Over the weekend I finally did something I’ve been meaning to do for a while now, which was to organize my Google Reader feeds. The problem I had was that I was trying to follow over 50 blogs and other miscellaneous feeds but there was no organization to it. Some feeds were much more important to me than others but I hadn’t made it easy on myself to get to the preferred feeds quickly. I’ve known for some time that Google Reader allows you to create folders so it was time to give it a shot. I created the following for my use:

• Top 5 - The top five blogs I read to stay aware of what’s going on in new media marketing. These are Seth Godin’s blog, Mashable, TechCrunch, TechMeme, and Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels blog.
• Friends - Blogs that my friends write.
• My Stuff - Anything I do that has an RSS feed.
• Clients - Blogs and anything else I’m monitoring for clients including some Technorati feeds and Tweetscan feeds.
• Everything Else - Catchall for anything I want to check in with from time to time.

So far it’s been great. I find myself using Reader more now than before. A nice little surprise for me was that Google will aggregate all the feeds from a single folder so I can quickly see what’s new from my Friends blogs for instance. I should have done this a while back but I’m glad it’s set up now!

You may not know it but you have some control over the way your blog’s RSS feed displays. You can allow your feed to show a summary (which usually consists of the first paragraph or introductory sentences in your post) or the full post. Most blogs default with the full post display but I was asked recently if I thought the summary option is a good idea based on the premise that if people can only read an introductory paragraph from the post then it will drive traffic to the blog.

My advice is to never just do the summary and here’s why…

• The summary option assumes people care enough to click out of their feed reader to go to you blog. Many feed readers are scanning headlines and if they see something that catches their interest, they want to read it then and there. That’s a primary reason for having a feed reader to begin with…the person chose to bring the content to them rather than go to every blog to read the posts. iGoogle wasn’t the most popular Google property in 2007 for nothing. Increasingly, people want their online information consolidated, convenient, and quick. Don’t make it hard on them because they will likely keep moving through their feeds and never click over to read your post.
• The summary option assumes that unique visitors to the blog are a more important statistic than the RSS readers. Personally, I believe the richest statistic you can measure for your blog is your RSS subscriber base. Those readers have elected to pull your content into their feed reader. They are your new opt-in list so treat them special and don’t make life harder on them. You need them more than they need you.
• The summary option isn’t a common practice with 99% of blogs. If for no other reason, don’t do this because you’ll be the one blogger who forces people to click over to your blog to read the posts and it’s just counter cultural (in blog culture that is.) If you do the summary, the best case scenario is that people will ignore it an move on. The worst case is they’ll think you’re controlling and egotistical…and they still won’t read it and will move on.

The bottom line is that anything you may gain in some new traffic to the blog will be a much bigger loss in people’s attention and your influence because you’re creating a hurdle they have to get over if they want to read your posts. It’s just not a good idea. You have more to lose than gain.