So far, Julien and I have been very fortunate. Trust Agents hit the New York Times list within two days of the book coming out. The week after, we hit the Wall Street Journal list. That was you. YOU did all that, and I’m grateful.

As part of the promotion, I made a trade. I gave away 5 deals of “200 books for a 1/2 day of my time” and then gave away 4 (there’s still one left) of “300 books for a 1/2 day of my time.” That most definitely moved the needle. I’m in the midst of fulfilling all those requests, by the way. It’s a LOT of flying, but it’s also a great way to get out and meet great folks.

More recently, with my promotion for Mitch, I gave away 10 guest blog posts and accompanying tweets, in exchange for a purchase of 10 of Mitch’s book. (We sold out pretty quickly.) A strange side-effect was that a bunch more people bought Trust Agents at the same time (so thanks!).

How Might I Tie Trust Agents Sales to Social Change?

Here’s what I know: every individual sale is wonderful, and I’m always grateful, but as one of my mentors, Jeff Pulver taught me: it’s every bit as much work chasing single sales as it is making bigger things happen. So, knowing that every blog post you wrote helped, and knowing that visiting places is helpful, but not really scalable (I’m traveling 49 out of the next 60 days), I want your thoughts.

How do we kill two birds? In what way can I tie purchases of multiple copies of Trust Agents to something charitable and cool? I’ll give you some starter thoughts, but I want YOU to share yours.

Ideas for Trading Multiple Copies of Trust Agents for Social Good

• If a corporate sponsor bought 300 copies of Trust Agents, I’d donate 5 hours to a nonprofit of their choice, helping with social strategy, promotion, blogging, etc.
• What if I offered to pay $50 to a charity/cause for every 10 copies of Trust Agents an individual bought (up to 10)? (That way, it’s within reach of an individual to make a difference).
• What if, for every 10 copies an individual buys, I donate 1 book to a local library?
• …and your ideas will go here.

What do you think? What are other ways that people can tie a marketing goal (selling more _____) to a charitable good goal? How have you seen other companies do it, and how do you think it applies to what I’m trying to do for Trust Agents, and/or for that matter, how will you take these ideas and apply them to you?

The kid in the photo (and the photo itself) belong to Leeann

I think Groupon is clever in its simplicity and elegant in its design. Basically, a company puts up an offer that only triggers if enough people take the deal.

In the screen grab I took, the deal is for people to attend a spa, and 25 people had to buy at the offered rate of $65 USD. 67 people (at the time of this writing) took the deal, which, if you think about it means that the spa books over $4300 in business for this one promotion. Not bad, eh?

I think there’s some there there, as the kids say.

What say you?

This is so damned clever. Some of you will chide Marshall for not following people back. Some will say he’s not using Twitter the right way.

I don’t care. I’m excited for the location-based idea he came up with (or some team, or whatever), and I’m excited that he is doing something to blend a web communications app (Twitter) with the real world. These are good first steps. Good on you, Marshall.

Point out the good in life, humans. It begets more.

So, I wanted to thank Rana for putting it all together, and for everyone who came and had fun, and for Scoble for being part of a hilarious video (too lazy to find a link, but Robert surely has one on his blog). It really rocked.

AND I want to encourage companies thinking of creative ways to get involved with conferences to think about throwing a Rock Band party. For the dollars spent, I promise you that it was one of the most memorable nights ever. I think that bringing an experience to an event far trumps a simple branding effort these days. Agree?

I enjoyed the heck out of the experience, and as a result, it gave me positive feelings about WashingtonVC, Harmonix and several other companies. Cheap trick? Great idea? You decide.