Do you remember that first blog post you wrote … the one that you typed with great anticipation only minutes after your site was up and running? “Hello World. Welcome to my site. This is my blog” or something of that nature. A few days later, after the dust had settled on your first debut with your first four readers (your parents, spouse and you), you found that next entry not so easy. What do I say? What will entice my audience of four to return. What narrative can can play sequel to that first blogger-coming-out announcement?
That is how I felt about 10 minutes ago
My blog has sat here for about two months now with its “Hello World” blog announcement growing more stale each day. I tell ya. I’ve actually felt stressed about finding something to write about. First, does anybody care what I say? Well, no. Second, if they don’t care, do I care? Well, no. And then ten minutes ago, as I was catching up from some of today’s tweets in my Tweetdeck “People I wish I was as smart as” column I saw a random posting with the handle @aaronpost referenced in it. Ok. Another stranger I don’t know… but ah, his site in his profile… www.spunch.it? That sounds interesting. And it was. It is (this is the point where 2 of my four readers just left my blog to click that link. And they won’t return).
I’ll stop with the full play-by-play narrative. Long-story-not-short-enough, I clicked the link and found this really great site. I now had my first inspiration for a blog post. I wasn’t looking for ideas. This one caught me by surprise. I know that a blog can’t be forced. I’m not a writer of the fabulous breed (“did he just use the word fabulous as an adjectival modifier of the prepositional object modifier of the direct object ‘writer’.. that was horrible”); however, I know that great, no good, ok… I know that marginally decent blogs are best read when the author is pumped up about what he or she is writing about. And, well, I’m really fired up about this post and that’s because I’m really pumped up about twitter. I’m amazed at how long I went without it and how much I still don’t know about it. Even more, I’m amazed at how many businesses and technophiles are still ignoring it.
All companies say they listen to their customers, but do they really LISTEN and let people know that they are listening
SPUNCH Social Tip #22
Spunch is one of those applications that I believe separates the real listeners from those who only say they are listening… because really, that’s what twitter is all about… there’s lots of talking/”tweeting”, but what really matters is who is listening. Companies spend large percentages of their marketing on talking. Before social media really took flight, consumers didn’t have the kind of talk-back that they do now. The new business for new media in this next decade will be not as much as what you say, but how much you can listen. Listening is always hard, because we don’t always hear what we want to hear (like these companies in this video on youtube). Fortunately some of these companies were able to hear and respond. SPUNCH allows another form of response for companies willing to listen… a chance to reward those customer customers who are talking and who’s talk is positive.
So, there you go. That’s my first post. Checkout SPUNCH at http://spunch.it/ and follow @aaronpost while you are at it. If you made it this far through this blog, I’d appreciate it if you ret-weeted this post. My parents and spouse aren’t on twitter yet so I’m counting on you to help me grow my audience.
Thanks!
Corey White
