Awhile back, I posted a survey here on ye olde blog. It was a very short survey and its purpose was simple. I wanted to learn a bit more about you. So I asked.
I know, it seems kind of strange, doesn’t it? So much of the online world seems based on hypothesizing and testing and guessing and then adjusting and testing again. I’m just downright lazy, I guess. I figured, “Well, why not just ask the people I’m talking to.”
I wanted to do this survey so that I could learn a little bit about who is coming here to read my content, and the hope/theory was that in learning a bit more about you, I could customize my content a bit better for, well, you.
Yes, I’m aware that if you didn’t take my survey this may not apply to you. I’m sure I’ll do another of these in the future 🙂
For now, here is a bit about you – my online community.
You’re mostly self-employed and you’re mostly B2B
I had a total of 44 votes on the first question, which means some people may have selected multiple options, but by far the most common answer to “describe your occupation” was self-employed at 23 votes. The split between B2B and B2C was pretty even. Sixteen people consider themselves in the B2b world, 11 in the B2C world. I realize this is not a comprehensive analysis of all employment options, but it offers good information for me. Whereas I spend my time in a rather traditional office set-up, I now know that most of you do not. That’s good to know!
You are real Twitter fans
Now, survey experts will say that I tainted question 2, which asked what social media platforms you use professionally, because I was asking on a blog site and I tweeted the blog out. To that end, it may not be surprising that Twitter and blogs were your two most common answers. BUT, what you might be interested to learn is that #3 was not Facebook but rather LinkedIn. I was surprised that so few people indicated that they use YouTube professionally. It feels like using videos on YouTube is really taking off. What do you think about that?
Advertisers, take heart
I wasn’t sure what kinds of answers I would get with question 3, which asked what traditional marketing tactics you tend to use. The most common answer was “other,” which Sean McGinnis informed me was being used to indicate “none.” After recovering from that knife in my heart though (hi Sean!) I recovered, because guess what? Out of 35 total votes on this question, 16 of you said you still use advertising. Isn’t that interesting? For all of that talk about adverting being dead, it seems you still use it. Trade shows were next in line, followed by direct mail and press releases.
You want to learn about integrating your marketing efforts
The final question was an important one for me. I asked if you wanted to learn more about how to integrate different marketing tactics together. Out of 42 votes, 37 of you said yes.
How can you use information like this?
Now, the number of respondents to my survey was pretty small – I didn’t really shove it down peoples’ throats (too much) and in fact I only really mentioned over the course of a couple of days, so I know that these results are not things I should tack to a wall and live by 100%. But, I have some interesting things to talk to you about now.
For example, I know that if I focus on B2C or B2B marketing, a lot of you will be pretty interested. I know that Twitter topics will probably do well here, but maybe you would enjoy learning about how you could incorporate YouTube more into your efforts.
Hopefully, by adjusting my content a bit based on these results, you will feel more welcome here, and we will be able to engage well with each other.
Would you consider doing a survey like this on your blog? What kinds of questions would you ask? And how do you interpret my survey results, since you are here, after all 🙂
This is post #85 in The Engagement Series. If you’re worried about missing a post, please feel free to hit the “subscribe” button right over there!
Image by Gary Mcinnes. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/bredmaker