By now, you probably know that Google is doing away with Google Friend Connect (GFC) for non-Blogger blogs. The shutdown happens on March 1, 2012 so there’s not much more time to get your readers switched to something else.
Currently when someone subscribes to GFC, your RSS feed shows up in their Google Reader. However since Google hasn’t confirmed or denied that your feed will stay there when GFC goes the way of the dodo, it’s a good idea to start moving people away from GFC.
So what’s a girl to do?
Well, I have a three-step solution for ya (with an optional fourth if ya wanna go there).
Of course, you can wean people off of GFC however you want. This is just a suggestion. But I would say to start now if you haven’t already!
1. Determine Your Alternative.
Subscribing to an RSS feed is the closest thing to subscribing via Google Friend Connect so that’s probably the main place you want to direct people. Blogs you subscribed to showed up in Google Reader, just like subscribing to a plain ole RSS does.
Yes, yes, I know Google wants you to redirect people to your Google + page (if you have one) but that’s just not the same to me. How many people are using Google + vs using an RSS Reader? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
You may decide you’d prefer to direct people to Google + anyway. Or your Facebook page. That’s cool too. Whatever floats your boat. You can even give people a couple of choices if you want. Just don’t overwhelm them with a list of six ways to subscribe.
If you go the route of RSS, for the love of God make sure your feed is burned so it’s easier for people to subscribe! For an overview of Feedburner, you can read Gigi from Kludgy Mom’s Feedburner tutorial. To burn your feed with Feedburner, this is a good tutorial on how to burn your feed.
For Blogger bloggers: While you’re still able to have Google Friend Connect, just remember that Google can get rid of it at any time. In fact, they really haven’t updated it in a few years so I wouldn’t be surprised if they pull the plug at some point. While you may not want to remove the GFC widget, I’d focus on building your RSS feed subscribers, Facebook fans and email list (if you have one).
2. Now Make that Bad Boy Obvious.
Okay, so you’ve got your RSS feed in tip-top shape (or whatever else you want to direct people to), make it obvious to subscribe! What does that mean?
For starters, the way to subscribe should be ABOVE the fold. (that’s the part of the website you can see without scrolling down). Keep those social media buttons towards the top of your page too in your sidebar or your header.
If you’re on WordPress.org, I like the plugins What Would Seth Godin Do or WP Greet Box. It lets you customize a message to go either at the top or bottom of your posts. Use it to tell people GFC is going away and ask them to subscribe another way. You could even use Hello Bar, which I love to use for special occasions. The point is… make that way to subscribe stand out!
3. Remove Google Friend Connect now.
Yes, I know that you probably want to keep your Google Friend Connect widget up as long as possible. But just remember that not everyone probably knows about GFC going away.
What if someone comes to your site and only follows you that way? Then you’ll just have to convert them later so why make them subscribe twice. Once you have everything from Step 1 in place, let people know you’ll be taking Google Friend Connect down and ditch it. Your current GFC subscribers will still receive your latest posts until Google officially pulls the plug (there’s still debate as to what happens AFTER they pull the plug).
Optional: Send a newsletter message (but only once maybe twice)
Personally, I never liked the idea of using Google Friend Connect to send out newsletters. As a marketer, I take permission marketing pretty seriously and I never felt like GFC made it obvious to someone that they were opting into a newsletter when they subscribed to your blog.
That being said, since you have the capability to send a newsletter out with GFC (while not obvious, a reader technically opts-in), I don’t see the harm in using the newsletter feature a couple of times to let subscribers know they need to subscribe to you another way. Perhaps one message right away and then one a few days before GFC shuts down. Most people who read your blog will appreciate the reminder.
If you did have a newsletter you sent out through GFC, then switch over to using an Email Service Provider like Mailchimp. It’s free for up to 2,000 subscribers! Just know that there’s no way to export your list.
Alrighty, so that’s just one workflow for moving people away from Google Friend Connect. I’d love to hear what you’re doing!
Non-Blogger bloggers: Have you been moving people away from Google Friend Connect yet? Any tips for your fellow bloggers?
Blogger bloggers: Are you keeping GFC on your blog? Are you planning to transition away from it at all?
Momcomm gives blogging chicks practical, can-do tips for writing, blogging and using social media (and sometimes a snarky rant).
I'm a mom who loves marketing, photography and all things social media. I have two boys whose claim to fame is that they were born on the same day... three years apart.
Twitter: AlisonSWLee
says:
Great tips, Mel!
I removed GFC as soon as I heard about it going away, and put up my WWSGD message immediately.
I waited a little while before I sent out my newsletter, offering first RSS as an option, then letting them know that they can subscribe via email (even including the Subscribe Via Email box!), and then adding links to my Twitter and Facebook page.
I may send out another newsletter reminder 2 weeks before March 1, if my RSS numbers don’t go up between now and then.
Alison@Mama Wants This recently posted..January, Captured
Nice going, girl! Sounds like you’ve got it under control. Love it!
Twitter: SortaCrunchy
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I’ve been on Typepad for years so I’ve never installed GFC, but it’s obviously been a very popular choice. I feel bad for so many having to make this big transition, but hopefully it will be pretty painless for all involved.
I’ve used Feedburner (also owned by Google, right?) (ISN’T EVERYTHING?!) since 2007 and it’s quite handy. I like that it’s an easy way to access RSS feed and it provides an email delivery option & I can control email delivery times. It’s far from perfect, but for a free service, it’s pretty good!
Megan at SortaCrunchy recently posted..weekend snapshots: january 22 + #janphotoaday
Exactly– feedburner is great or a free service! I took GFC down on Adventuroo almost a year ago and never added it to Momcomm. It does suck that many bloggers relied on it and now it’s going away. But what can ya do?!
Okay, first of all lemme say that I consider myself pretty tech savvy. But this whole thing has me so confused.
I’m assuming MOST people are like me and they don’t remember how they originally subscribed… sometimes I do GFC… sometimes I do the RSS. So a blog that I only subscribed to by GFC may stop updating in my google reader?
And if the only way to make sure that doesn’t happen is to go to that blog and click the RSS button to make sure I’m following, then won’t google reader tell me that I’m already following them since as of now the GFC is sending the feed to reader?
And is the GFC number in addition to my feedburner number? I’ve always considered the GFC number to be included within the feedburner number.
Pretty much the bottom line is we don’t what the heck Google is going to do cuz we all know they do whatever the heck they want.
{They just disabled my blog last week w/o warning, so I’m a bit peeved with them, fyi}
I guess it makes sense to remove GFC and add a message explaining things and HOPE FOR THE BEST, ha ha!
Renee @ Living, Laughing, & Loving recently posted..What to do when your Blog is Disabled by Google
I hear ya with it being confusing! Google WILL let you subscribe via GFC AND RSS and not give you an error. Why I dunno but they do! So you’re good there.
As for those you already subscribe through ONLY through GFC, it’s never been clarified as to if they’ll disappear from your reader or not. I would assume the worst though and like you said hope for the best!
Twitter: BoonieSooze
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I’m a blogger/blogspot girl, and I’ve been chewing on this for awhile now. You make a good case for why I should go ahead and do a fan page (which I STILL haven’t done). I have my rss gadget at the top of my site.
Melissa, honestly, I don’t really understand the difference between RSS and Feedburner. Is there a difference?
And, is there any way to know who is subscribed to your Feedburner feed or to your RSS?
Susan in the Boonies recently posted..Feedback, Again
I’d love to know the answer to this as well. I’m a bit of a newbie figuring out the RSS and feedburner stuff. Would love the guidence.
Thanks
Brooke recently posted..So easy…who knew?
Hey Susan! Feedburner basically takes your RSS and enhances it. Let’s start with RSS first though:
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It takes your content and syndicates it so that a reader can subscribe instead of visiting your blog. This post gives a great explanation of an RSS feed: http://www.techiemania.com/rss-guide-for-beginners-an-introduction-to-rss.html
As for Feedburner, it makes it easier for your readers to subscribe, lets you count subscriber numbers and offers the ability to subscribe by email. Gigi’s article that I linked in the post does a good job of showing the features of feedburner. If you have my ebook, I show a screenshot of a blog WITH feedburner and WITHOUT. It’s easier to subscribe with feedburner because without it, someone has to copy your feed URL, then hit “add subscription” in their reader and add it. With feedburner you just click your RSS Reader (for most people it’s Google Reader) and BAM you are done.
Also, you can’t see who is subcribed to your RSS unless they are subscribed to email. Then you can see their email addy. Hope that helps!
As usual – such great tips. Thank you!!
Anna recently posted..A Confession: Shaking a Few Coconuts Off My Palm Tree
I removed the GFC a week or two ago and have found my feedburner # climbing. I did, however, get a comment saying “I can’t follow you because I can’t find the GFC”. I wrote to them, explaining the reason for it being gone, and pointing them towards my RSS and email subscriptions. It was disheartening. I need to get my WWSGD message up, STAT.
Mrs. Jen B recently posted..Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms
Yeah, that IS disheartening but I’d say mostly REALLY new bloggers don’t know there’s other things than GFC. Eventually she’ll figure it out when it disappears on most of the blogs out there in March.
Awesome post Melissa!!! I’ve had clients worrying about this for a while and I appreciate your to-do list. I’m sharing your post with clients! I need to check out the WWSGD, stat!
Thauna recently posted..Do you need a Blog? Why yes you do!
Twitter: MommieDaze
says:
I took Google Friend Connect down when I heart they were taking it away. I didn’t know you could see a newsletter through it though,so thanks for the tip!
Mommie Daze recently posted..For Hire: Two Year Old
Twitter: diannakennedy
says:
This is a marvelous post ….. so WHY am I having such an anxiety attack about pulling the plug on GFC?
I’m like Renee …. and half the time, I’m not sure if I signed up to follow a blog with GFC, or with the RSS feed to my Google Reader. Argh! One complaint I have about the silly GFC — it’s difficult to UNSUBSCRIBE from a blog! You have to sign in, and go through a bunch of silly steps.
Sigh. All right. I will work on this during this week, for sure. I’ve been waiting with baited breath for this how to
Dianna Kennedy recently posted..An Athlete’s Beginning: Saints and Scripture Sunday
I see that you finally did it! Woohoo! You’re right – GFC was never user friendly, especially if you were a WordPress blogger.
Hopefully you feel a little lighter now! Haha.
Twitter: SensibleMoms
says:
I am so glad I read this. I was thinking GFC was something we needed since I saw it on so many blogs. Thanks for all of the good info you put out there.
Sisterhood Of The Sensible Moms recently posted..The Softer Side of the Coco Room Apocalypse
Twitter: hookdandhappy
says:
This is an excellent article!
I removed GFC as soon as I heard it was going. I’ve done what you suggested, and read up again on Feedburner.
I’m going to look into a Hello Bar tonight.
Carolyn recently posted..Linguine with Shrimp and Lemon Oil
I’ve been in denial..and thought I’d try out google+. Yeah, no thanks for that nonsense.
Here’s hoping google doesn’t take away feedburner, too!
Krystyn recently posted..Mommy and Me Monday | The 101st ed. | The bellies
Twitter: carribrown
says:
The second I found out about GFC going away, I took it off of my blog. I sent an email out about a week ago and I’m going to send another one out right before GFC goes away. I also put up a blurb via WWSGD.
Carri recently posted..Instagram is My Crack
Great info! A group of us all have a post going up tomorrow on how to subscribe to our blogs now that GFC is going away.
Jackie recently posted..Monday Menu ~ Stuffed Cabbage Casserole
Great info, I’ve done your suggestions. I think the toughest part is that GFC was so visual and user friendly that the non-blogger types subscribed that way and I wonder when I mention subscribing to my RSS feed if they have any idea what I’m talking about. I try to stress email subscription and Facebook page for that reason.
Jessica recently posted..What I Need
Twitter: FarewellStrangr
says:
This is great, Mel. Thanks! I need to do this – just haven’t bothered yet. Gonna do it now!
Robin | Farewell, Stranger recently posted..A Serving of Working Mom Guilt, Please
Twitter: mommyhoodmemos
says:
My GFC widget went down a while ago and I never bothered to figure out why or try and fix it. (More out of laziness tbh!) Then I heard it was going away anyway, so great! (One less ugly thing to have on my blog – haha.)
I was thinking about just adding a line under my signature that says something like “Have you subscribed to the Memos by RSS yet? If you follow via GFC, please make sure you do before it changes on March 1st” or something along those lines. I think it has to be more than just a pop-up thing or whatever because some people read from their readers and rarely click over to comment. I will have to check out the plug-ins you mentioned though! (Thanks for that.)
I get really annoyed when I get newsletters from blogs that I haven’t intentionally signed up for. I usually immediately unsubscribe – that’s how annoyed I get! I don’t mind getting an email about this though, since I completely understand. I’ve considered sending one about this too, but only a VERY short announcement email. I’ve received some that are LONG and trying to convince me why I should subscribe detailing posts, giveaways, goals, etc. and it’s a big turn-off!
Truthfully, I’m hoping that the change will just “unsubscribe” me from a bunch of blogs – that would give me a head-start in my RSS revamp that’s long over-due! (Is that bad?!)
I hardly doubt it will though. I can’t imagine why blogger would want to lose that traffic, but what do I know?
Speaking of long….. bye. And thanks.
adriel recently posted..have you had a free blog critique yet?
Haha. I agree about the unsubscribing. I have no clue who I followed with that thing!
Hello Melissa! This is very informative post. At least now, i’m more informed about the things we must considered and things we must avoid in having a Google Account. Thank you so much for this information. This is a big help for me.
Armand recently posted..Happy New Year To All Of You And Hope You Like The Aquarium Fish Photos Here …
It’s nice to meet you! I found your site via Meet Penny on Facebook! Ironically I got rid of GFC because I was obsessing about the number increasing! Instead I focused more on writing posts at least 4x per week and linking up the posts to other sites. I have a very young blog (my second) and I’m in the midst of switching theme frameworks. (Wish me luck!) I designed my blog using Headway but chose to switch to Genesis + a child theme. I want my site to look more professional and clean. And since I’m not a designer, I wanted simply to plug code in and go. I’m seriously thinking about your e-book…especially site colors. My “brand” is the bleeding heart flower and I try to pull the colors from that. In my current blog, I use dark maroon for the post titles. Is this sufficient or even smart? Should I continue this trend to my updated site? I love the greens/grays I currently use. I’m nixing the current background for a simpler solid color. Looking forward to reading more of your posts!
Carrie recently posted..Tuesday Treat – The Practically Perfect Cookie
Thanks for stopping by, Carrie! I think pulling colors from your header is smart. And the dark maroon is perfect since it reinforces the bleeding heart flower!
Good luck with the redesign and hooray for removing GFC… one less thing to worry about!
Twitter: andi_fisher
says:
Thanks for the great post, I had NO idea that I could send a newsletter out via GFC, and while I agree with you on the opt-in grey area, this is certainly a good cause for sending my one and only newsletter to the 1300+ people who are subscribed there – thanks!
Andi recently posted..Berlin’s favorite food: Currywurst vs. Döner
Twitter: sometimesiveg
says:
I always disliked GFC. Why? Because it made unsubscribing super hard and it was harder to organize people in folders in my reader. A lot of people required that you connect to it to enter their giveaways. So I’m thrilled that it’s going away.
Miriam @ Sometimes I Veg recently posted..Black beans and corn tacos
Mariam– I have to be honest and say I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU. Never liked it and HATED the requirement for a giveaway. I simply refused to enter anyone’s giveaway who was doing that!
Twitter: Erika_Dawson
says:
I’m in the process of moving from blogger to wordpress and wanted to take GFC off ahead of time so more people didn’t subscribe that way. I was afraid, though, thinking that if I removed it, my current GFC followers wouldn’t see me in their feed anymore. Thanks for the info! It’s great to know that that’s not the case!
Erika recently posted..One Thousand Gifts {chapter 1}: What Our Hearts Really Wonder
Twitter: girliemomblog
says:
thank you for a great and informative post. I have decided to turn off GFC on my blog on 2/15/12. I have sent my newsletter out today encouraging my GFC friends to reconnect via subscription. and, I have enabled my WP greet box plugin. Thank you so much because I almost forgot about this!
-Melissa
Author of Girliemom
Melissa recently posted..The Truth Behind the Blog
you’re welcome! sounds like you have everything on track!
Thanks so much! I’ve been wondering what I should do. I just didnt put it up when I switched to WP, it just wouldn’t work. I doesnt really bother me that it is going away. Any blogs I subscribed to that way i read way less if at all. Google reader through RSS is best for me. I actually put the ones i like the most on my igoogle homepage. I gives you the most recent three posts for every blog you put on. It is so much easier to skim through and read what interests me.
Thanks again for a very helpful post!
Nicole {at} Modern Style Mama recently posted..Turkey Lasagna…Healthy Recipe Makeover
Twitter: Ninth_Street
says:
Definitely getting on this. I was encouraging people to use my RSS feed button but had left up GFC. That’s gone now. I have a question, though, what powers the e-mail sign-up here? I like the feature to sign up either for the entire feed or a monthly newsletter.
Amanda recently posted..Tea Party Food
Hey Amanda! I use Mailchimp– it’s free for up to 2,000 subscribers. I created one list and two groups within that list to do it. When you get everything set up, you create a form that you can then embed onto your site. Hope that helps!
Twitter: FarewellStrangr
says:
Okay, you kicked me in the butt. I have now done this.
Twitter: mompreneurmogul
says:
I just wanted you to know I’m testing a new cool beta product that may help
When I find out more I’ll send you an email-
@MompreneurMogul recently posted..Top 10 Blogging Tips That Will Definitely Get You Beat UP
Twitter: rustiqueart
says:
Super helpful post. I had just read about this change on another blog, then came here and got the nitty gritty. Thank you for all of the great information!
Cindi @ Rustique Art recently posted..one year ago today…
Twitter: mompreneurmogul
says:
Melissa this tool is up and running and tons of mom bloggers have joined- It’s free the dashboard is totally feature rich. It’ was created my the same gentleman who made the Linkytool and mom bloggers love it- So if you’re readers want a solution it’s here- this is the tool and how they can get it http://www.mompreneurmogul.com/2012/02/3-awesome-tools-for-blogging-moms-cant-do-without.html
@MompreneurMogul recently posted..Mompreneur Mogul Lisa Cash Hanson On Yahoo! Shine In 4 Days!
I have a question…If you remove google friend connect, how do you know how many followers you have? Is there a widget that shows the number of people that subscribe to your rss? I like keeping track of my followers, and seeing who my new followers are!
Jaymi recently posted..Tuesday Tips & Pics – Editing Fruit in Bubbles
So sad that GFC is going away. I know eventually those of us with Blogger blogs will be affected too:( However, there is a new follower tool that might even be better than GFC ever was;) Check it out!
http://canadianangelxo.blogspot.com/2012/02/linky-blog-follower-tool-better-than.html
thank you this is great share for me
Samual Vitkus recently posted..Wrongful Death Lawyer
After reading this post, I have tried to follow your advice on several occasions but cannot for the life of me access my GFC contacts’ email addresses, because Google won’t let me access that section. When I click “send a newsletter” it keeps referring me to its GFC updates page. I may have missed the boat. Anybody helppp please!!?