Persuasion is truly an art and I think I should start with the definition of persuasion : “the process of influencing attitudes and behavior”. It’s a way of “forcing” someone to adopt an idea or an attitude and such techniques are being used in sales, diplomacy, politics, religion, military, training and management.

What persuasion involves

The first think you need, is to understand what your audience wants and needs – research and careful preparation – so that you can target them extremely well by creating an emotional connection. You should consider your position from every angle.

Second thing is to work for a shared solution understanding that you should pay attention to the whole discussion taking in consideration all those small aspects that you could use in your favor.

Four major persuasion traps are

• attempting to make your case with your upfront hard sell
• resisting compromise
• thinking that the secret of persuasion is to present great arguments
• assuming persuasion is a one-shot effort.

When you’re trying to persuade someone you should know there are a few weapons you can use. These are just a few of the principles of persuasion, that I thought are the most important.

1. People enjoy experts. If you are an expert then you should know you have a small advantage because people usually need to be assured they’re talking with someone that will get the job done or with someone that could be trusted. A speaker will be more persuasive if he is perceived as an authority in the domain, with great competences and knowledge.
2. People like those that like them. It’s all about liking. If you are trying to sell someone a product you’d better smile and show that you enjoy the discussion and the person you’re talking with.
3. Give them what they can’t have. Ever since we are little we always do what we are told not to do, and we wish what we can’t afford or not allowed to buy. It’s in the human nature to want more of what they can have less of, rather than something they can easily get.
4. Make them think it’s their idea. If you’re trying to convince someone of anything then you will have a very good response if they think they brought the idea up.
5. It’s all about reciprocity. You should usually give something to get anything in return. Think of those that serve you in a restaurant. It’s their nature to remember those that tip the best and those that don’t, so if you really need your food really well cooked give something in return (tip well). A “reward” is always welcome, to persuade someone.
6. Social proof. This is something we all use. Take the iPhone for example. It may not be the best mobile phone in the world but if everyone is getting one, the trend will begin. People tend to follow trends and what others do.
7. Everyone wants reasons. If they are not doing something just because it’s trendy and everyone does it, you should supply arguments.

I will cover other aspects of persuasion in my future articles. If you like what you read on SocialPacks you can subscribe to my feed.

I don’t know what was with me today but I felt like browsing Alexa. I was curious about one of my sites and about Mahalo. Both going up! Then I saw something really interesting. It said “get your custom t-shirt”. It hit me when I remembered that Shoemoney is showing the t-shirts he got from his readers, each Friday offering exposure. He’s become a frequent speaker at all the big conferences about affiliate marketing, about search engines and stuff related, where I always see him in his green AuctionAds t-shirt. This could be a reason why his company is getting so much exposure these days, this is what they remember Jeremy for. The CEO of AuctionAds.

Therefore the idea is simple. Creating a custom t-shirt with your logo or URL that you can give away to people or wear them yourself will make them remember, will make your brand more powerful. T-shirts are great promotional products and you see them everywhere because they work at trade-shows, contests, giveaways, product launches or even seminars. The recipient will smile and say “thank-you” so the response is very positive.

T-shirts are not the only promotional products out there. Pens, backpacks, briefcases, clocks and watches, travel accessories, cups, are all working both on the internet or in your offline business.

We live in web2.0 right, so it’s users that will create content, for our websites because we give them, as webmasters, the chance for dialogue. There are many users out there that never heard of social bookmarking sites and they usually search Google or are just devoted to their local websites for news.

I had my experience with Digg and StumbleUpon, hell even with Reddit and I am now ready to answer two logical questions: should my website get Dugg, and if so, should I only concentrate on getting that kind of visits or should I look for referral readers (other than social bookmarking websites)?

I bet you can imagine what the answer for the first question is. Of course, it’s great to get on those social bookmarking websites, not only for the huge amount of traffic you get for about 48 hours, but for getting exposure. Do not expect to make any sales, get any Adsense or other advertisements clicks because you won’t. The profile of those visitors (or at least most of them) is ad-blind, which means they ignore your ads no matter how flashy they are. However, Digg traffic is not useless. First of all you made it to the front page, which means you had great content, right? Then you are worth reading, right? Second of all, you could get a few RSS subscribers which may become regular readers.

Now comes the second question. Should you focus on getting first pages with your every article and count only on that kind of traffic? Definitely not, because these visitors don’t usually read your whole website and they don’t stay for a small chat. They will not contribute much to your articles, they will not leave comments on your site but on the original site they came from, and they will not stay long. As an example, average visitor on Gizmodo stays 3 minutes and you can see where they come from, here. Isn’t that nice?

So do not ignore social bookmarking websites, but never neglect getting a little exposure on other websites/blogs, because this is what will bring added value.