I’ve been thinking about followers vs subscribers lately, mostly because I work in the field of search engine marketing (I obsess over topics like this).
Followers click a button. Subscribers provide opt-in information like an email address and tacitly agree to let you contact them in the future.
Here’s where I’m going with this: If you’re not collecting contact information in a non-obtrusive way, your followers miss the opportunity to listen to you in a noise free environment.
Cut Down the Noise and Increase Intimacy
One of the blogs I publish is called Social Media in the Real World.
By adding one simple — and free — email form from FeedBurner, I deliver the blog to over 500 readers via their email inbox. This is in addition to readers who still prefer to visit the site to read daily updates.
When someone reads the blog via their email, they are voting for me in the form of trust. The men and women who sign up willingly share their email address to receive what they perceive as valuable content (and trust I will never spam them). The same goes for subscribers to my blog via RSS and each free blog report I share.
Would you like to know how I built 500+ readers (and way more daily visits to the site)?
I just use that blog as an aggregation of all my daily Tweets from my @JoeMescher account (Twitter Tools Plugin). Subscribers have come to view this site as a ‘Joe Mescher’ syndication feed, and you can create yours the same way.
Forms and Tracking are Key
Notice the numbers in the picture above?
1 refers to the welcome message that is available to anyone via a plugin called What Would Seth Godin Do. Use this plugin to encourage new visitors to subscribe (or risk losing them forever).
2 is the FeedBurner form that users can fill out to receive the blog via email. I love this because it lets me have longer ‘conversations’ with folks since there is less distraction vs surfing the Web (I realize most people don’t read every single day, but I still have the opportunity to connect 7 times each week).
3 pictures two of my ‘alter egos’ (this blog and Social Brand Solutions, a branding project anyone can join). These are not forms, but each site has their own opt-in forms on them.
If you’re wondering how to install a form, you can check out AWeber — which I use — or services like Constant Contact. Both companies offer easy to use form creation guides.
Action Step
Thanks for making time to read this post, and this blog. I’m humbled and appreciate every single person who invests a part of their day inviting me into their lives in some way.
So Troops, let me ask you, how are you creating new opportunities to syndicate your content on the Web and build subscriber bases of your own? We can build better solutions together, and I will post all responses in an upcoming post.