We started publishing a blog in September 2008 with this post about solid state hard drives (SSDs). http://www.acroment.com/2008/09/the-low-cost-of-solid-state-hard-drives/ Since then, we have worked to create a regular stream of information we find useful, helpful, or want to share with our readers. But why?
Many of you may remember that we used to send a monthly newsletter (via US Mail) to our friends and customers. We used a service that would design and write the newsletter each month and mail it for us. I liked it because it was an easy way for me to reach out to our followers. I liked sending it via regular mail because it gave people something they could read off-line.
Then I was talking to my long time friend Ralph Dise about the newsletter. There was an article that related to a computer challenge he was having and I was wondering if the information helped him. His reply was candid and sharp “Eric, I throw those away each month!” I immediately started to total up the invoices I had been paying for the service as I asked him, “Why?” His reply was the reason for us starting this blog: “Because it doesn’t come from you. I can tell that don’t write it. I want YOUR thoughts and impressions.” I canceled the service the next day and wrote that first blog post.
We may not post everything we want to. We try to make sure that we’re posting things that our customers will care about. You can rest assured that WE are writing this stuff. Each and every post post is filled with our own thoughts and information – so that it matters to you. You may ask yourself… “Isn’t EVERYONE writing their own content?” The answer is a resounding, “NO”.
Take a look at some of our competitor’s websites and specifically at their blogs. If you copy the first sentence of some of those posts into Google you’ll see some amazing results. Here’s one example from a recent post:
“Here’s a scenario: Tom’s computer is acting up and getting a blue screen error a couple times a day.”
If you do a search for that specific phrase, you’ll get… 3,190 exact matches. That’s 3,190 instances (just from Google’s results) of that exact phrase. Why does this happen? It’s because many firms take a “cookie cutter” approach to their communications. Essentially what they’ve done is purchased syndicated content and published it on their site. There’s nothing “wrong” with that strategy perse… it’s just not the way we go about it. If they’re taking this passive route when communicating with you don’t you have to ask yourself what else is being pushed to the side?
By comparison, do a Google search for the first sentence from one of our recent posts:
“With the recent changes to the Facebook profile, it was a certainty that the way certain programs, websites and apps interacted with the social media giant would change as well.”
How many results did you get? 4. And all 4 of them are to either the Acroment website, or the Acroment Facebook page.
Judging on the increase in our website traffic – I think that it is working. Many of you are reading our posts – THANK YOU! But we would also love for you to comment on the posts and tell us what you like, or don’t like about them, or even just say “Hi”. What would be even better is if you take a moment to share our posts with others (using the share button below) to share our information with your friends.