Would YOU like your very own fresh white truffle?

Yes, you could win one. Just a second on that.

This is a bit of a social media experiment. I want to see if this sort of marketing works or not.

The deal is that I was in a contest at Marx Foods, and was asking people to vote for Cookistry. The contest is now closed, and I want to thank everyone for their votes and comments!

Meanwhile, Marx Foods is also giving away a fresh white Alba truffle in a comment-to-win contest, and I have that linky right here. I have nothing to do with that contest; in fact, I've entered to win it, myself. I'm just passing along the info. That contest ends Nov 20, 2011, so if you find this post later, the contest is over.

So the question was whether people would reward me with a vote for telling you about the truffle and think this is a brilliant cross-promotional marketing strategy, or would they ignore my plea for a vote and go right for truffle-winning? Or are you so annoyed that I'm not giving away the truffle that you're going to ignore both links and walk away in a huff? (And where did you get that lovely huff, anyway?)

I've never done this sort of asking-for-votes post (although I've seen similar things on other blogs), so I want to see how you all respond to this.

Now that the gimme-a-vote part of the experiment is over, I've got to say that it was a marginal success. I did get a few extra votes and the comments were nice. I didn't win the contest, and that's fine, too. You can't win 'em all. And truthfully, I'd rather win a contest based on how good the recipe is, rather than on my social media skills.

On the plus side, Marx Foods asked to feature my recipe as a guest post on their site (even before the contest was over) so I think that's a feather in my cap.

Good luck on truffle-winning. It would be sweet if whoever won it got there from this site.

Yum