How are Followers Measured?
Last week I asked how do you follow non-blogger blogs? There are so many ways to follow a blog: GFC, Linky, NetworkedBlogs, Twitter, Facebook, e-mail subscriptions, RSS, you name it! So when we have so many different ways to be followed, how the heck do we measure how many followers we have? A BookNook reader submitted this question:
Deficient continuity. Unlike RSS, unread tweets or status updates “drop off the stream” — that is they are not stored and labeled for a follower’s later use. An RSS reader, on the other hand, keeps everything tidy in reverse chronological order, so subscribers don’t miss a thing (unless they want to). “RSS.com has made my experience as a first time Podcaster so easy! The website is extremely user friendly, and easy to navigate. Everything I need to handle my podcast is in one place, which allows me to focus more time on my content rather than having to figure out the logistics of how to broadcast Wine Hotline!”. RSS – India's Hindu nationalists spread their wings far and wide The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is the ideological mentor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP party. It is increasingly. RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication, depending on who you ask. Developed in the early days of the internet way back in 1999, RSS feeds allow you to get the information you want all in one place – be it entertainment news, sports updates, or the latest current affairs from around the world.
How are followers measured, especially on WordPress which doesn’t have a nifty GFC? Do you just add the Networked Blogs and Linky Followers together? Do Facebook/Twitter followers count?
As a general rule, I would say that Facebook and Twitter do not count.
The main reason is because Twitter and Facebook are dedicated social media sites and ways of communicating, so most of your followers will follow your blog AND follow you on Twitter/Facebook to stay connected to you. So if you count your Twitter/Facebook followers with your ‘normal’ blog count, you’re essentially counting everyone twice!
If we’re not counting RSS/e-mail in the equation (since it wasn’t mentioned in the question), then yes, I would just add my Linky and NetworkedBlogs followers together. The reason for that is because I assume my followers will follow me on EITHER Linky OR NetworkedBlogs—not both. People tend to pick one and stick with it.
But, if we do count RSS/e-mail, then it gets even more confusing! I think people are more likely to double up. Someone might follow you on NetworkedBlogs AND have an e-mail subscription.
So what the heck do we do?
I think at the end of the day, it’s up to you. Whenever someone asks me how many followers I have (like in a blog tour sign up or on my NetGalley profile), I always give them the individual numbers. I would say something like:
- 533 RSS/e-mail subscribers
- 829 Linky/NetworkedBlogs followers
- 1447 Twitter followers
- 809 Facebook fans
That way, there’s no confusion, and the person on the receiving end can decide for themselves how many ‘total’ followers you have.
Side note about followers…
After last week’s discussion, I decided that for my own blog, I was going to stop measuring ‘followers’ and start measuring ‘subscribers’. It became extremely clear to me that if someone wants to actually FOLLOW your blog and keep updated with new posts, they will subscribe to you through RSS or e-mail. Most (but not all) of your NetworkedBlogs and Linky followers are only ‘following’ you to enter into a giveaway. They don’t actually keep coming back for your posts.
How do you count your number of followers?
What the Heck is RSS?
While we’re on the subject of followers and RSS, here is another reader-submitted question:
If it is not a CDC-certified syndrome, then what is it? I am familiar with RSS-driven emails, but what about all that Google Reader stuff? How do bloggers even know people are reading their blog via RSS feeds?
Okay, I’ll break this into two parts: what is RSS, and what’s the deal with RSS readers.
What is RSS?
RSS (“Rich Site Summary”) is essentially a plain text feed of your blog. It’s a ‘plainly’ formatted list of all your posts. Because RSS feeds are in a plain text XML format, they can then be fed into a variety of third party applications, such as an RSS Reader.
What’s the deal with RSS readers?
An RSS reader is an application that allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds. In all honesty, it’s not much different from an e-mail subscription. You have a reader homepage and then a feed of all the new posts from the sites you’ve subscribed to. You can mark posts as ‘read’, scroll through them, unsubscribe, etc.
Rss Followers
The only real difference between an RSS reader and an e-mail subscription, is that your RSS subscription doesn’t get sent to your e-mail. Instead, everything just gets funnelled through your RSS reader dashboard. This is good for people who like to separate their site subscriptions from their personal e-mail accounts. If you already get 100 e-mails a day, you don’t want to be boggled down with an additional 20 e-mails from blogs you’ve subscribed to.
And finally, the only real way you can see that people are reading your blog via an RSS feed is by seeing your subscription counter. If you channel your RSS feed through a site like FeedBurner, you can see a tally of how many subscribers you have.
This number is the combined total of RSS subscribers and e-mail subscribers. FeedBurner also allows you to see a more specific break down, which divides up the RSS subscribers and the e-mail subscribers. Other than seeing “I have x amount of Google Reader subscribers”, you don’t really know much more about who your RSS subscribers are. However, you can usually see a few other statistics, such as your “reach”.
You may have 500 subscribers, but odds are not all of them are actually reading your posts in their RSS reader regularly. In fact, what if they subscribe to you (like, for a giveaway) but NEVER check their RSS reader? This is where the reach comes in. The reach gives you an estimate of how many people have viewed or clicked on the content of your feed. This number is usually significantly lower than your subscriber number.
Rss Followers
With over 420 million users, there is no doubt that Tumblr is one of the bigger blogging platforms on the market today. The amount of time spent on Tumblr, according to Yahoo!, increased from 22 minutes in 2013 to over 28 minutes in 2014 ~ a significant metric within social media. We created this simple RSS hack to get more Tumblr followers by promoting your content across social media.
We’ll show you how to get followers on Tumblr by promoting your tumblr RSS content across social media.
Not a Tumblr user? Read the bonus material below to learn how to tap into Tumblr’s 420 million users.
How to Grow Tumblr Followers
Step 1. Enter the Tumblr blog URL you want to convert to an RSS feed.
Example: http://social-media-minute.tumblr.com/
If you have a custom domain, the process to create an RSS feed is the same.
Step 2. Add ‘RSS’ to the end of the Tumblr URL from Step 1.
The new Tumblr RSS feed: http://social-media-minute.tumblr.com/rss
Step 3. Grow your Tumblr Followers.
Create a dlvr.it route using the newly created Tumblr RSS feed and share to Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and more. Drive users back to your Tumblr blog.
Anytime you post to Tumblr, all the social networks you have connected in the route will be automatically updated with the latest content from Tumblr.
Advanced Users: By default, Tumblr sets the output of the RSS feed to summary content. If you want full content in the RSS feed, you need to access the advance options. Once you are logged into your Tumblr dashboard, follow the instructions below:
- Click ‘Customize’ in the upper right of the dashboard
- Click ‘Advanced options’ at the bottom of the page on the left
- Toggle ‘Truncate RSS feed’ to set for the “Off” mode
Bonus: How to quickly tap into Tumblr’s 420 Million users
If you are already creating content on another blogging platform or social network, leverage your existing efforts to reach a new audience on Tumblr.
Step 1. In your dlvr.it account, add your blog RSS feed to a route.
Rss Followers
In this example, we are adding the dlvr.it blog content to a Tumblr blog. Read our Getting Started Guide for complete instructions on how to create Route like you see below.
Step 2. Add Tumblr to the Destination side of the route.
In this example, we are sharing the dlvr.it blog content to our Tumblr blog Social Media Minute. Dsc driver.
Read our Getting Started Guide for complete instructions.
Step 3. Customize the settings.
During set-up, the following box will appear. The image below shows the optimal settings for a well-formatted Tumblr blog.
Anytime the RSS feed updates, dlvr.it will automatically update your Tumblr blog and you gain more exposure for your content.
Smart Social Media Automation
The easiest way to automatically share great content to
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more.