i’ve been online for long enough to know what i like and what i don’t.

one thing i really don’t like is being ignored. missing that quick heart beat link to a person. the interaction.

so, why am i writing this? to grizzle? maybe. but, to be honest I have just “unsubscribed” from one of the so-called online marketing experts emails for committing what I consider a major online mistake. sure, I received a heap of emails from them, daily in fact (although i didn’t realise i was subscribing to a service so there’s mistake number two).

but in my replies, my attempts at interaction, my questions etc with the person, i never ONCE received a response. fatal. but who the heck am i? am i really that important that i demand a reply? really? obviously not.

i look back at when i took over managing eventspool, south australia’s “what’s on” service, the one thing i introduced was an interactive communication channel. it was only email based, but hey, it worked. people wrote, i replied, we interacted. i tripled subscriptions, postings and general stats in under a year. not bad for 5 years ago.

now, i understand we’re all busy, popular souls. but in my mind, the initial connection is always the most important. hey, they say first impressions count… isn’t that why we all want our websites to look the grooviest – even when we’re sitting at home in our trackies?

so, personally… if i can relate one “online must do”… reply to that first email. hey – why not initiate the first communication? believe me, it works. and you never know who you might just run in to.
xc