As a blogger, you should know how busy you can get. And I’m sure blogging is not the only thing you’re doing as a hobby or a job. So, I heard this theory from reading various blogs that these A-list bloggers won’t give you the time of day. Have you ever thought about that before? Matter of fact, would any up and coming A-list bloggers even give you a minute of their time? Well, I tested out this theory on my own.
Pic of Darren Rowse
Let’s start off with how I got this idea. Well, during my entire blogging experience I have always heard about these big name bloggers that won’t return your e-mail and more than likely your message ends up in their trash right after the first sentence.
Now, I’m not saying I believe this or it’s even true but it did raise my curiosity a little bit. Of course, usually “curiosity kills the cat” right? Eh, you only live once I suppose. Plus, what do I really have to lose? My dignity?
So, I decided to test out this theory by myself to see if the rumors were true or not. I contacted two separate groups of people – the well known A-list bloggers and the up and coming A-list bloggers.
The A-list bloggers I decided to contact were Darren of Problogger.net, John of Johnchow.com and Maki of Doshdosh.com.
The up and coming A-listers I contacted were Tyler of Tylercruz.com, Tina of thinksimplenow.com and Carl of carlocab.com.
Pic of John Chow
So, how did I determine who’s an A-list blogger and who’s an up and coming A-lister? Well, I based it on how much they make each month based on my research from their “advertise here” page and/or their monthly revenue reports, how many RSS Feed subscribers they have and their Alexa ranking.
Below are their following stats (excluding how much they make monthly but you can imagine just how much based on the following stats below):
Darren of Problogger – 40K+ subscribers and ranked 3,406 in Alexa
John of Johnchow – 16K+ subscribers and ranked 4,415 in Alexa
Maki of Doshdosh – 12K+ subscribers and ranked 9,109 in Alexa
Each of the A-lister’s were in the top 10K in Alexa and had over 10K+ subscribers.
Tyler of Tylercruz – about 1,400 subscribers and ranked 29,244 in Alexa
Tina of Thinksimplenow – 4K+ subscribers and ranked 36,444 in Alexa
Carl of Carlocab – almost 1K subscribers and ranked 33,724 in Alexa
These up and coming A-listers had around 1K to 5K and ranked around 30,000 overall in Alexa.
Pic of Tyler Cruz
I think all of the above have a similar niche (marketing, blogging tips, making money online) except for Tina but I included her because, well, she’s unique and she a very interesting blog. Plus, look at her stats! And she only updates her blog twice a week!
So, how did I approach them?
Instead of spamming their e-mails with various messages, I tried to include them all into one. So, I approached each individual with a personal message but I tried to include some sort of business-related bit with it.
Pic of Tina Su
The business approach included anything from interviewing them, guest posting, collaborating on some projects, etc.
The personal message could have included anything from sucking up to them telling them I’m not a crazy fan, introducing myself, or simply telling them that I wanted to see if the rumors were true if they would even take a second to reply back or not.
The results…
Surprisingly, 5 of the 6 returned my e-mail. And no, John Chow was not the odd person out. Actually, the only person that I have never heard back from was Maki of Doshdosh.com. Update: Maki responded and he never received my e-mail in the first place. So now EVERYONE has taken the time out of their busy day to reply back to me. Thanks!
Darren – I actually heard a lot of very nice things about him and he just backed up the rumors. He politely responded to my e-mail simply stating “thanks for the e-mail Jay – appreciate it!”
Now, that’s not saying much but if you think about it, he probably gets hundreds of e-mails everyday and he took a few seconds out of his busy schedule to actually reply back.
John – I was actually a little surprised on this one due to all the rumors I hear about him. He took his time to respond back telling me I have a good overall blog and suggested signing up for his advertising website.
Okay, I know some of you guys may think he only responded because he wanted me to sign up for his advertising company, but if you think about it, he didn’t have to respond at all. Matter of fact, he came to my blog at least on two different occasions (based on Mybloglog’s widget) and even dropped his Entrecard in my inbox.
Maki – I actually never really heard rumors – good or bad – about him, but I never gotten a response. So, I guess he never gave me the time of day, huh? Update: Maki responded and never received my original e-mail.
Pic of Carl Ocab
Tyler – Very professional, pretty funny and honest. We had a couple e-mail exchanges, matter of fact, I guest posted on his blog. Thanks again Tyler for that opportunity!
Tina – the most down-to-earth up and coming A-list blogger. Very sweet, friendly and definitely helpful!
Carl – received a response because he was interested in letting me conduct an interview. After e-mailing him the questions and also following-up with an additional e-mail (about a week later), I have yet to get another response.
Conclusion:
I’m sure if I was already an accomplished blogger, then I would probably get more attention from these folks but I’m still a little guppy in a big pond of sharks fish. But this experiment went a lot better than I thought it would have.
I went into this experiment thinking no one was going to give me the time of day – either the accomplished A-list bloggers or the up and coming ones. Well, it was a little surprising that the majority of the bloggers I contacted did give me the time of day. That just proves to me that these A-list bloggers are just like anybody else.
Though, I’m not saying everyone will get the same type of response/results as I have gotten but this experiment has definitely taught me something. It just backs up the theory that you should not believe everything you hear from rumors. So, don’t believe the hype and rumors until you have experienced it for yourself.
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Blogging
Problogger
John Chow
Tyler Cruz
DoshDosh
Tina Su
Carl Ocab
Bloggers
Hi Jay,
My personal experience with John Chow asking for URL to download his ebook was not replied to, although I state explicitly that I am subscribing to his newsletter already.
other than that, how long did you wait for the reply? maybe maki of doshdosh is just going to reply (much) later?
This experiment is quite similar to what I recently saw at The Rookie Blogger. I was a target of the experiment as well.
See the results here:
http://therookieblogger.com/a-list-helpfulness-confirmed/
Just so you know, I usually reply emails… but I don’t think I received yours. It might have been lost in the spam folder, unfortunately.
What did you want from me?
Because they have many emails and are busy, it’s better to be short on the first line. That’s what John Chow wrote a while back.
You could write more after that first line with a longer version in case they are interested with what you offer/want. This should safe you and them time.
That is pretty much my experience as well. I think that these high-profile bloggers have two emails, so it is really a matter of finding their more personal address. The other email inbox is typically filtered through.
I like to respond quickly to every response/contact request I get, but hey… if I started to get 100 emails a day this might change
Bobby – John Chow actually replied to me within a day after I sent the e-mail.
Maki – Wow, thanks for taking the time to comment here. I figured you was just extremely busy and I didn’t want to bother you by following-up with an additional e-mail. But I will change my results on my post.
But I actually read that you if there’s a business proposal that you might be interested in, you would consider it. So, in my e-mail, I actually proposed something to you.
Should I try e-mailing again?
Steve – Actually, when I wrote to each individual, it wasn’t exactly “short” but it wasn’t TOO long either. And it seems now everyone has responsed back.
Jim – I think I get a handful of e-mails and a bunch of requests to do custom banner designs for people. But yes, I do take the time to reply back to people as well.
But you’re right, apparently my messages ended up in Maki’s spam filter.
Thanks everyone for commenting!
Jay
DatMoney.com
never emailed the A lists, But I have commented on some of their blogs (a few times) – and was ignored.
Tina though, I LOVE her! I exchanged many emails with her. She is wonderful. And was really helpful too!
I’m impressed that you actually went out and emailed these “big” guys and gal and quite surprised they took the time to reply back given their busy schedules.
I hope they gave you some good tips and inspiration!
hey great post!
I think people think b/c they have a really popular blog.. sometimes they just dont reply to you b/c you dont look that important to them..
Can I post on your blog?? hehehe..
You know this was a great idea!
I would think they don’t reply because they get so many emails in per day.
The celebrities of Blogging!
Maki is one of the friendliest and most helpful bloggers around. I’m glad you had a good response, but I do have to say that sending out e-mails to “test” other bloggers and posting the results is a bit insulting.
Jay, thanks again for your ad work, and I have to say that there was a plugin I’ve been using and I wanted to get it to include my rss image to remind people to subscribe but I couldn’t figure out how, so I emailed the blogger/plugin creator and he actually responded with the complete code in a file for me to automatically upload it. I gave him a free link on my homepage, it’s service like that that stands out in my book.
Simple – I’m not too sure if A-listers comment on their own comments. At least I haven’t seen it too much. But yes, Tina is a close friend now.
Search Engine – Hey, I wanted to see if I got a response. Don’t get me wrong, I did propose some business stuff.
Nitos – Lol… do you really want to post on this little old blog of mine?
Michael – Even celebs sign autographs. I’m not going to lie, I was a little excited when Maki left that comment!
Absolutely – Maybe “test” wasn’t the correct word for it. Because I honestly went into contacting these people for a reason (besides for this post), but particularly for something business related.
I contacted all these folks quite sometime ago but I figured I’d let everyone know that no matter what the rumors are, these folks ARE nice friendly people.
And yes, Maki is nice. He did contact me and I’m hoping to work with him sometime in the near future. That’s why I put updates on the post.
Publicrecordsguy – No problem. But yes, a lot of people are actually willing to help, and yes, that includes me. I’m glad you had a good experience too!
Jay
are you kidding me??
I totally would like to post!! on your blog!!
=)
Very nice post Jay and the results are fortunately what you would want to expect
I guess it also depends on the content of the e-mail in order to grab their attention.
“Celebrities” is a good term, as i think many if not most new bloggers look at the A-listers with a mixture of envy and awe. The next step is to explore their bogs, read their posts and learn how to do what they do so well. Maki in particular has posted a number of easy-to-understand articles on how to make StumbleUpon work for you.
Its good to see that you got a response rate that high.I wouldnt have thought that. I guess it goes to show that the big time bloggers will take time out to help other and give them a few ideas as well. Thanks for going ahead with your little experiment.
I’ve had very similar experiences in my own niche (usability & SEM); I’ve made an effort to build relationships, and the vast majority of people have been really helpful, even the A-listers.
I haven’t talked to any of this group directly, but many of them are also very generous social networkers (I know Maki is, from personal experience on Sphinn and StumbleUpon). Of course, that doesn’t mean we should all send them emails and IMs begging them to Stumble, Digg, etc. our posts, but if they see good content they try to acknowledge it, even from the little guys.
Jay,
That was a very interesting post. creative.
Now that your nose is brown, wink, what is like to be, shall we say now a B blogger, Is that before you become an A blogger.
Keep up the work
Cheers
Keith
I’m not really surprised that these A-listers took the time to get back with you. Overall what I’ve found is that they’re super nice people and even though they’re “internet celebrities” so to speak they’re still people… and totally willing to connect with readers.
Consider that a blog is a conversation – of course they want to connect with you.
Great experiment though
I feel that many bloggers often read their emails carefully for quality feedback from their readers. If you have a genuine concern or opinion, I find that many of them will give you the time of day.
I’ve found these top bloggers to be both friendly and forthcoming. Considering the success these guys have had in such a people oriented field as blogging, I guess it should be no surprise that they are pretty cool guys. And if they don’t always have time to reply to every single email, I can certainly understand that. They do get an absolute insane amount of mail after all.
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If your e-mail and other correspondance is professional enough, anybody will give you “the time of day.”
The amount of mail an A-Lister receives is much more than any of us receive. They have probably gotten really good at noticing what is spam and whats not.
A legitimate message may fall through the cracks from time to time, so I would say its OK to send them a second message if they dont respond after a week. Just use your best judgement, and dont hound them.
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I have a bit surprise that they all return your email. Can you imagine how many email the pro blogger have to handle everyday? Do they have any assistance to help out?
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This is the type of post that I aspire to in my intermediate seo blog. You take a question of broad interest, research it, document your methodology, and share it. Plus it’s a little dramatic wondering, as I read it, whether you’ll hear from them. It’s a good solid post. Congrats. You could add a little more of your emotions to it. It’s a “just the facts” post and I found myself wondering whether you took it personally or not. For instance, if someone checked out my blogs and then didn’t respond to me, I’d feel bad that they had checked me out and not even found me worth responding to.
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