I have a belief that social engagement is a required task to increase trust with your audience. Unless you already have a huge following (and startups have zero followers), you have to create content and engage your audience to gain their trust before they use your product(s).

I’m proud that this blog is starting to increase in followers as I put more focus to it. If a startup founder’s (or blog author’s) ego can take it, growing something organically from zero to something larger provides you with the opportunity to directly communicate with the “earlyvangelists”, allowing creators (and start-ups) to gain valuable feedback that can only make your product or content better.

Most importantly, you can get to know those few customers in a way that people with zillions of customers can’t. You can talk to them on the phone. You can provide personalized support. You can find out what it would take for them to adopt your product, and then follow up a week later and see if they did. Same with finding out what it would take to get them to recommend your product to a friend. You can even meet the friend. - Eric Ries

Eric Ries periodically would query his audience for feedback on his blog. In fact, the title of this post is borrowed from him, as I think it is a great idea. 

If you have a minute, I’d appreciate your time to answer some questions. Feel free to post at lloquy.com (BONUS: You get early access to lloquy.com). If you sign-up there, I’ll turn on your beta access within 24 hours (in most cases, much sooner). Or, feel free to email me. 

1. On a scale of 1-10 (where 10 is most likely), how likely is it that you you would recommend this blog to a friend or colleague?
2. How did you hear about it?
3. What led you to become a subscriber, versus just reading an article and leaving like everybody else? (or, if you’re not a subscriber, what would it take to convince you?)
4. What do you hope to see here in the future?

Thanks in advance.