainment industry, they’re working regular jobs like everyone else. They certainly don’t all gravitate to one place on the internet. On the other hand, The Publicity Wheel has a clear audience and fits a need within the online community.

Don’t try to please everyone. The Publicity Wheel, as I stated above, is not for everyone. There are going to be people who gravitate towards other methods of online marketing, and that’s fine. If you try to please everyone you’ll disenfranchise your core group of users who signed up in the first place because they picked you over the others. Maintain your focus, and don’t stray too far from your core concept.

Be honest. If you’re trying to advertise on blogs or forums, ensure that you’re clear about your intentions. Don’t pretend to recommend your own site that “you heard about the other day”. If it’s your site, make that clear with a disclaimer or opening sentence. Most people can smell the truth, so if they still click on your link they’ll already have a bad taste in their mouth.

Be prepared to spend more time than you think. When I first started seeing a rise in daily visitors, I expected it would continue without a large amount of work. I own another site that I haven’t spent as much time promoting as I did initially, and traffic has steadily declined over time. It’s very rare that an active user will remain active for long, so work hard to keep fresh users coming in.

Just remember to enjoy what your doing and remain passionate about your product.

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