Publicising Blog Updates, Using FeedBurner Email

To further answer the regularly asked question "How do I let my friends know when my blog is updated?", we have FeedBurner.

Properly setup, a FeedBurner feed will provide a neat subscription form for your blog, and help you maintain your subscription list, for any publicly accessible blog which publishes a feed.

If this is the first feed that you're adding, just use "Add a Gadget", and add "Follow by Email".

First time blog owners generally only need "Follow by Email".

The "Follow by Email" gadget will create a FeedBurner EMail gadget, and create a FeedBurner feed from the blog posts feed, in one easy step. For many of you, this is all that you need.

Then, learn to maintain the subscribers list.

For more options, use the FeedBurner dashboard wizards.

First, setup a FeedBurner feed for your blog. Then go to "Publicize" - "Email Subscriptions" in FeedBurner.

You can have a form embedded in the blog page, or a you can have a link to a FeedBurner page where the form is hosted.

The "Email Subscriptions" wizard will give you the code for either form, at your preference. Be sure to select "Blogger" in the "Use as a widget in" pulldown list.

Add a "Subscribe" gadget, to your blog.

Just install the subscription code in the blog. Copy the code from the appropriate window, into a new HTML / JavaScript gadget. Then, Hit "Save" to activate the subscription.

Once created, the gadget will have a link

View stats and learn more.

Click on the link, to easily access the FeedBurner dashboard.

Maintain email distribution, using the FeedBurner dashboard "Email Subscriptions".

Once you have subscribers, you can maintain the subscriber population using "Email Subscriptions", from the FeedBurner dashboard for the feed, under the "Publicize" tab.

Using "Subscription Management", you can export the subscriber inventory to a spreadsheet, for detailed analysis - or examine the list directly, in the FeedBurner wizard. And you can customise the gadget, that lets your readers subscribe. And you can add and remove individual subscriptions.

Using "Communications Preferences", you can customise the content of the subscription verification notice, so people will be more likely to activate their new subscription. Remember, subscriptions must be verified, before they generate email.

Using "Email Branding", you can customise the format of the subscription email message itself, and ensure that your readers see - and read - your daily email.

Using "Delivery Options", you can tune the delivery of the posts. Here, you can time the delivery to any 2-hour delivery window, to suit your reader population.

That's just a few of the possbilities. Check out the entire wizard, when you wish.

The alternate solution for email subscription, which uses BlogSend and Google Groups, requires you to do the work of adding each subscriber to the list. With a FeedBurner Email Subscription service, your readers can add themselves, at their convenience.

You practically have a turnkey newsletter distribution system, right there at your fingertips. For the right price, too. All that you have to do is write the blog content.

Besides the choices in each subscription, look at possible subscriptions.

Note that, with very little additional work, you can setup an email subscription for any blog or website, yours or anybody else's - again, using FeedBurner. And note the different feeds, published by your blog.

You can make a FeedBurner feed from any newsfeed - and email distribution can be used for any feed.

You may wish to read more graphic instructions from Roberto: Email Subscription to a Feedburner Feed.