Helooooo? Anybody Out There?
There is an interesting conversation going on across the “blogoclump” (the collection of bloggers who blog about associations) about why association executives don’t read us!
Jeff started the recent conversation with this post, and actually got seven comments (which would be a record for me). So he followed it up with another post. I weighed in with a comment on that post. Meanwhile, Fred Simmons posted on his own blog about it. And yesterday Dave Sabol (one of my favorite new additions to the blogroll) wrote a very thoughtful post about it.
The gist of my comment: I don’t get real value from a blog until I have read it consistently for a while. I can’t make the judgment based on one or two posts. But if blogs hit an executive’s radar screen, she will check them out by reading one or two posts. That might not be enough to really hook them.
I’m not sure a consensus conclusion has emerged, and I’m waiting for Dave Sabol’s next post about education. Although it does seem clear that we as a group are not putting as much effort into promoting the group of bloggers as we could (and individually, I would guess, most of us—Jeff excluded—are not marketing our blogs very actively). With our current approach, I think our readership will grow—just very slowly.
But the discussion reminds me that while we all would rather have more executives reading this content, we do have each other to bounce ideas around with, and that certainly has value for me. Sometimes the people who show up are the right ones (at least for now).
2 Comments
Lisa Junker
Jamie, thank you for linking to all of these posts–I had missed a couple of them and I’m glad to have the chance to read all sides of the discussion!
There’s one small thing I think all of us interested in spreading the word about association bloggers can do. When you read a post that you think would be of interest to a non-bloggy colleague, just take a moment to send them a link. I do this all the time–just sending a brief e-mail with a “Hey, I know you’re interested in certification, so I thought you’d find this post on certification renewal issues to be of interest.”
I think you’re right that most people won’t start reading blogs until they’re convinced of their value over time; if we point folks to specific, especially valuable posts, it can cut through some of the chaff and give them a chance to get hooked. The “first hit’s free” theory of blog evangelism …
Jamie Notter
Absolutely! I’ve never been a fan of email newsletters, but I’m considering doing one just so I can send snippets of my blog posts to people that I already know (who don’t yet subscribe).
I’m also going to reach out to people about helping them to understand feeds, readers, etc.