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May 24, 2005Getting people to take the blog survey
On May 10, I began sending emails to corporate bloggers, requesting that they take our blogging survey. I contacted over 450 bloggers in the past two weeks. As of today, 322 of them have viewed the survey, and 61 have completed it.
Some bloggers were very eager to help us out and take the survey. Others did not take the survey for various reasons, and some took the survey but chose to remain anonymous.
Originally, I had a lengthy email that I was sending to bloggers, and if I couldn't find a contact form or email link, I was leaving comments directly on blog entries. I quickly found out that for some people doing the latter was a no-no and extremely poor etiquette in the blogosphere. I learned how personal blogs can be, even corporate ones, and have had much more luck with people taking the survey after I edited the email and read more of the individual's blogs.
A corporate blog can be incredibly beneficial to a company when used correctly. With our survey, we are discovering not only what bloggers see in their own blogs, but also what qualities they enjoy in the blogs of others. The results will be useful to all sorts of corporate bloggers and I'm excited to see what all of the results are!
Posted by kristine at May 24, 2005 1:52 PM
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Comments
I was going to... but I realized my situation wouldn't work. I started blogging before I started my writing business. I am interested in seeing the results.
Posted by: meryl at May 25, 2005 5:45 PM
Hey. (language removed editor) if they don't like your using the comment function on their blog to ask them to participate in a survey.
I do it all the time. Blogs are about INTERACTION, which makes them better, far better, than stupid static web sites.
I use the comment function on blogs all the time as a way to get attention, to question, to provoke, to solicit help, to encourage participation.
I think it is a brilliant strategy, here's why:
* many people have filters that will block your email, sometimes just because it is Yahoo or you have a word it doesn't like in the subject line
* many people don't open any email message unless they know the sender
* many people don't open any email for weeks at a time, for various reasons, too busy, etc.
* many people open, read, then forget your email message, though they "intended" to reply
* some people respond to your email months after you sent it. This always makes me freak: I sent that 5 months ago, and now they're asking "did I respond to this? I meant to. Sorry."
Make your surveys SHORT.
Make your email messages SHORT.
Long emails and long surveys are generally rejected.
If you have lots of questions, provide link to a site, perhaps. I dunno. But keep emails SHORT.
Posted by: steven streight aka vaspers the grate at May 27, 2005 1:25 PM
