Since I get called out I'll elaborate on my thoughts on this...
I can understand and appreciate the intention and the potential to learn and share something useful from such an 'experiment'. It's a topic I'm actually quite interested in.
I just disagree with using a bait-and-switch which doesn't deliver anything of value to an unknowing participant. It'd be cooler if the links led to genuine articles along with a footnote explaining that there's an experiment running on the side. That just seems more fair and wouldn't impact the result.
I'll laugh off a rick-rolling from a mate but I don't need the distraction from a company I don't have much of a relationship with. No hard feelings but hence the unfollow.
As I said on the tweet, I should have pinged you on the headsup that I was using your tweet for the "against" argument. Sorry again about that, poor judgement call on my part, but thanks for the positive words about the whole idea at the time and again now that I've blogged it all up.
You make a great point, and something I really wish I'd done at the time, in terms of the "trick" article actually having something else of value. Perhaps a list of some of the best (genuine) article headline crafting guides, some posts about real pitch decks, some actual sleep/life hacking posts.. etc.
Looking back I think that would have made the 'testing' phase much better experience for our followers, and just better all around and had a +ve brand impact instead of the minor hit our accounts took.
I can understand and appreciate the intention and the potential to learn and share something useful from such an 'experiment'. It's a topic I'm actually quite interested in.
I just disagree with using a bait-and-switch which doesn't deliver anything of value to an unknowing participant. It'd be cooler if the links led to genuine articles along with a footnote explaining that there's an experiment running on the side. That just seems more fair and wouldn't impact the result.
I'll laugh off a rick-rolling from a mate but I don't need the distraction from a company I don't have much of a relationship with. No hard feelings but hence the unfollow.