Business Blogging - How to Build A Better Blog

Email vs. RSS - How do you subscribe to blog content?

Every year or two I like to visit this question and poll readers on their preferred method for having  blog content delivered. The last poll I ran was in August 2009 and revealed a split of 52 to 44% email to RSS.

I wonder if the ratio has changed much? Because I like to experiement, this time I'm running the poll on my Facebook page using the new Question/Poll feature and I invite you to vote and comment. I added a third option to the poll - audio - since I'm seeing more and more bloggers add an audio version to their blog posts. So far, not many people are choosing that option.

You can see, at the time this screenshot was captured, email is still winning. And I'm willing to bet that folks who are on Facebook and Twitter are pretty savvy when it comes to consuming content on the web. Email still rules, despite reports to the contrary. (Do you have an email subscribe option on your blog?)

Vote in the poll and post a comment with your reason why you like one method over another.

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Did you vote? Thanks!

NetworkedBlogs is the App of Choice for Bloggers

My informal poll asking bloggers about their favorite application for pulling their blog posts into their Facebook page, revealed a clear winner with NetworkedBlogs.

At 38.8% of the vote and more than double the votes of its nearest rival ("Other"), it's clear that NetworkedBlogs is a popular choice for posting your blog articles on to your Facebook page.

The responses to "Other" included:

Social Marketing Success - Slides and Resources

Last week I had the honor and privilege to co-host a live 3 day event with four amazing colleagues: Janis Pettit (the mastermind behind the event), Kathleen Gage, Ellen Britt and Marnie Pehrson. The Radiant Success Event was a smash hit as you can see if you check out the pictures and comments on Facebook.

I spoke about Social Marketing Success which was a mash up of how to get the most leverage out of your blog by writing compelling content, repurposing content, syndicating your content to multiple platforms and then giving your audience the tools to amplify your message beyond your own reach.

So many people asked for the slides and links to the resources I talked about that I decided to post them here. The slides may not make much sense without the me giving the context, but you'll get the idea.

Email vs RSS Poll - The Results Are In

Last week I needed to satisfy a curiosity about whether more people used email or used RSS to subscribe to their favorite blogs. I set up a simple poll on PollDaddy. I wanted to get at least 100 votes since results generally stabilize and run consistent after that point.

As I suspected, Email beats RSS, though not by much in this small sample. I suspect the real stats are different since most of the people who took this poll are pretty savvy: they hang out online, they play on twitter and other online networking sites so skew towards an understanding of RSS. However, my experience with clients is that most have no clue about RSS and their blog audiences don't either. I think the real results (if I could find a scientifically conducted survey) would be closer to 80/20 Email to RSS.

I was surprised to see in the "other" category that someone said they subscribe to blogs on Facebook. Facebook actually pulls the blog's RSS feed in the Notes Application - if the blogger has it set up. And yes, that's certainly a legitimate way to get your blog updates, but in fact you're not really subscribing. If you're "friends" with someone who imports their blog, then you may see their posts.

What does this mean for you, dear blogger? YOU CANNOT IGNORE EMAIL OR RSS. If you only have one or the other option on your blog, you're leaving a lot of people out who may want to subscribe but either don't know how or want a different option.  Offer both. I use Feedblitz for email subscriptions and use Feedburner to offer a "smart feed" that people can use to subscribe with their favorite feed readers. Feedburner also has an email subscribe form.

Any more thoughts on this issue or is it time to move on? :-)

Forget Traffic: It's Subscribers You Want

I've never been obsessed with page views, search engine optimization, page ranking and other stats like the tech people talk about. I'm a firm believer in organic search results based on a few key best practices: If you write frequently about problems and solutions that your people are interested in, they should be able to find you.

Yesterday Denise and I interviewed Phil Hollows, founder of FeedBlitz.com, the leading blog to email provider about new services they're offering in the realm of newsletter and content distribution. FeedBlitz is rolling out some great new free features for marketing your business.

RSS Feed Poll Results

Its' been a week since we posted our poll about whether blog readers prefer full or partial posts in their RSS feeds.  With 800+ subscribers, we got 51 votes as of the time of this post.  That's about a 6% response rate.  Not great, but not bad.

With a margin of 2 to 1, or 64% to 35%, readers prefer to get their content as a full feed.  This margin has been pretty consistent for the 7 day duration.

If you use TypePad, you can set this option on your blog under the Configure tab, then click on Feeds.

Full Feed or Partial Feed: New Poll

Get Free Research Polls

RSS Feeds or Email: New Poll

RSS feeds or email or both.  How do you deliver updates to your blog readers?  In preparation for our Conversation with Phil Hollows, found and CEO of Feedblitz, we'd like to get a sense of what bloggers are doing to deliver blog content to their readers.  Please take our poll below and then register for the free Conversation with Phil (Wednesday, August 30 at 8:30 p.m. ET).

RSS: Benefits for Business

Des Walsh of Thinking Home Business Blog in Australia wrote a great post about how to get a handle on RSS feeds, and how to get others to understand and start using it. While he encourages people to read Brian Clark's post over on Copyblogger about this topic, Des adds clarity to the confusion.

You can expect to hear more about RSS this year, as new companies offer services to make RSS easier for you and your readers to start using it. One such company is Attensa. More coming later about them and their RSS feed services.

Yesterday, Denise and I were guests at a Six Apart luncheon in Santa Monica. I'm sure Denise will be posting about this later today. Six Apart is parent to Typepad, Live Journal and Movable Type. Also sponsoring the event was Attensa. Director of Product Management Matthew Bookspan was there, and provided more clarity about RSS.

Press Releases via RSS

Periodically The Blog Squad posts press releases on PRWeb.com to highlight new client blogs, announce events and new products.  It occured to me that we should be able to deliver the press releases to those who want them via RSS feed. And lo and behold, that feature is offered.

To subscribe to The Blog Squad press feed, add this link to your feed readers.  This is helpful for journalists and others in the media who want to stay on top of what you and your business are up to as the release will be automatically devlivered to their feed reader as soon as your press release is posted.

Tech Tags: RSS PR PRweb