A New Blogging Tradition – Subscription Notification

For the last week, I have been following a new tradition – whenever I subscribe to a site, I send off an email to the sites author letting him/her know that I have subscribed. The main benefit of doing this is networking. Also, you can send the link to your blog in that mail.

Last week, I subscribed to a few new blogs – and I send them an email notifying them that I subscribed – along with my link. Here is a list of those blogs…

This is the basic template of the email I send – feel free to modify it and use it if you want to do this as well…

Hi [Name],

I am Binny V A(http://blog.binnyva.com). I wrote this to let you know that I just subscribed to your site. I really enjoyed the [name of an article you really enjoyed] article.

Also, I have a blog in this field – http://lindesk.com/ – check it out.

Thanks – and keep up the good work.


Binny V A
http://binnyva.com/

Sometimes, I also ask them to consider switching to full feeds(if they are using partial feeds). Or if I find a bug in their site(like a broken link or something), I let them know in this mail.

In some cases I could not send these – because I can’t find the email of the admin. In such cases, I am thinking about leaving a comment to let them know – but I am not sure about it.

Advantages of Subscription Notification

Networking
You can contact someone else in the same field as you – this relation can later lead to backlinks, guest blogging opportunities, etc.
A Possible New Reader
You are sending your link to another blogger in the same field as you – chances are, he will subscribe to your blog as well.
World Peace
When someone sends you an email telling you how much they loved your blog and so on, you get a warm fuzzy feeling. The sender also gets a bit of this ‘WFF‘ by sending it.
And More
I have only started doing this for a week – I’ll find out its hidden advantages later on.

What do you think?

This is the part I want your help in – what do you think of the idea? Some points I would like your feedback on…

  • Will these emails be considered spammy?
  • How will you respond if you get an email like this? Will you think someone is pushing you their site – or will you be glad to put a face on one of your feedburner stats?
  • Will you consider doing this?

Image Credit: oooh.oooh

10 Comments

  1. Binny,

    I like your idea and I’m going to adopt it, and suggest it on my blog! I know I would enjoy getting emails like that. It sounds very personable and you’re right, it’s a great way to network.

  2. It is really difficult to know that if a person writing to you is a spammer or is actually a genuine future reader etc.

    I usually check out the person’s site before replying or not.

  3. As long as the email is personable and doesn’t look templated (whether it is or not is a separate question), I don’t have a problem with that. I (when I actually blog semi-regularly) think it’s great to know who your readers are.

    I’ve also considered putting together little “This blog is ace because…” posts, which I figure are better than a single link etc.

  4. Contacting people couldn’t hurt, but to be honest I probably wouldn’t do much with this email except peek at your website, and reply and say ‘thanks’.

    But you never know, once in a while an email like this might be the start of a beautiful friendship πŸ™‚

  5. it is nice gesture to let people know about it…It will also be good if feedburner has a way of letting the site owner know all the subscribers.Not sure why they don’t do that.

  6. @Jill
    Thanks – I’m following the comments on your page as well. Why are you not using the ‘Subscribe To Comments’ plugin?

    @Mayooresan
    Thats what I’m worried about too. I think I’ll reduce the number of links in the email. Even if I have to reduce the links to zero, its worth it for the networking benafit.

    @Ajay
    Maybe if this tradition catches up, people will get used to getting mails like these.

    @si,
    > As long as the email is personable and doesn’t look templated
    I agree – I try to change as much as possible text in the mail.

    @dinu
    > keep us posted about your experience
    Will do.

    @Jesse Skinner
    True – but I think its still worth the effort.

  7. That sounds great. I like to acknowledge new followers to my site, but sometimes miss looking at the followers section.

    Also, I use Blogger, and cannot always subscribe through Blogger’s Dashboard, but can through Google Reader, so the blog may not show me as a subscriber.

    Expect my email to you soon πŸ™‚

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