The Pitch............

The never-ending tension for me in the blogosphere involves over-reaching to try and get something. Huh, i hear you say? Well, let me put it this way. If you had a brief opportunity to interact with a highly respected blogger/writer/genius would you suggest to him that perhaps he should check out your blog? Would you then offer him a unique chance to link to your blog by way of a post on his own site? The second ask is, perhaps over-reaching, i'm not convinced that it is but he thought it was. I must stress that i am still not 100% convinced that he is who he says he is. Ok, thats confusing, what i mean is that i am not sure if the person on Facebook is actually Seth. Its probably irrelevant, he isn't going to link to me, though he did read my blog if only for about 30 seconds!
My point is, upon asking for a link i was informed that "I just don't respond to pitches." I apologized and he vanished, like Keyser Söze but i am not offended, in fact i admire the honesty in telling me what i probably needed to hear. Will it stop me from pitching at people again? Nope! I have enough good experience with it to realize that sometimes it works. I have gotten to know some wonderful bloggers as a result of just asking "will you link to me?" I have managed to connect some fantastic musicians and artists to the work of atiG via a direct and sometimes bold suggestion that we want to work with you. Sometimes it doesn't work though, but here is a little tip for you if you are in a position to have a pitch thrown at you. Reply! Have the guts to say what "Seth" said (if it really is seth!) and don't just ignore it. I have sent emails, facebook & twitter messages countless times to people who, in my mind i was sure would reply and have gotten nothing..................and that my friends, really pisses me off. My first reaction is usually to wait a day or two, then type up an email that tells the person what a complete ass they are BUT then i don't send it! Kidding, i don't do that! It can be very rude though and oh yea im sure every other blogger on earth has this problem.
I shall close with the worst way this can happen to you! Twitter is great for sending messages, keeping up with people etc etc BUT have you ever sent a 'question' to someone and not got a reply and then noticed that they are in fact online, and answering questions to other users at an alarming rate? Ok they could be thinking long & hard about the question you sent or they could be that ass i previously mentioned, you don't know but your imagine certainly convinces you they are ignoring you! So, in future if i ask you something, pitch an idea or suggest doing something for me and you don't like it or don't want to, just have the decency to tell me. We all admire that

Find us on Facebook.........

I just set up a group on Facebook for our Church. It wasn't an official commissioned thing and to be honest for about 24 hours after i set it up i was a bit worried that i might have over-stepped the mark a tad. We all know that Church's can be funny about stuff like this don't we? Well if you are not aware of the Church not liking things like Facebook then read this. I was glad to find that within a few hours we had people accepting my invitation to join the group and a small indication that perhaps it could be a good idea for us. Ok, we are not on a par with such facebook favorites as Mark Driscoll and i wont expect the members to reach 5000 too quickly but I also had a conversation on Friday which encouraged me with regards to the group and blogging etc etc. My employers have also began thinking about using some of my thoughts and ideas on facebook and blogging so its been brilliant to dream about how i can make this work for our business and also incorporate our ministry into it. So, no doubt you will hear more about this as we develop the thoughts and ideas but do share your own thoughts................

What do you think about Facebook? Is your Church on facebook or have a blog?