Subscribers Count, Show it or not?

Posted on 11. Sep, 2009 by Isaac Yassar in Blogging

subscribers-countWe think that blogs with more than 10K of FeedBurner subscribers are fancy ones, don’t we?

Those solid blogs usually show their subscribers count using FeedBurner FeedCount. Their success influences new bloggers, including this show off thing. I used to put a FeedCount on my blog because I thought it would be great to see my subscribers count grow (and show it off), just like those fancy blogs. But I had a change of heart.

Let’s discus about this (email) subscribers count from another point of view, shall we?

1. Readers – writers

Subscription tools such as via email are originally meant to let our readers follow our blogs easily. It supposes to satisfy them by keep delivering the value from our blogs. It feels wrong if we add such tool only for our satisfaction (writers) by showing off numbers (of subscribers).

There are many mediums to follow a blog beside email subscription, like social media, social bookmark, browser bookmarking, link exchange, etc. All of them exist mostly to serve readers in staying update and keep receiving benefit of value delivered by our blogs. Let’s keep it that way.

2. Comfort for readers

Email subscription is actually not too comfortable for readers in some ways, I felt it myself. If we subscribe to three blogs and they publish new posts every two days, then it’s not a big deal. But if we subscribe to more than ten blogs and they posts new articles everyday, then they will seriously clutter our inbox. We might miss the ‘real’ emails from our colleagues needing responses because of it.

We can easily move the newsletters to spam box once so they’ll keep coming there, and problem solved? Not really. What is the point of subscribing via email if we just send the newsletters to our spam folder? That’s just wrong.

3. Distraction

Another reason I don’t show my subscribers count is because it can distract me and my readers from the true quality of my content sometimes, though I still offer the link to subscribe via email in case someone wants to use it.

If we show our subscribers count on our blog and only a handful people subscribe, we may think that our content is bad and people dislike it. It is a misconception as it is a distraction that disheartens us. The fact is many people like to visit and read a blog without subscribing to it via email. Having a few email subscribers doesn’t mean people dislike our blog.

If our visitors see our FeecCount and know that we only have a few subscribers, some of them may misunderstand our blog as not popular before they actually know the true quality of our blog (e.g. via reading a post). If our visitors care more about our subscribers count rather than our content, it’s bad for business.

In sum, we have to be careful in showing our subscribers count, especially when we grow new blogs. Let’s not blindly show it off and make it our priority since there are many other important things in blogging. Most importantly, don’t let it bring any negative impact such as distraction to our blog.

However, those above are from my point of view. Feel free to share yours.

Tags: Blogging, subscription

15 Responses to “Subscribers Count, Show it or not?”

  1. LetUpdate

    11. Sep, 2009

    for number 2) we must subscribe in particular email for blogging activity. Do not mix your private email with blogging activity.

    for number 3) i believe that it is the core of whole article message. The distraction is main risk for show the subscriber count.

    Reply to this comment

  2. Jared P Little

    12. Sep, 2009

    If the nubmer is low don’t show it, also like you said some audiences don’t really like mail or even know what RSS is. Good advice.

    Reply to this comment

  3. earningstep

    12. Sep, 2009

    my opinion is : show your rss count when reach three digit.. this will make people more believe in you . that’s it

    Reply to this comment

  4. Isaac Yassar

    12. Sep, 2009

    Thanks for commenting LetUpdate, Jared, and earningstep. Those are nice points. Three digit is a nice count to start showing. Separate emails also a shiny idea, perhaps we can combine GMail, Yahoo, etc.

    But I am too fond of GMail, so I’d like separate GMails for it, but I doubt I can open them at the same time and same browsers ;-)

    Reply to this comment

  5. indyaz

    17. Sep, 2009

    Showing Subscriber count as my opinion is should be four digit.. then reader will happy to subscribe

    Reply to this comment

  6. Earn Money At Home

    22. Sep, 2009

    I think you got a point Isaac.

    I also think this thing when I started blogging. I think I must make an experiment if this could be good to gather more subscribers.

    Thank you for your tips. I am looking for more soon. By the way, if you don’t mine, please visit my blog also.

    I hope we could have a chance to chat. Good luck and good health.

    Sincerely,
    Felix Albutra – Earn Money At Home

    Reply to this comment

  7. Extreme John

    23. Sep, 2009

    I go through phases when it comes to stuff like this, I base it solely on what I feel like looking at, however posting my counts never really meant that I got any more out of it.

    Reply to this comment

  8. S.Pradeep Kumar

    09. Oct, 2009

    I don’t want my readers to scare off by showing my stats ! :D

    Reply to this comment

  9. Harsh Agrawal

    12. Oct, 2009

    IMO below 100 do not show…above 100 flaunt it.. :)

    Reply to this comment

  10. mktanny

    12. Oct, 2009

    hey IMO you should show it no matter wat, coz it shows ur reeaders that u r workijng hard as u ur stats improve and if it does not increase then it surely is going to make u work harder so either its good.

    Reply to this comment

  11. Zahid Lilani

    07. Nov, 2009

    I agree with most commentators, show the subscriber count no matter what. I always felt it is a good way to get more RSS subscribers.

    Sometimes it is just better to not think about what others think :)

    Reply to this comment

  12. kittuk

    16. Nov, 2009

    I totally agree with the 3rd point – Distraction. The unique visitors of my blog & subscribers are inversely proportional to each other. Hence, i am better of not showing the subscribers stats.

    Reply to this comment

  13. crazy blogger

    19. Nov, 2009

    those who are having more number of readers can show the subscribers count.

    i we show the count when we have less subscribers we can see the downfall in subscribing count

    Reply to this comment

  14. Isaac Yassar

    04. Jan, 2010

    Thanks for all your feedback people. For now, I don’t show it. I don’t even think about it because I prefer focusing on building content. But I keep the feature ready in case someone wants to subscribe.

    Reply to this comment

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