Are Your Automated Plugins Doing More Harm than Good?
The plugins that automatically email a commenter or display a blurb at the top for first-time visitors suggesting they subscribe to your RSS feed might be hurting you. I’m not going to single them out by their names, but you know which ones I’m talking about. I have nothing against the people who created these plugins, but I can’t stand the way they’re used. I think they’re doing more harm than good.
I make it a point to personally email people who comment on Remarkablogger. When I leave a comment at a blog and get an automated email–and you can tell they’re automated–it does not make a good impression on me. I pay no attention to it and give it no importance, because that’s how the blogger treated me: unimportant. An email written just to me, personally, by you, will establish a connection and both of us might make new friends or at least grow our professional networks. I love to meet new people online (and off). I love to get to know people from all around the world (India, Pakistan, Poland, Germany, Malaysia, South Africa, England, France, Canada, and other parts of the US to name only a few).
And I help people in my network, with no thought of charging them a dime or for what I will get out of it. I just like to help my friends. Your automatic email does not gain you entry into my network. It annoys me. And that means it probably annoys a lot of people. But they’re not writing blog posts about this subject.
Even worse, to me, is the plugin that invites me to subscribe to your RSS feed before I’ve had a chance to even read anything. That is a big strike against you. I’m going to subscribe to your blog based on its content. You are much more likely to get my subscription from an RSS link at the end of your post, not at the beginning. After I’ve had a chance to read your blog, I may have a favorable impression of you and I might subscribe. If your blog was a store, this is like asking me if I want to check out as soon as I walk in the door. I’m not going to subscribe unless you impress me. And that plugin doesn’t impress me.
Yes, I know people put good, hard work into coding those plugins, and I’m sorry, but I dislike seeing them. It has the opposite effect from what you really want. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who finds this annoying.
What to do instead
Send personal emails. This is a no-brainer. Reach out to people. Make contact. You really want to build an audience? Build your network.
Invite me to subscribe after I’ve read your post. Place the invite link and RSS icon at the end of your post–after I’ve read it and have some idea what I’m getting. Want to subscribe? Give me a great reason. That’s all I need. That’s all most people need.
Photo by Andrew under CC license.
Rhys | December 13th, 2007 at 8:39 am #
Quite Agree.
I don’t like people who automaticallly tick the box, I feel as though the blog owner doesn’t appreciate my comment.
I feel from a blogger’s point of view I generally respond to commenters in my comment box, over time people have learnt that the discussion continues in the open not in the email box (generally :)), and come back for more
Michael Martine (Post Author) | December 13th, 2007 at 8:55 am #
@Rhys: yes, great point! I don’t like pre-checked boxes, either. Seth Godin already schooled everyone about permission marketing years ago. I guess some people missed that lesson.
I very much enjoy building relationships with people through personal emails as well as comments.
K-IntheHouse | December 13th, 2007 at 9:23 am #
Michael, great points. I don’t use the automated reply for the same reason and I have thought about moving that RSS message to the bottom of the post as well. You have just convinced me to do it.
Rhys, that’s another thing I have take care of then. To uncheck it. I had it checked because of personal preference because a lot of times when I am leaving a comment, I most often want to follow the conversation than not. But, I would easily forget to check the box before I clicked submit.
But, I already see how that could be addressed.. by showing the checkbox while you are already getting input from your reader.
Nice stuff all around! Stumbled so we get a lot more people to do this.
Michael Martine (Post Author) | December 13th, 2007 at 9:33 am #
@K: thanks for the stumble! Much appreciated. The way the subscribe to RSS plugin works (if I remember correctly) is that first-time visitors see it. A person may visit several times before deciding to subscribe. I know that in the past, I have done this myself. In my opinion, it seems better to simply include a subscribe link at the bottom of posts by building it into the theme files. You could just code it into the WordPress theme’s index.php file, or even create it as an include, say, rssfooter.php and then call it from index.php with a php include. Just a thought.
Llama Money | December 13th, 2007 at 10:32 am #
I’m a fan of the pre-checked box, for what it’s worth. Lots of folks leave comments here and there but forget where here and there are. A little automatic reminder in their inbox will help them continue the discussion.
If you don’t want alerts, untick the box. Seems pretty easy to me.
DamienOh | December 13th, 2007 at 9:09 pm #
I think most of the seasoned bloggers are already immune to the RSS subscription plugin. For me, I tend to ignore it whenever I encounter one. In fact, if the content is good, I won’t even need the RSS subscription reminder to subscribe to the feed.
Desty | December 13th, 2007 at 10:29 pm #
The plugin in question, What Would Seth Godin Do?, comes with the subscribe to RSS message, but it can be changed to anything. Following bluehatseo.com I took a look at my stats and formated it to show my most popular articles, based off pageviews.
I use another plugin, Subscribe Remind, that automaticly adds a reminder at the end of every post. I totally agree, remind for RSS AFTER the article.
Great article, stumbled! Heck, I regestered just so I could comment on the article!
Adam Snider | December 14th, 2007 at 9:54 am #
Manually/personally responding to comments by email is such a simple step (that I should be employing myself). I’m not a huge fan of those automated emails.
HOWEVER, if you get hundreds of comments a day, you might not have time to go through and respond to all of them, so automated emails at least get people’s attention for a couple of seconds (hopefully).
Still, they’re a weak alternative to replying with a personalized email.
Michael Martine (Post Author) | December 14th, 2007 at 10:28 am #
@Adam: Yes, I agree that with a very high comment volume, that’s not possible. I pick several people at a time, a few times a week to do this. I usually try to pick people I don’t already know so I can introduce myself to them. Some of you may even be getting an email from me shortly!
Andy MacDonald | February 26th, 2008 at 3:51 pm #
A fantastic article Michael, I am a relatively new blogger, and unfortunately, i have fallen into this category, i have the plugin which emails a commenter thanking them for the first comment they leave on my site. Although i have added a personal message to the email that is sent, it is still automated and i can see where you are coming from. I will be disabling my plugin as a result of this post.
Keep up the great work!!