Blogging

So, picture this:

You start a blog. You write stories, you read stories, you comment on stories. Slowly, people drift towards you and read your stories. Three, six, twelve months in, you’ve got a popular platform, full of stories and the traffic, while not spectacular, is decent enough.

First, one PR company notices you. Then another and another and another.

And you’re flattered, you really are. You write stories on the INTERNET and suddenly, these real companies want to send you real things, to write about. You accept something here, a little thing there. You amaze yourself with what you can do, with what people want to give you.

The stuff accumulates in a box under your desk, or maybe it’s under your bed. There is stuff everywhere and a feeling, hanging over your head, like you’re forgetting something.

You’re trying so hard to keep up with the stuff, that you don’t realise you haven’t written any stories lately.

The emails flood in, but not the comments. Traffic doesn’t drop – much – but it doesn’t grow either.

Companies love you, but new readers don’t stay long. Giveaways coax in the traffic, but it drifts away again.

You notice that you aren’t telling stories when you find yourself clenching your teeth at night, trying to work out when to write about the stuff sitting under your desk, gathering dust. When nothing fits into your schedule anymore, when you’re trying to keep everyone happy and failing.

So maybe you say no to the stuff. Or maybe you add a disclaimer that you’ll accept the stuff, but not always write about it. Maybe you quit, because it’s all too much pressure and like hard work.

Or maybe, you’ll just start telling stories again. They’ll bubble over and out and you’ll try and find your balance – that knife edge where you’re only writing about the things you want to write about, without being guilt tripped into anything else.

But you’ll backslide, because guilt trips are everywhere. Children are starving to death and look at this great cause and omg someone should raise awareness.

Maybe you’ll notice. Maybe you won’t.

It won’t matter terribly much, but here’s the thing:

People love stories.

PR companies love people.

People do not love PR stories.

It’s a messy cycle and it’s easy to get caught up and spit out. The sludge of stats and subscribers and traffic and stuff and money and events and needtowriteaboutthis and pitch this and promote that and help the cause and and and…

It’s all just a bit much.

I want the stories back.

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Finally, small businesses have jumped on the social media bandwagon. Sure, it took them two years to catch up to the rest of us, but here they are finally, tweeting and facebooking away.

It’s good, isn’t it?

Well…. maybe not.

When I find a new product that I love, the first thing I do is hunt them down on twitter, or facebook. This way, I keep track of lots of products I enjoy, through various social media channels – although twitter is the biggest way I follow.

What I’ve noticed happening though, is businesses using social media badly. Things like not responding to questions, refusing to acknowledge new followers and generally acting like they’re “bigger” than everyone else out there in this pond.

News flash: Social Media has lowered the barriers between businesses and consumers and consumers are not wanting to be talked at anymore. They want a conversation and a business they can relate to.

It’s called SOCIAL MEDIA for a reason – you use it to be SOCIAL.

When I spot small businesses on Twitter not following back their buyer base, I get grumpy. You’ve got 300 followers, but only follow back 30 people and refuse to reply to me if I ask you a question, or respond to your tweets? Sorry, but maybe I don’t want to buy your product anymore.

I see a lot of Tassie businesses wanting my money and yet, they won’t follow back on twitter. They won’t be drawn into conversation, they won’t respond to my tweets and a few of them have been downright rude.

If you can’t be polite to your clientele, then how do I know that you’re a business I want to support?

I can see that a lot of businesses are aiming at being “exclusive” and I call bullshit.

Exclusivity in your conversations does not make your product more desirable. It doesn’t make me want to visit your restaurant or buy your product, knowing that you have 800 followers and only follow back 30 of them. How is that the POINT of SOCIAL media?

It’s just mind boggling to me, that businesses would treat their customer base like they’re unworthy to be spoken to.

Here’s the thing – you don’t have to be knowledgeable about social media to do it well. You just have to be friendly.

That’s all we want.

And honestly, having a rude social media presence is worse than not having one at all.

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