For those of you who use FeedBurner for your blog you will be glad to know that some new features have been added to the service. Along with a new look and layout there have also been some very helpful features added in the Standard Stats (free) version of FeedBurner…

I especially like the ‘Uncommon Uses’ features which will allow me to find out who is using the content from my site and how they are using it or if my content is on a spam blog or has been reproduced without giving me any credit. From the Standard FeedBurner control panel I can easily visit the offending site, check it out, and contact or report them if necessary.

• Uncommon Uses: This is a new concept we’re introducing that really begins to leverage the critical mass of feed readers, bots, search engines, news filters, and other common feed sources that we observe. Uncommon Uses identifies and highlights places where your feed content is referenced or clicked that FeedBurner does not recognize as a common feed service. Uncommon uses includes contact with your feed by non-subscribers.
• Podcasts: We’ve (finally) added the ability to track the number of downloads of rich media enclosures within a feed, including audio and video, in addition to the number of subscriptions.

Here is a screenshot from my FeedBurner ‘Uncommon Uses’ screen. Although no one at this time seems to be publishing my content on their website.

FeedBurner has also made some upgrades to their premium service as well. These include item popularity and active reach (how many people are actually reading your feed).

If you have a blog and haven’t checked out FeedBurner I highly recommend you give it a try, you can’t go wrong with their free version and it’s very simple to set up.

New to RSS and don’t have any idea what any of this means? Learn more about it here.

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It’s always a good thing to have several different methods of making your websites or products viral. One of these methods I have used for years is the simple ‘Tell A Friend’ method. Basically, ‘Tell a Friend’ is a simple way for visitors of your site to create an email and have it automatically sent to their friends informing them about your site. This method has been around for years and is often overlooked by many marketing professionals. I believe it’s often overlooked because of its pure simplicity, people may think that it will rarely get used, or ask themselves why they should bother having it on their site when people already know how to email their friends.

What most people forget about is the power of suggestion! Since I added an ‘Add this Page to Favorites’ link to my site I’ve had an increase of over 100% in the amount of people adding my site to their bookmarks. The same thing goes with the ‘Tell a Friend’ link. Obviously people know how to bookmark a website already or email a friend about it, I’m not teaching them anything new, I am simply reminding and suggesting that they do it. By reminding, suggesting, and making it easy, people take action!

Think about it, how many people would have told a friend about your site if you had a ‘Tell a Friend’ script installed on it? You already invest a lot in getting people to your site in the first place using SEO and PPC. Why not maximize your existing visitors to get even more?

You can use the ‘Tell a Friend’ method not only on websites, but in ebooks or even software. There are many free scripts available online that you can use that will even track who is telling who. The script I use for this website is a plugin created for Wordpress called wp-email. The cool part about this Wordpress plugin is that it keeps track of who sent what to who. Here’s a screenshot…

And since I am in the suggestive mood today, may I ask if if you’ve added this site to your bookmarks yet? Perhaps you have a friend who would like to know about this site or this article? Simply click on an option in the box below.

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