Q: Has something happened to the development of your product?
I checked your Roadmap on trello and nothing substantial has been completed in the last few months.
Any major feature dev is planned for either the next "3 months" or "6 months".
Something seems off..or maybe a long vacation perhaps? That would be fine. But my concern is if I purchased, the product may stop working or company may go belly up.
No such worries are needed :) Since the AppSumo deal started we released the Telegram delivery channel, MyPopUps collaboration and various little features. For some other features shown on the roadmap we realized we need to do some architectural changes (to build them on a sound foundation) which should be completed in 1-2 weeks. After that, there will be a significant speed up in new feature deliveries.
In any case, you don't have to worry about us going belly up. follow.it (and its predecessor SpecificFeeds.com) have been around for many years, and we'll keep investing into the platform. We're in it for the long haul.
to send messages independently from your posts/RSS feed, then for now, you cannot do that on follow.it (even though we're looking into that and it will be possible at some point)."
Glad to hear that regular email marketing campaigns will eventually be possible.
Will this be included in this AS plan when released?
Q: Hi Nick,
- If we still send normal email newsletter broadcasts for our blog updates and also use Followit to ...
alert users, can we customise how the content design look like how we customise html for email newsletters?
- If we hit subscriber limit but don't want to automatically be upgraded to pay the recurring fee. Do we have the option to keep the limit to e.g. 6000 subs?
For now the format is as shown as mentioned above, i.e. https://bit.ly/3487V5x (if you only want to send headlines) or https://bit.ly/2EEWrOf (for "full story view"). Of course, you can replace the follow.it logo with yours, and remove other brandings.
Other publishers also requested more layout option, so we'll look into those too, probably first allowing publishers to define the colors (but keeping the basic structure the same), and at some point allowing more tailoring options too.
Regarding hitting the 6,000 limit: we never block any follower from signing up to your feed. If you go over your limit, but haven't uploaded any credits to your account, you'll only get an email from us, politely asking you to take out your credit card :) At that point, you can either follow our suggestion (thank you), or unfollow some of your followers (to get under the limit again). If both options are no good we may also implement hard cuts at some point, but we're not really fond of them.
Note that we're also working on other features to help you to stay below your limits, e.g. the feature to automatically unfollow followers who haven't opened or clicked any of your emails in the last e.g. 6 months.
Does that answer your questions? If you have other questions, please shoot!
Yes, at some point this will be possible (we'll probably enable this when we allow publishers to charge followers for their feeds too). However don't hold your breath - we got quite a lot of other feature requests which we now need to work on first :)
1) Sub-accounts for clients 2) Branding, CNAME per sub-account 3) Integrations (Zapier!) on sub-account level 4) Separated follower list for each sub-account 5) Allocate follower limits to sub-accounts
A: Thanks Sebastian, dreaming is good! Even the inventor of the modern toilet started with a dream :D
Regarding your points 1-3, they are already on our roadmap, please see https://trello.com/b/IaPT0XQ3/followit-product-roadmap. Note though: You mention "Branding" under question 2, that is already possible today, as all the settings are per feed/website.
For point 4, that's per feed, so it is already separate (linked to the respective feed).
Regarding point 5 (and maybe also point 1): If it's important to you that it's all separate, maybe you just create separate follow.it accounts in the first place? Or do you have specific processes for which this wouldn't be a solution?
I'm happy to learn more about your use case. Maybe we take this discussion offline? You can always email us at ("help (at) follow (dot) it"). Thank you!
Hi, In reading your response to #5 (and #1), are you asking why wouldn't we create multiple accounts by creating separate accounts using separate codes? If so, I can answer that. For agencies, it is much more convenient to have one account with sub-accounts where we can distribute the followers as needed (2k for sub-account #1, 10k for sub-account #2, etc.). Creating separate accounts prevents us from doing this. Are you considering #5 for agencies?
Thanks MrsOwens for your follow-up question/clarifications!
Yes, it's clear that from an agency perspective, it's easier to manage all from one account, instead of several. That is already possible to a large extent, as you can have various feeds in one account, and then tailor them individually (most settings are defined on a feed level, not account level).
The case where this breaks down is if you then also want to give your clients access (then only to their respective feed of course). It's a valid point, however please note that once set up, there isn't much need for clients to repeatedly access their feed (our solution is primarily an automatic solution, not like e.g. Mailchimp where the user needs to access it every time he wants to send a newsletter). So your clients could - if there are needs for adjustments - just inform you about them, and you can change them quickly.
But still, it would be nice to give your clients access, that's understood. That's why we'll look into this as well.
The point which isn't entirely clear to me yet is the allocation of follower limits to the separate feeds. Let's assume you stack it to the max. (7 AppSumo codes), and hence have a limit of 50k followers. How they are distributed is highly flexible, e.g. it could be 1 feed with 50k followers, or 20 feeds with each 2,500 followers. I assume the scenario you're concerned about is when there's a monster feed with 50k followers, which has eaten up all your limits, so there is no room for the other feeds? You could (just brainstorming here, it's not recommended) unfollow 40k follwers from your monster-feed, so there is room again for the others. But the better option would be to go beyond the 50k limit, e.g. to 70k, and then have your client with the monster-feed pay for the 20k additional ones. We could also think about implementing a hard cut, e.g. you can specify that the monster feed can only have 20k followers, and every follower beyond that who tries to follow gets an error (but I doubt that would be a preferable solution).
Does that clarify things a little? If not, please let me know. Thank you!
Q: Hello again, I just discovered your feed directory on your site.
Are there plans to go more micro on the topics for the feeds because when I enter a word that is very popular in my industry, nothing comes up which is odd because there is a hundreds of blogs, posts, articles in the US on it. I do like being able to sort by country on the directory because I only can have US. Thank you
Q: Hello, Please excuse my lack of feed knowledge since I currently do not use feeds in my service, but your ...
offer seems like I could actually utilize it because I've been looking at RASA for a year. With one code you offer 5 feeds which doesn't sound like much so what's the definition of a feed? Is it a one word topic or a combination of words? I set up a Google feed 7-8 years ago, but I don't remember where I even set them up because I had a different job. Yes, hopefully you are laughing but I have to ask so I know whether or not I can use your services. Thank you, Mike
Ok, so a feed is what you (or others) can subscribe to. It's based on the RSS feed of the website. See more information here: https://follow.it/docs/publishers/introduction/what-is-a-feed-on-follow-it
What's your website url so that I can check if it has an RSS feed?
(Maybe we take this discussion offline: you can reach us at "Help (at) follow (dot) it". Thank you!)
Will Sumos get access to WhatsApp, SMS, YouTube Feed, WeChat, FB Messenger for free when they are released? Will there be any extra charges we have to worry about? Any limits to how many messages sent?
2. Will Sumos get access to Hootsuite and Buffer integrations for free?
3. Will Sumos get access to Social Media Syndication for free? Any extra charges or limits on this?
4. Are there any future upgrades Sumos aren't going to be a part of for free?
5. Is there a limit to how many emails can get sent out?
1. Yes, you can use all the features, however if there are features which cost us something (e.g. I assume that will be the case for Whatsapp and SMS) then we'll pass on those charges.
2. Once implemented, yes (and provided those platforms don't charge us for that, but I don't think that will be the case)
3. No limits or charges if we don't get charged.
4. We are not planning to offer any plan beyond the Super-cool plan for publhishers (which you're automatically on as Sumoling).
Follow.it currently focuses on the *automatic* updating of your followers about new posts (so that they come back to your website). If you are using the other ESPs only for that, then follow.it could replace them.
However, if you use them to send messages independently from your posts/RSS feed, then for now, you cannot do that on follow.it (even though we're looking into that and it will be possible at some point). So what you could do: make your subscribers follow you via follow.it, so that they receive notifications about new posts automatically, and if you want to send them other newsletters, then you just export the emails from follow.it and import them at your other email provider, and send it there. We're also working on an integration with other email providers so that the syncing will be done automatically, without the need for manual export & import.
A "feed" is what people can subscribe to. Most websites only have one (main) feed, and use only that one. So you can see 1 feed = 1 website. See more about it here: https://follow.it/docs/publishers/introduction/what-is-a-feed-on-follow-it
Regarding upgrades: Once the AppSumo deal is over, you cannot buy any AppSumo codes anymore. However, you still have 2 months to redeem AppSumo codes you already bought.
1) So if use Followit to email subscribers about new posts instead of our ESP, can we then control and edit a template for how the email will look like to users?
Because without using Followit, if using regular ESP to email about updates, we can customize the html template and make it look nice with branding & formating we want.
2) I read you said if we go over the limit (e.g. 12K), it will not stop new followers and we get 20% discount on normal recurring fee.
But what if we want to choose not to increase our following limit due to financial limitations and can't afford monthly in the meantime, but still want to continue sending updates to the 12K followers limit from the Appsumo deal.
1) You can make it look like it's coming from you, i.e. no follow.it logo (but instead your own logo). It will still be the defined structure though, we don't offer (yet) 100% custom design. But that will be possibe at one point too.
2.) Ok, so either you get more AppSumo codes which increase the limit, or you pay the regular fee (at 20% discount) for your followers beyond the 12k. Or, another option, I assume you'll have the 12k followers distributed over several feeds, so you could allocate some of the feeds to a new (free) account, where you don't pay anything (of course this will be then on the free plan, and not the Super-cool plan which you benefit from as AppSumo user).
Note: we're also working on (as it was requested by other publishers) to enable you to unfollow followers automatically who haven't opened or clicked on your emails (or stories) in e.g. the last 6 months. Those are basically inactive, and this way it helps you to not hit your follower limits.
If anything else comes up, just shoot!
Q: @Nick
- If we're using a popup tool to get email optins like https://convertbox.
com
Can we still use Followit together? Or will it clash and only can choose one tool to get email optins?
- I think still can use Followit to have buttons to subscribe to socials, as that is seperate from email optins.
Can you share the best way to use it along with other existing email option or popup tools? Thanks
A "feed" is what people can subscribe to. Most websites only have one (main) feed, and use only that one. So you can see 1 feed = 1 website. See more about it here: https://follow.it/docs/publishers/introduction/what-is-a-feed-on-follow-it
Regarding upgrades: Once the AppSumo deal is over, you cannot buy any AppSumo codes anymore. However, you still have 2 months to redeem AppSumo codes you already bought.
Regarding pop-ups: Why not use https://mypopups.com? It's free for all follow.it users :)
If you want to use a different pop-up service, you have several options:
1.) You connect the subscription form on your current pop-up to your feed on follow.it, so that people get added to your list on follow.it. That should be technically feasible (any subscription form can be plugged into follow.it), however to be sure, if you want to do that, please let us know which pop-up-provider you are using exactly, so that we can double check this point. (As this goes into details maybe better to take this discussion offline, you can email us at "help (at) follow (dot) it") 2.) You keep using your current pop-up & email provider tool, and export the subscribers there and then import them to follow.it. 3.) You connect your subscription form to follow.it as discussed, and then export the followers from time to time so that you can import them at your other email provider (we are also working on building an integration & API which will allow the syncing automatically, for now you'd have to export & import it) 4.) You use MyPopUps (did I already mention that? ;)
Does that answer your question? If not, please shoot!
Gotcha, I'm using Convertbox as I already bought it! Ok great to know we can connect the subscription form.
1) What does 5 feeds mean? How is a feed defined? Is one feed per channel e.g. a new blog post, a social FB post etc
2) If we get the Single code now for 3K followers, but next time need to increase - can we upgrade to 6K, 12K etc with the same Appsumo price after the deal?
I don't need so many now but prob in the future, but would like to still be able to by more codes. Thanks
Q: Inactive followers will be unsubscribed automatically.
Like if someone didn't read any email/newsletter for last 365 days then he/she will be automatically unsubscribed. Is this feature or similar feature available in Follow.it? please let me know
Thanks Masuk, that's an interesting idea! Currently it doesn't work this way, but we could easily add this feature. It could be very useful to help publishers to not hit their follower limits.
For sure this will be a very useful feature, why would keep some followers who they are not opening the email for at least once in 6 months, even Google Mail are sending me notice about these emails which I'm not opening if want to unsubscribe from them, but I think this feature should be available even from other side/follow.it in this case.
Q: So I maxed stacked this, and super happy with the growth results and easy to subscribe to https://follow.
it/share-talk?action=followPub - that said Im not very happy that adverts have started appearing at the bottom of the emails to our followers ? How do I remove this please
Just realised I had accidently subscribed to another provide with really poor quality news so it looked like adverts. User error !
Q: Hi, I got 2 codes but the WP plugin is very bloated.
In the end a refund on this because of the heavy upselling. Is there any way you could tone it down a bit for people who have already purchased? It's annoying being hassled constantly to pay when you've already spent money on something
Would like to understand more before buying it. A bit confused here on the features.
if i buy for example the top plan: 7 codes It says it has a 50.000 subscribers and unlimited feeds. Does this mean it will send the emails to up to 50.000 followers no matter how often in the month and how many feeds i have? And they will all be sent thru your server but with my domain email? is that correct?
Another question... if i understood right it will send emails based on news on feeds, like when i publish a post and people subscribe to that category/tag/ they receive it.
Does it have the option of sending other emails regardless of the feed update? Like if i want to send an email with a content that is not on a wordpress post or feed, for instance?
And can i easily translate all to my language? like with poedit or other means?
Thank you! I have mailchimp now and trying to understand it.
So first of all, yes, we only send out messages if you actually posted new content on your site(s).
You're right, the emails will be sent through our servers. However, as part of the Super-cool plan (which you'll be on), you can brand them to your liking (e.g. upload your logo). We're still sending the emails from our domain. The reason for that is mainly a high deliverability (see https://follow.it/docs/publishers/introduction/why-is-follow-it-s-sender-reputation-so-good), however we are also looking into enabling you to send from your domain (see our this card https://trello.com/c/SOR5Di8R/37-custom-domain on our Roadmap). Note that the emails today already show you in the FROM-field of the emails. So it already feels very much like the emails are coming from you.
And yes, your understanding is correct that we take the content from your RSS feed(s) and send that. We're also looking into enabling you to send content independently from your feeds. Up to now we focused on the fully automatic solution. For now, you can always export your followers' emails (it's easy) and send them a separate email via another tool. But as mentioned, we're looking into enabling this as well.
Regarding languages: we already have it translated into German, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, and Serbian. Bulgarian is under way. Which language do you need? If you let us know (either here, or at "help (at) follow (dot) it") we may speed it up.
I hope that clarifies your points. If you have any other questions, please shoot!
A: Thanks Rick for your question, it's a good point, we get that request from time to time, but when we then make clear to publishers that this implies that some of the stories are then up to a week old when people receive them, they usually agree that daily should be ok. But if this feature is important to you, let us have another look at it. I now added it to our feature roadmap on https://trello.com/b/IaPT0XQ3/followit-product-roadmap (column "Ideas"), please upvote it if you think it's important. Thank you! :)
Hi Rick, an update about your request for a weekly option: I realized it's already possible today, with a little workaround.
As part of your feed's settings, you have the option to approve your stories (which we found in your RSS feed) before they get sent, i.e. here: https://monosnap.com/file/WMNF9QwnQxwbXQEZbiwJeIiAl7ObwV. The point is: when you approve the story, that time & date is the one relevant for sending, i.e. the time when you approve the story is the time when the story officially arrives in our system. So: you could activate this feature, not approve any of the stories, and after a week approve all of them. The stories then count as having arrived in our system at that point. Therefore, when our crons pick up the stories for sending (e.g. for newspaper: all stories of the last 24 hours), your followers will get all of them, as they are „new“ as far as our system is concerned (i.e. they arrived in the last 24 hours).
If you have more detailed questions about this, we can also continue the discussion offline: "help (at) follow (dot) it". Thank you!
Did you also reach out by email to us? We sent you a reply - did you receive it? If you haven't contacted us yet, could you please send an email to "help (at) follow (dot) it"? Thank you!
We are having one issue however: we have spent a huge amount of time trying to integrate your RSS feed into our other websites using RSS widgets. We have done this previously with our provider Feedburner without a problem. However, despite trying over 20 different feed providers, it doesn’t work with follow.it.
For example, we’ve tried adding https://follow.it/azam to the following RSS feed widget provider:
https://feed.mikle.com
It shows nothing.
We have spent hours on this, trying different variations of your URL etc. and, like I said, have tried over 20 different services. None of them work with follow.it.
Can you please let me know what is wrong with your RSS feed URL please?
What is our actual RSS link, we can add our blog titles to our other websites?
Q: Hi,
are followers numbers shown in the plans per month, or total allowance for the lifetime of the plan.
What´s the cost if i need to upscale,upgrade my follower numbers at any time? And would that upgraded volume of followers be paid monthly, or once as LTD?
And, if i buy for instance the 1 code plan, 3K followers. Then, i reach that number. I export the data that i need to another place (like my CRM for example), then delete them from follow.it. will the counter go back to 0?
The limit in number of followers refers to the total number of followers. (However please note that it's not a hard limit - we never block anyone from following you - it's just that beyond it our regular pricing takes effect, as you can see on http://follow.it/features-and-pricing. For example, if you stacked up to 50,000 followers, and then have 51,000 followers, you're paying the same as a non-Sumoling pays who has 1,000 followers). So that would be recurring then, however you benefit from another 20% disount on it as Sumoling :)
Regarding exporting followers and making the counter go to 0 again: yes, you could do that. Our job will be to keep improving follow.it and making it so good that you never get the idea of moving them away from follow.it! :D
Q: Has something happened to the development of your product?
I checked your Roadmap on trello and nothing substantial has been completed in the last few months.
Any major feature dev is planned for either the next "3 months" or "6 months".
Something seems off..or maybe a long vacation perhaps? That would be fine. But my concern is if I purchased, the product may stop working or company may go belly up.
Look forward to your response. Thank you.
Nick_TasteWP
May 14, 2024A: Thank you for your question SaaSDeals!
No such worries are needed :) Since the AppSumo deal started we released the Telegram delivery channel, MyPopUps collaboration and various little features. For some other features shown on the roadmap we realized we need to do some architectural changes (to build them on a sound foundation) which should be completed in 1-2 weeks. After that, there will be a significant speed up in new feature deliveries.
In any case, you don't have to worry about us going belly up. follow.it (and its predecessor SpecificFeeds.com) have been around for many years, and we'll keep investing into the platform. We're in it for the long haul.
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Q: Will I receive emails about published posts, like I did from Feedburner?
Nick_TasteWP
May 15, 2024A: Yes, it's exactly like Feedburner.
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Q: Hi, You mentioned "...
to send messages independently from your posts/RSS feed, then for now, you cannot do that on follow.it (even though we're looking into that and it will be possible at some point)."
Glad to hear that regular email marketing campaigns will eventually be possible.
Will this be included in this AS plan when released?
Thank you
Nick_TasteWP
May 15, 2024A: Thank you for your question!
Yes, it will be included, as AppSumo users are on the highest premium plan ("Super-cool").
If you have any other questions, just shoot!
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Q: Hi Nick, - If we still send normal email newsletter broadcasts for our blog updates and also use Followit to ...
alert users, can we customise how the content design look like how we customise html for email newsletters?
- If we hit subscriber limit but don't want to automatically be upgraded to pay the recurring fee. Do we have the option to keep the limit to e.g. 6000 subs?
Nick_TasteWP
May 15, 2024A: Thanks for your question Aura!
For now the format is as shown as mentioned above, i.e. https://bit.ly/3487V5x (if you only want to send headlines) or https://bit.ly/2EEWrOf (for "full story view"). Of course, you can replace the follow.it logo with yours, and remove other brandings.
Other publishers also requested more layout option, so we'll look into those too, probably first allowing publishers to define the colors (but keeping the basic structure the same), and at some point allowing more tailoring options too.
Regarding hitting the 6,000 limit: we never block any follower from signing up to your feed. If you go over your limit, but haven't uploaded any credits to your account, you'll only get an email from us, politely asking you to take out your credit card :) At that point, you can either follow our suggestion (thank you), or unfollow some of your followers (to get under the limit again). If both options are no good we may also implement hard cuts at some point, but we're not really fond of them.
Note that we're also working on other features to help you to stay below your limits, e.g. the feature to automatically unfollow followers who haven't opened or clicked any of your emails in the last e.g. 6 months.
Does that answer your questions? If you have other questions, please shoot!
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Q: Could I use follow.
it in the future to write the blog itself? so it would have a cname blog just like curated.co has for newsletters
eg: blog.segureo.com -> showing my posts
Nick_TasteWP
May 15, 2024A: Thank you for your question!
Yes, at some point this will be possible (we'll probably enable this when we allow publishers to charge followers for their feeds too). However don't hold your breath - we got quite a lot of other feature requests which we now need to work on first :)
If you have any other questions, please shoot!
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Q: Can agencies use follow.
it for clients in the future?
1) Sub-accounts for clients
2) Branding, CNAME per sub-account
3) Integrations (Zapier!) on sub-account level
4) Separated follower list for each sub-account
5) Allocate follower limits to sub-accounts
Just dreaming :-)
Nick_TasteWP
May 14, 2024A: Thanks Sebastian, dreaming is good! Even the inventor of the modern toilet started with a dream :D
Regarding your points 1-3, they are already on our roadmap, please see https://trello.com/b/IaPT0XQ3/followit-product-roadmap. Note though: You mention "Branding" under question 2, that is already possible today, as all the settings are per feed/website.
For point 4, that's per feed, so it is already separate (linked to the respective feed).
Regarding point 5 (and maybe also point 1): If it's important to you that it's all separate, maybe you just create separate follow.it accounts in the first place? Or do you have specific processes for which this wouldn't be a solution?
I'm happy to learn more about your use case. Maybe we take this discussion offline? You can always email us at ("help (at) follow (dot) it"). Thank you!
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Verified purchaser
Hi,
In reading your response to #5 (and #1), are you asking why wouldn't we create multiple accounts by creating separate accounts using separate codes? If so, I can answer that. For agencies, it is much more convenient to have one account with sub-accounts where we can distribute the followers as needed (2k for sub-account #1, 10k for sub-account #2, etc.). Creating separate accounts prevents us from doing this. Are you considering #5 for agencies?
Thanks MrsOwens for your follow-up question/clarifications!
Yes, it's clear that from an agency perspective, it's easier to manage all from one account, instead of several. That is already possible to a large extent, as you can have various feeds in one account, and then tailor them individually (most settings are defined on a feed level, not account level).
The case where this breaks down is if you then also want to give your clients access (then only to their respective feed of course). It's a valid point, however please note that once set up, there isn't much need for clients to repeatedly access their feed (our solution is primarily an automatic solution, not like e.g. Mailchimp where the user needs to access it every time he wants to send a newsletter). So your clients could - if there are needs for adjustments - just inform you about them, and you can change them quickly.
But still, it would be nice to give your clients access, that's understood. That's why we'll look into this as well.
The point which isn't entirely clear to me yet is the allocation of follower limits to the separate feeds. Let's assume you stack it to the max. (7 AppSumo codes), and hence have a limit of 50k followers. How they are distributed is highly flexible, e.g. it could be 1 feed with 50k followers, or 20 feeds with each 2,500 followers. I assume the scenario you're concerned about is when there's a monster feed with 50k followers, which has eaten up all your limits, so there is no room for the other feeds? You could (just brainstorming here, it's not recommended) unfollow 40k follwers from your monster-feed, so there is room again for the others. But the better option would be to go beyond the 50k limit, e.g. to 70k, and then have your client with the monster-feed pay for the 20k additional ones. We could also think about implementing a hard cut, e.g. you can specify that the monster feed can only have 20k followers, and every follower beyond that who tries to follow gets an error (but I doubt that would be a preferable solution).
Does that clarify things a little? If not, please let me know. Thank you!
Q: Hello again, I just discovered your feed directory on your site.
Are there plans to go more micro on the topics for the feeds because when I enter a word that is very popular in my industry, nothing comes up which is odd because there is a hundreds of blogs, posts, articles in the US on it. I do like being able to sort by country on the directory because I only can have US. Thank you
Nick_TasteWP
May 15, 2024A: Thanks Mike for reporting this.
We are indeed planning to build out the feed directory. What's the keyword you used which you couldn't find any results for?
(Again, maybe let's take this discussion offline as it's very specific - please email us at "help (at) follow (dot) it". Thank you!)
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Q: Hello, Please excuse my lack of feed knowledge since I currently do not use feeds in my service, but your ...
offer seems like I could actually utilize it because I've been looking at RASA for a year. With one code you offer 5 feeds which doesn't sound like much so what's the definition of a feed? Is it a one word topic or a combination of words? I set up a Google feed 7-8 years ago, but I don't remember where I even set them up because I had a different job. Yes, hopefully you are laughing but I have to ask so I know whether or not I can use your services. Thank you, Mike
Nick_TasteWP
May 15, 2024A: Thanks Mike for your question!
Ok, so a feed is what you (or others) can subscribe to. It's based on the RSS feed of the website. See more information here: https://follow.it/docs/publishers/introduction/what-is-a-feed-on-follow-it
What's your website url so that I can check if it has an RSS feed?
(Maybe we take this discussion offline: you can reach us at "Help (at) follow (dot) it". Thank you!)
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Q: Hi 1.
Will Sumos get access to WhatsApp, SMS, YouTube Feed, WeChat, FB Messenger for free when they are released? Will there be any extra charges we have to worry about? Any limits to how many messages sent?
2. Will Sumos get access to Hootsuite and Buffer integrations for free?
3. Will Sumos get access to Social Media Syndication for free? Any extra charges or limits on this?
4. Are there any future upgrades Sumos aren't going to be a part of for free?
5. Is there a limit to how many emails can get sent out?
Thanks!
Nick_TasteWP
May 15, 2024A: Thanks Falcon for your questions!
1. Yes, you can use all the features, however if there are features which cost us something (e.g. I assume that will be the case for Whatsapp and SMS) then we'll pass on those charges.
2. Once implemented, yes (and provided those platforms don't charge us for that, but I don't think that will be the case)
3. No limits or charges if we don't get charged.
4. We are not planning to offer any plan beyond the Super-cool plan for publhishers (which you're automatically on as Sumoling).
5. No limit in emails.
If you have any other questions, please shoot!
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Q: @Nick - If we already have an email service provider (ESP) like SendFox or ActiveCampaign to send ...
newsletters,
Do we still use that to send our emails or Followit will now replace it? Thanks
Nick_TasteWP
May 14, 2024A: Thanks again Aura for your question.
Follow.it currently focuses on the *automatic* updating of your followers about new posts (so that they come back to your website). If you are using the other ESPs only for that, then follow.it could replace them.
However, if you use them to send messages independently from your posts/RSS feed, then for now, you cannot do that on follow.it (even though we're looking into that and it will be possible at some point). So what you could do: make your subscribers follow you via follow.it, so that they receive notifications about new posts automatically, and if you want to send them other newsletters, then you just export the emails from follow.it and import them at your other email provider, and send it there. We're also working on an integration with other email providers so that the syncing will be done automatically, without the need for manual export & import.
Makes sense? If questions remain, please shoot!
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Ok cool.
A "feed" is what people can subscribe to. Most websites only have one (main) feed, and use only that one. So you can see 1 feed = 1 website. See more about it here: https://follow.it/docs/publishers/introduction/what-is-a-feed-on-follow-it
Regarding upgrades: Once the AppSumo deal is over, you cannot buy any AppSumo codes anymore. However, you still have 2 months to redeem AppSumo codes you already bought.
If you have any more questions, just shoot!
Thanks Nick,
I read the link - So basically 1 site just would need 1 feed (that includes various channels - email, rss, FB, insta?)
5 feeds means it can be used for 5 websites?
Yes, correct.
@Nick
1) So if use Followit to email subscribers about new posts instead of our ESP, can we then control and edit a template for how the email will look like to users?
Because without using Followit, if using regular ESP to email about updates, we can customize the html template and make it look nice with branding & formating we want.
2) I read you said if we go over the limit (e.g. 12K), it will not stop new followers and we get 20% discount on normal recurring fee.
But what if we want to choose not to increase our following limit due to financial limitations and can't afford monthly in the meantime, but still want to continue sending updates to the 12K followers limit from the Appsumo deal.
1) You can make it look like it's coming from you, i.e. no follow.it logo (but instead your own logo). It will still be the defined structure though, we don't offer (yet) 100% custom design. But that will be possibe at one point too.
2.) Ok, so either you get more AppSumo codes which increase the limit, or you pay the regular fee (at 20% discount) for your followers beyond the 12k. Or, another option, I assume you'll have the 12k followers distributed over several feeds, so you could allocate some of the feeds to a new (free) account, where you don't pay anything (of course this will be then on the free plan, and not the Super-cool plan which you benefit from as AppSumo user).
Note: we're also working on (as it was requested by other publishers) to enable you to unfollow followers automatically who haven't opened or clicked on your emails (or stories) in e.g. the last 6 months. Those are basically inactive, and this way it helps you to not hit your follower limits.
If anything else comes up, just shoot!
Q: @Nick - If we're using a popup tool to get email optins like https://convertbox.
com
Can we still use Followit together? Or will it clash and only can choose one tool to get email optins?
- I think still can use Followit to have buttons to subscribe to socials, as that is seperate from email optins.
Can you share the best way to use it along with other existing email option or popup tools? Thanks
Nick_TasteWP
May 15, 2024A: Ok cool.
A "feed" is what people can subscribe to. Most websites only have one (main) feed, and use only that one. So you can see 1 feed = 1 website. See more about it here: https://follow.it/docs/publishers/introduction/what-is-a-feed-on-follow-it
Regarding upgrades: Once the AppSumo deal is over, you cannot buy any AppSumo codes anymore. However, you still have 2 months to redeem AppSumo codes you already bought.
If you have any more questions, just shoot!
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Thanks Aura for your questions!
Regarding pop-ups: Why not use https://mypopups.com? It's free for all follow.it users :)
If you want to use a different pop-up service, you have several options:
1.) You connect the subscription form on your current pop-up to your feed on follow.it, so that people get added to your list on follow.it. That should be technically feasible (any subscription form can be plugged into follow.it), however to be sure, if you want to do that, please let us know which pop-up-provider you are using exactly, so that we can double check this point. (As this goes into details maybe better to take this discussion offline, you can email us at "help (at) follow (dot) it")
2.) You keep using your current pop-up & email provider tool, and export the subscribers there and then import them to follow.it.
3.) You connect your subscription form to follow.it as discussed, and then export the followers from time to time so that you can import them at your other email provider (we are also working on building an integration & API which will allow the syncing automatically, for now you'd have to export & import it)
4.) You use MyPopUps (did I already mention that? ;)
Does that answer your question? If not, please shoot!
Thanks Nick!
That's helpful.
Gotcha, I'm using Convertbox as I already bought it!
Ok great to know we can connect the subscription form.
1) What does 5 feeds mean? How is a feed defined? Is one feed per channel e.g. a new blog post, a social FB post etc
2) If we get the Single code now for 3K followers, but next time need to increase - can we upgrade to 6K, 12K etc with the same Appsumo price after the deal?
I don't need so many now but prob in the future, but would like to still be able to by more codes. Thanks
Q: Inactive followers will be unsubscribed automatically.
Like if someone didn't read any email/newsletter for last 365 days then he/she will be automatically unsubscribed. Is this feature or similar feature available in Follow.it? please let me know
Nick_TasteWP
May 15, 2024A: Got it. We'll implement it (before you hit your follower limits).
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Thanks Masuk, that's an interesting idea! Currently it doesn't work this way, but we could easily add this feature. It could be very useful to help publishers to not hit their follower limits.
Yes, this will be a great feature for publishers to get active subscribers. Hope you implement it soon.
For sure this will be a very useful feature, why would keep some followers who they are not opening the email for at least once in 6 months, even Google Mail are sending me notice about these emails which I'm not opening if want to unsubscribe from them, but I think this feature should be available even from other side/follow.it in this case.
Yes, agreed. We'll implement it :)
Q: So I maxed stacked this, and super happy with the growth results and easy to subscribe to https://follow.
it/share-talk?action=followPub - that said Im not very happy that adverts have started appearing at the bottom of the emails to our followers ? How do I remove this please
Nick_TasteWP
May 15, 2024A: Thank you for your question!
Yes exactly, for your feed (as AppSumo user) no ads will show.
If you have any other questions, please shoot!
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Verified purchaser
Just realised I had accidently subscribed to another provide with really poor quality news so it looked like adverts. User error !
Q: Hi, I got 2 codes but the WP plugin is very bloated.
In the end a refund on this because of the heavy upselling. Is there any way you could tone it down a bit for people who have already purchased? It's annoying being hassled constantly to pay when you've already spent money on something
Nick_TasteWP
May 15, 2024A: Thank you for your question!
We have a "creative" solution for you :) Could you please ping us at "help (at) follow (dot) it" so that we can share the details? Thank you!
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Q: Hi!
Would like to understand more before buying it. A bit confused here on the features.
if i buy for example the top plan: 7 codes
It says it has a 50.000 subscribers and unlimited feeds.
Does this mean it will send the emails to up to 50.000 followers no matter how often in the month and how many feeds i have? And they will all be sent thru your server but with my domain email? is that correct?
Another question... if i understood right it will send emails based on news on feeds, like when i publish a post and people subscribe to that category/tag/ they receive it.
Does it have the option of sending other emails regardless of the feed update? Like if i want to send an email with a content that is not on a wordpress post or feed, for instance?
And can i easily translate all to my language? like with poedit or other means?
Thank you! I have mailchimp now and trying to understand it.
Nick_TasteWP
May 15, 2024A: Thank you Mirela for your question!
So first of all, yes, we only send out messages if you actually posted new content on your site(s).
You're right, the emails will be sent through our servers. However, as part of the Super-cool plan (which you'll be on), you can brand them to your liking (e.g. upload your logo). We're still sending the emails from our domain. The reason for that is mainly a high deliverability (see https://follow.it/docs/publishers/introduction/why-is-follow-it-s-sender-reputation-so-good), however we are also looking into enabling you to send from your domain (see our this card https://trello.com/c/SOR5Di8R/37-custom-domain on our Roadmap). Note that the emails today already show you in the FROM-field of the emails. So it already feels very much like the emails are coming from you.
And yes, your understanding is correct that we take the content from your RSS feed(s) and send that. We're also looking into enabling you to send content independently from your feeds. Up to now we focused on the fully automatic solution. For now, you can always export your followers' emails (it's easy) and send them a separate email via another tool. But as mentioned, we're looking into enabling this as well.
Regarding languages: we already have it translated into German, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, and Serbian. Bulgarian is under way. Which language do you need? If you let us know (either here, or at "help (at) follow (dot) it") we may speed it up.
I hope that clarifies your points. If you have any other questions, please shoot!
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Q: Is it possible to edit the timeframe on the newsletter email?
I see in the screenshot it's daily, can you do a weekly version?
Nick_TasteWP
May 15, 2024A: Thanks Rick for your question, it's a good point, we get that request from time to time, but when we then make clear to publishers that this implies that some of the stories are then up to a week old when people receive them, they usually agree that daily should be ok. But if this feature is important to you, let us have another look at it. I now added it to our feature roadmap on https://trello.com/b/IaPT0XQ3/followit-product-roadmap (column "Ideas"), please upvote it if you think it's important. Thank you! :)
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Hi Rick, an update about your request for a weekly option: I realized it's already possible today, with a little workaround.
As part of your feed's settings, you have the option to approve your stories (which we found in your RSS feed) before they get sent, i.e. here: https://monosnap.com/file/WMNF9QwnQxwbXQEZbiwJeIiAl7ObwV. The point is: when you approve the story, that time & date is the one relevant for sending, i.e. the time when you approve the story is the time when the story officially arrives in our system. So: you could activate this feature, not approve any of the stories, and after a week approve all of them. The stories then count as having arrived in our system at that point. Therefore, when our crons pick up the stories for sending (e.g. for newspaper: all stories of the last 24 hours), your followers will get all of them, as they are „new“ as far as our system is concerned (i.e. they arrived in the last 24 hours).
If you have more detailed questions about this, we can also continue the discussion offline: "help (at) follow (dot) it". Thank you!
Awesome, thanks! I really appreciate the follow up. Manually approving them works perfect for me.
Cheers!
Q: Help is random?
Why does the help widget onsite simply disappear completely?
Nick_TasteWP
May 15, 2024A: Thanks for your question!
Please go to https://follow.it/ni where it always shows. Or you can also contact us by email at "help (at) follow (dot) it". Thank you!
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Verified purchaser
All I need is someone to get into the help chat with me and I'm laughing.
I just replied by email with video. If we can further assist, just reply to that email. Thank you!
Q: I bought this deal but I cannot register.
I click 'register' and it signup window doesn't progress. It just grays out the button and gets stuck. Any way to fix this?
Nick_TasteWP
May 15, 2024A: Thank you for your question!
Did you also reach out by email to us? We sent you a reply - did you receive it? If you haven't contacted us yet, could you please send an email to "help (at) follow (dot) it"? Thank you!
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Q: Follow.
it is a truly excellent tool.
We are having one issue however: we have spent a huge amount of time trying to integrate your RSS feed into our other websites using RSS widgets. We have done this previously with our provider Feedburner without a problem. However, despite trying over 20 different feed providers, it doesn’t work with follow.it.
For example, we’ve tried adding https://follow.it/azam to the following RSS feed widget provider:
https://feed.mikle.com
It shows nothing.
We have spent hours on this, trying different variations of your URL etc. and, like I said, have tried over 20 different services. None of them work with follow.it.
Can you please let me know what is wrong with your RSS feed URL please?
What is our actual RSS link, we can add our blog titles to our other websites?
Thank you.
Nick_TasteWP
May 15, 2024A: Thank you for your nice words azaminc! :)
You also sent us a support request about that, right? We just responded. Should be fixed now.
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Q: Hi, are followers numbers shown in the plans per month, or total allowance for the lifetime of the plan.
What´s the cost if i need to upscale,upgrade my follower numbers at any time? And would that upgraded volume of followers be paid monthly, or once as LTD?
And, if i buy for instance the 1 code plan, 3K followers. Then, i reach that number. I export the data that i need to another place (like my CRM for example), then delete them from follow.it. will the counter go back to 0?
Thank you!
Nick_TasteWP
May 15, 2024A: Thank you for your question!
The limit in number of followers refers to the total number of followers. (However please note that it's not a hard limit - we never block anyone from following you - it's just that beyond it our regular pricing takes effect, as you can see on http://follow.it/features-and-pricing. For example, if you stacked up to 50,000 followers, and then have 51,000 followers, you're paying the same as a non-Sumoling pays who has 1,000 followers). So that would be recurring then, however you benefit from another 20% disount on it as Sumoling :)
Regarding exporting followers and making the counter go to 0 again: yes, you could do that. Our job will be to keep improving follow.it and making it so good that you never get the idea of moving them away from follow.it! :D
If you have any other questions, just shoot!
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