Copyright 2005 Rok HrastnikAs much as this might surprise most bloggers,
#1 mistake most blogs are doing is not publishing their content via e-mail, as a supplement to their RSS feeds.
Just think about it: while RSS is growing strong, it still only penetrates about 5-6% of
American online population. Furthermore, according to a recent BlogAds survey, "only 12 percent of
blog reading audience said it used RSS always or often".
If you're delivering your blog content only via RSS, you're missing out on about 80% or more of potential regular readership/followship.
THE KEY BLOG PROBLEM
There are millions of blogs already, but really few people have
time to watch more than a few daily. But if they come back just once a week, they can be quickly overwhelmed with
amount of new content.
That's why it's crucial to provide a "best of", a helping hand to guide your readers to
"must-read" content you publish … and delivering this content either as a standalone “blog-zine” or as part of your regular e-mail newsletter.
WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?
Deliver your blog posts as they are written via RSS, but then also publish a regular (weekly or monthly) e-mail e-zine with your "top blog posts" for those that are still not in to RSS.
Don't do just one channel, do both.
E-mail is still
#1 end-user content delivery channel ... whether we like it or not. Using e-mail (as a supplement to RSS) to deliver our content is just good business practice, at least for now.
THE CHRIS PIRILLO EXAMPLE
Chris Pirillo is
publisher of one of
most popular sites on
net, Lockergnome.com. He was actually
first to proclaim e-mail as being dead.
But still, while he preferrs for his subscribers to use RSS instead of e-mail, that isn’t stopping him from using or promoting either RSS or e-mail.
COMPARING BLOGS, E-ZINES, E-MAIL AND RSS
If you’re reading this article and thinking that blogs are actually “beyond e-mail”, just consider
following reality.
RSS and e-mail are content delivery channels;
tools that enable us to deliver our content to end-users. Blogs and e-zines on
other hand are two different internet media content formats, differing in how/what content is provided and presented through them.