Comments on: Displaying RSS Subscriber Numbers: When Is It Beneficial?

By: Vidcast: Pigeon Holes, Mommy Bloggers, Subscribers vs Readers - O’Flaherty

Vidcast: Pigeon Holes, Mommy Bloggers, Subscribers vs Readers - O’Flaherty — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 17:23:53 +0000

[...] post on Fuelmyblog came was written as a response to Cordiva from SheGeeks question: "For those that have their RSS subscriber stats on their blog, when did decide to put yours [...]

By: felix

felix — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 13:11:45 +0000

I started displaying my feedburner number a little bit ago when the daily feedburner dance stopped dropping it below 100. I did it partially because that was a milestone I set for myself and partially as an indicator of “importance” and I use the quotes advisedly. :)

I agree with Paul that it ultimately it doesn’t matter – having 100000 users doesn’t make your content better or worse and good content will ultimately win. But when people come to a site they look for clues as to the authority of the site – some clues come from how they found it, was it a link from someone they respect? A top link in the search results? Clean and nice site design? All these things are tiny but they add up to how much attention they’re going to pay. I expect that the RSS sub number is a part of that equation. I don’t know when it starts to have a positive effect – probably for everyone it’s different, but I believe it does have an effect, even if it’s a small one.

By: felix

felix — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 13:11:00 +0000

By: Paul OFlaherty

Paul OFlaherty — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:37:03 +0000

@Cordiva.. they can “confirm your value” to some extent. However I truly believe that the best way to do that is by putting out good content that your users actually comment on and talk about.

10 users doing that is more valuable than 100 doing nothing except being another statistical value. :)

By: Paul OFlaherty

Paul OFlaherty — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:37:00 +0000

@Cordiva.. they can “confirm your value” to some extent. However I truly believe that the best way to do that is by putting out good content that your users actually comment on and talk about.

10 users doing that is more valuable than 100 doing nothing except being another statistical value. :)

By: Corvida

Corvida — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:20:46 +0000

@Paul OFlaherty and Chris Miller – True enough I don’t want people to follow just to be following. You don’t think it at least makes your blog “seem” valuable enough? Is it possible that subscriber numbers can sort of confirm your value to some extent, thereby making it beneficial to display?

By: Corvida

Corvida — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:20:00 +0000

By: Chris Miller

Chris Miller — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:19:06 +0000

Agreed. I don’t show mine, mainly from the idea of being embarrassed :-) Ok kidding, there is no benefit unless someone wants to just add you since everyone else is. It is all about content. I would rather have half the readers if they all get actively involved in commenting and truly liking the content.

By: Chris Miller

Chris Miller — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:19:00 +0000

By: Paul OFlaherty

Paul OFlaherty — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:18:36 +0000

I don’t show my subscriber numbers on my site, not because I’m ashamed of my reader numbers, but because I want to avoid the sheep mentality.

I only want readers to subscribe to my blog because they like the content that I put out, not because “everybody else” does…

Readers like that are of little value to you. You end up being unread in their feed readers and your work become little more than a statistic.

I do not want 5000 people who do not read or look at what I produce. I would be much happier with 50 people who actually had an interest.