if you have under 1000 twitter followers, 500 facebook likes, or 2000 website subscribers, [all of a decent quality] you probably have a pretty hard time simply “surveying” your users as sooooooo many websites and experts tell you to do when you want to gather feedback, or come up with an idea for a product, or a post, or provide a service in your niche. you know, build something online.
is this is you? – you haven’t developed anything yet, you have maybe a mockup, or simply a description and want potential readers/users/customers to weigh in
you have the basics of this idea or business or venture established and now you want to drum up some responses from your target audience.
you want a “litmus” test before you head to the lab and create the best thing ever
“ask what they struggle with” as derek from social triggers is popular for saying…but if you haven’t had at least a few moments of glory where you actually have traffic/users/customers to survey…what the heck are you supposed to do? ask who?
i can ask questions to my various platforms and i’ll get 5 – 10 responses, maybe. [and i’ll be honest here, i have about 400 people on my e-mail list, 700+ twitter followers, 250 facebook followers, i have no idea how many linkedin connections, make about 2-4k a month online regularly and ferociously love my users]
people aren’t eager to give you feedback unless you make them eager, happen to ask the perfect question [a herculean task at least in my field] or your survey exposure is massive.
what can you do when twitter and facebook and linkedin are kinda useless to you at this middle ground between nothing, and getting there? [i’m not alone or taking crazy pills here right?]
here are some ideas that have worked for me
- barter BUT qualify first! i once did a giveaway for an powerbook once but didn’t ask any qualifyers, tons of response, no one was actually stuck with me, make sure if you’re going to pay for a response, you ask qualifying questions in a survey or something so you get quality information
- be interested, go to someone elses blog that’s on topic, leave comments, ask the author directly or in the comments when appropriate [this takes digging for a post matching your needs, this takes investment and is in line with what derek might suggest]
- join communities where your niche is, get involved, answer some others posts, then post your own
- quora & craigslist – do a NO-TECH version of your idea, solicit craigslist for feedback, it works
- ask friends [that are at least mildly entrepreneurial]
- use tools [critique, user voice, user testing are my favorite]
- join closed groups with people committed to answering stuff when you ask [i have a google group, and a facebook group]
the tough hard answer is that you’re going to have to go be part of a community or group if you don’t have your own that revolves around your idea or business, but not you directly, and you’re going to have to “earn your stripes” to gain enough influence in that group of people to elicit the response you want when asking a question or others to share what you’re building.
sucks huh? yep, that’s called hustle, but i thought i should tell you about it, because hearing “a survey is a great way to …” is infuriating when it’s not actionable