Site Highlight:. FeedBurner

If you have ever had to explain what an RSS feed is to a person in your church, then you know that a lot of people don’t know WHAT they are, WHY they are helpful, and HOW to read/subscribe to them. Now, as time goes on and they start to realize the best part about RSS feeds is that you are in control of whether or not you receive them, the more they will like them.

Until then we have FeedBurner to the rescue. FeedBurner is a site that can help your (in their words) Analyze, Optimize and Publicize your RSS feeds. For a free service it has an unbelievable amount of enhancements that it offers you and your feeds, but there is one in particular that we are looking at today.

RSS to Email! As painful as it would be for me to think about taking the beauty of an RSS feed and retro fitting it into an Email, it is actually one of the most powerful features of the service. Here is why:

  1. Most people in a church are already familiar with email, and would prefer to receive your articles this way.
  2. FeedBurner provides you with a nice form and/or link to place on your blog or site for people to put their email addresses into and subscribe. It looks professional, and is super easy (just copy and paste).
  3. FeedBurner keeps track of the database of emails that have been submitted, meaning you don’t have to! You don’t have to keep track or maintenance anything. If people want to opt out, FeedBurner takes care of it. You didn’t get into ministry to figure out servers and email lists, and now you don’t have to!
  4. FeedBurner doesn’t end up in spam! Mass Email systems and getting to people’s Inboxes is a whole Industry, you don’t have time to learn it, or even care. But with FeedBurner, all the emails are sent from their servers, and are optimized to make it to people’s “inbox”.
  5. The titles in the email link back to your blog or site, so if people want to read more or comment they can.

May 27, 2007 | Filed Under Web Tools 

Comments

One Response to “Site Highlight:. FeedBurner”

  1. Chris Walker on May 27th, 2007 9:42 pm

    I like the new look of the blog.
    Also liking the content. Feedreader is a great tool and provides a whole lot of service for the super low and affordable price of FREE!!!! I also use Google Analytics for stat tracking as well, but that does not show who is subscribing to your feed.

    It is nice to see there are others out there who make these connections of ministry and technology that I do.
    Enjoy what I hope is a true day off tomorrow.

    Chris

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