How Do You Follow Your Favorite Blogs? What Works Best...and What Fails the Most?

There are so many ways to follow blogs nowadays.

What are your favorite ways to keep up?

If you've been following me through the standard Follow button I've had up until now using Google Friend Connect, you might not be actively following me soon, since Google is taking away the ability to follow using GFC via anything except...well, a Google account. Twitter, Facebook, etc? Off the table. So if you follow ANYBODY using Blogger, you'll have to find a different way this month.

I've never put together a Subscribe Via Newsletter option because I know I hate having all that clutter up my inbox, and figure most of you do as well.

I like seeing all the blog headlines in one place at one time. I liked it when the Blogger Reader List came up when I logged into my blog. But it capped out at a certain number and wouldn't let you delete older inactive blogs. And it didn't load all the time. I needed a better option.

Personally, I found and use Feedly.

Feedly probably makes it harder for bloggers to track their numbers, but it's SO easy to use. I can make FOLDERS to throw blogs into. I have a folder for agent blogs, for author blogs, for book blogs, for nail polish blogs, etc.

If I'm looking for information about the new OPI Collection I just saw in an ad and haven't had time to keep up with the blogging world, I can go to my Nail Blogger Folder and see the headlines, then find who is swatching the new OPI Collection so I can see what colors I want to buy. Etc.

When you load up Feedly and enter the blog you want to follow, it will tell you how many other people follow through Feedly. I'm sure there are a lot of other blog feed sites similar to Feedly. Going forward, I think it will be very hard for bloggers to know their accurate follower stats because there are SO MANY ways to follow. I think that's also reflected in the fact that on Twitter, I have double the followers I do with my visible list of GFC followers.

If you're a blogger, how do you figure out your numbers when people ask? Or do you just not worry about it? I usually list my GFC AND my Twitter.

Is there a better widget to use on Blogger for Subscribers? Do you give subscribers options other than GFC that work?

I'd love to get a discussion going with some choices that will help Bloggers moving forward with this latest decision from Google!

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