So I sat down with Anna today and we were talking about blogging. Out of the blue, I asked her how come she didn’t publically display her feedburner subscriber count. She explained to me that she didn’t want to obsess over it.

That’s a fair explanation. Actually, when I started out blogging, I didn’t want to put up own feedburner stats either. I didn’t want to “toot my own horn” so to speak.

Little did I know, I was about to do an exact 180 on my stance. It just so happened I was taking a Psychology course that year. One of the concepts I was taught was something called Social Proof.

Its a sort of subconscious way people measure other people or things. A herd of people can be persuasive because other people will be motivated to follow them.

Bear with me for a minute and allow me to offer you some examples:

1. On dating sites, single guys frequently take pictures of themselves around women or in the company of attractive women.
2. Some night clubs lower the rate at which people can enter and cause the line to be longer then it actually should be.
3. 5 guys in down town New York suddenly stop and look skyward for a minute. A number of other people around them do the same.

Results?

The effect is generally the same.

In example 1, when singles are viewing profiles they might stop a little longer and examine the guy more closely when they would otherwise pass and keep going. "Wow, look at that guy with all those women! He must be interesting!"

In example 2, cars going by or other club goers walking by would think to themselves "Look at that lineup, that place must be packed and full!"

Example 3 was an actual study conducted by scientist Stanley Millgram. In New York, he sent a research assistant downtown. The assistant stopped at a busy sidewalk and gazed upward.

Most of the people around him didn’t care what he was doing and simply walked right by him.

In round 2, the same assistant went back again with 4 other men in tow. At the same time, they all stared upwards and a larger number of people looked up. In fact, it quadrupled from when only 1 person did it!

Great! What the hell does this have to do with blogging?

Now, lets apply it to blogging. You come across 2 blogs, and both of them are about cooking.

Both of them have about equal hits. They’ve been around and started at the same time, writing similar posts, and face similar traffic levels.

Blog A doesn’t have a feedburner showing his stats.

Blog B DOES have a stat counter showing 800 subscribers

Now, social proof dictates that more people would subscribe to blog B, because other people (first time viewers) come to the blog and see and think "Whoa, 800 people have subscribed to this blog". They may not immediately recognize it or be aware of the feeling because its subconscious.

So Social Proof theory says that new comers are more likely to subscribe to Blog B because they notice that OTHER people subscribe to Blog B instead of Blog A. By actually seeing the fact that 800 subscribers read Blog B, its an internal confirmation to themselves (again, awareness notwithstanding), that other people like and read this blog daily. Therefore, they’ll likely do it also.

Matt’s proof

I think it was right around the start of December. I had just switched themes at the end of November and thats when I learned about social proof. I figured I had nothing to loose and slapped in the feed burner widget below the “Subscribe” link on the right. My viewers doubled. Yes, I know these are page views and not uniques.

At the same time, I could raise other factors:

• Holiday season, more people at home (but then why would they be reading WoW blogs?)
• New layout that was fresh
• Went from 1 post per day average to a 1.5 post per day average
• Me spamming refresh repeatedly during lectures

This was also the same month I inadvertantly started a blogging meme about what your goals for the New Year was along with their resolutions in World of Warcraft.

Don’t expect the concept of Social Proof to propel your blog and double traffic overnight.

But it’s not limited to subscribers.

Take a look at your comments. Let’s assume you’ve got 6 Comments.

Not bad, right?

But what if you were swift and responded to each comment one after the other? You’d effectively be doubling your comment count to 12.

To the average reader looking in, they’ll see an indicator saying this post has 12 comments even though half of them are yours. Social proof would cause them to think that “Hey, this looks like an active discussion, maybe I’ll chime in and add my own thoughts!”.

I reiterate, its not going to transform your blog overnight. But it is something to keep in mind.

And at worse, you haven’t really lost anything by trying.

How do I do it?

1. Login to Feedburner
2. Click the Publicize tab
3. Click Feedcount on the left under Services
4. On the bottom right of the page, verify that this service is activated
5. At the center of the screen, customize the color scheme if you like
6. Then copy the code contained in "Copy this HTML”
7. Login to your blog interface
8. Paste the code in your Theme wherever you’d like it to show up.
9. Tip: A good spot is next to or beneath your subscriber RSS link.