… And why I won’t be endorsing the Blog Engage RSS Syndication service hereafter. In fact I will remove or update my review about Blog Engage, just to make sure that I don’t endorse a service in which I’m not happy with.
Here’s the story
I am a member of Blog Engage since a very long time.
I started using the premium RSS syndication service since a long time back and I was initially very happy with the results. Blog Engage was my third largest traffic source.
Then by the time of Christmas holidays, 2011, I had an issue with my Credit card budget and so I stopped most of my subscription services. This is when I cancelled Blog Engage subscription as well.
Brian asked me why and I said him that I have some financial issues and I’ll subscribe again when they’re sorted out.
Then again in January, 2012 I subscribed again to the premium RSS syndication service that costs $29.99 per month.
For about the past six months (just that I was not in the “paid” mode for about a month) I was getting very very little traffic from Blog Engage. I syndicate all my 5 blogs and I rarely make it to the front page.
So I was unhappy about the 30 bucks I was spending on the service every month. Hence I unsubscribed. This is my personal decision.
Again, Brian asked why and I was busy to reply to his email and in a couple of days my feed syndication stopped, even though I was having about a week for which I’ve paid already.
Hence I asked Brian:
As someone who is paying money out of their pockets, I think I have the right to “test” and see what if I stop the subscription, right?
Here’s Brian reply
My concerns
Brian’s words are in bold-
1. “…. you should rethink what you’re blogging about” - Seriously? Well, just because I’m not happy with a service doesn’t mean that I should be insulted by Brian telling me that I should rethink what I’m blogging about. Does he think I’m blogging for fun? I meant to say that I get very very little traffic from Blog Engage; not that my blog gets very very little traffic in general (I won’t be in business now if this is the case). This was very hurting in the first place.
2. When I subscribe to a service and I’m not happy with it, I can unsubscribe, right? That’s why the “Unsubscribe” button is there for. And I have the full right to do so.
3. He asked me why I unsubscribed and I just answered politely (if you can re-read my reply again). I just honestly said what my problem was. Is that a wrong thing to do?
4. What am I complaining about? I didn’t say anything against BE or Brian. I was just not happy with the service personally. After all I’m paying and I want to be accountable to myself on what I spend. So I just wanted to “test” the waters and see what changes I see after I stop using the RSS syndication service.
5. I was seriously not offending him in anyway. It was him who did that by saying that I should rethink what I’m blogging about.
6. And now I learned that I’m not the only person who is complaining about getting no value from the service. When I said this to him his reply was “Yeah I get a few complaining like you, I have 167 customers, 4 or 5 are like you!“. Well, OK.
What am I trying to convey here
No, I’m not writing this post to call out names. Although it seems that February is the month and I’m doing it for the second time!
First of all there’s no reason for anyone to be angry at their customer just because they’re not happy with their service/product. No one can expect that their customers should always say only positive things; and if they don’t (in honesty), one shouldn’t become angry and break up the relationship.
Whenever a complaint arises about a service, it is always good to listen to the feedback and improve the service. This will make things and business much better.
At the same time, I completely understand that in no way one can please EVERYONE in the world. If Brian thinks that his service is perfect and it is just the 3 or 4 little customers who are complaining, then he can just let go, right? If he had explained things politely (instead of asking me to rethink what I’m blogging about), I would have decided that OK the service is probably good but its not just for me.
Insulting anyone is really bad. I know that Brian didn’t say the same words (to rethink what they’re blogging about) to the others who were not happy with his service. Is it because my blog is a poor little PR3 thing? I don’t understand!
I also looked back at the history of some people at Blog Engage. Their stories are terrible.
Social Media Fail - David got his account deleted.
Miranda got her account deleted.
And Hesham discusses the issue in detail here.
In fact, if you read the comments at these posts there are quite a few others whose accounts were deleted as well (but they didn’t speak about it!).
Simply deleting accounts - what about the time and effort put in building those backlinks and relationship? You’re wiped clean at the click of a button. Although this is not my direct problem, I’m not sure that this won’t happen to me tomorrow.
I see that the relationship management is very poor.
About the service
Paying $30 a month for a bunch of social bookmarking backlinks is seriously not worth it (at least according to my business and my expectation). I think there is a lot more that can be done for $5 at Fiverr. Read this post, if you don’t understand what I mean.
Only a few people always make it to the front page and I don’t understand the formula behind this (no offense or nothing personal on those who get there on the front page). Brian says that I need to engage more and that my Blog Engage success is in my hands.
Well, I can do the same in social media (for free) and get the same amount or even more exposure! In fact, I just do that. Without much work I casually get amazing traffic and backlinks from Facebook and Twitter. And I do adore the amount of traffic I get from Blokube and Bizsugar for free!
There is a service at Blog Engage called “Direct to front page” for $99.99 per month. So what about the others who can’t afford $99.99? Does this service manipulate the front page positions? If so why should I engage more? Ya, Blog Engage success is in my hands - no in my pockets actually!
If its the voting system that will get me to the front page and will give me an exposure, its great - I’m ready to engage more. If its the money that matters, OK I’m willing to pay for that (just saying). But here its not clear! As Hesham mentions here, a voting system will never work over a paid system.
Takeaway
I stress again that I didn’t write this post to offend anyone or write a bad review about someone and get dirty. But I had to be transparent a bit so that I can completely convey you the back scenes and the real problems.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who is unhappy about the service (I’ve confirmed this personally).
And I’ve stopped endorsing Blog Engage just because I cannot promote a service in which I’m not happy in the first place. Well, may be most of you like the service. Just that I’m off the community and that I don’t like Blog Engage doesn’t mean that Blog Engage is not for you. It may be for you. I don’t know; you have to test and see if the service is right for you.
I’m writing this post and stopping my Blog Engage promotion just because I didn’t get what I expected out of the service and I was not treated correctly by the owner of Blog Engage. As a customer, this is one of my primary concerns - to be treated with respect.
And one more thing - due to all these, I think I will have to take down the Blog Engage accounts “bonus” prizes on the Blogging Tips 101 Contest. I don’t think Brian will be happy to be a part of something in which I’m involved.
I apologize to the participants for this.
So, that’s it, the bitter story. I’m happy that I’ve learned some precious lessons out of it.
As a blogger, I want to convey this to you, my readers. I want to make sure that you know the “behind the scenes” stuff and be warned.
I appreciate your comments as always.
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Wow. Sorry to hear about your troubles at BlogEngage. I think you are right about the ROI. My personal guess (and it really is just a guess) is that Brian wants BlogEngage to make a lot of money. Who wouldn’t? So he is charging a lot more than anyone else in the market, which as you note is pretty much all free right now. I completely understand this desire, as I have my own social bookmarking site (and big dreams for it) that is not making me money right now.
Tere is nothing wrong with setting unreasonable fees. That’s each of our choices. Brian’s mistake IMHO is lashing out at people who follow their own agendas (promote their content) rather than following his agenda (make him money). My personal guess (and again it really is just a guess) is that when I and 4 or 5 others were deleted from BlogEngage it was because some of us were hitting the front page too often on free accounts. Ironically, I was doing all the things he says he wants everybody to do - commenting on plenty of other people’s submissions, voting for other people’s submissions, etc. I submitted my stuff, my clients’ stuff and plenty of stuff I had no vested interest in whatsoever. All good quality content - no crap. But no income for Brian.
C’est la vie.
I agree about Blokube and BizSugar. Good services run by professional people.
David, your case is what turned me off totally! To me Brian said “Engage more”. And for you its the problem to get your account banned! You were engaging a lot and got punished by the same Brian who wants me to engage more if I want traffic!
Engaging means voting for others bloggers, visiting their articles and commenting or social sharing with them. This means actually going out and doing something with the blogger and not just voting. David’s ideas as I said before is “vote requesting” and “front page manipulation”. He has a 100% publish rate what a joke!. This is not the opinion of the community; it’s the opinion of a few social media groupies. If you want to see the Junk I’m talking about look here,
http://www.blogengage.com/blogger/when-a-community-is-lost-you-must-fight-back/
Like I said Jane I may of handled this wrong but there’s no reason to hate me or hate blog engage as we have worked so hard to help as many people grow their blogs.
Whoa…call me rude names on Twitter, as you did, but there is no need to tell outright lies.
When I was a BlogEnage member, I was one of your top commenters. I was also one of the top sharers. I commented on many of the actual blog posts themselves (still do), and tweeted tons of them, too (still do). It is not just about voting and it never has been, so don’t lecture me about not voting and sharing enough.
Now look very carefully at that image of Blokube that you published. Yes, you found a moment in time when three of my submissions and someone else’s submission where I was the guest blogger were all at the same time on the front page. Big deal. Go look there now. Or tomorrow. Or the next day. I have none on the front page and just two posts high in the “upcoming” list.
Now look VERY carefully at the URLs that you show published in your image. One is from my own blog. One. The other two of my submissions in your image are from blogs I have no vested interest in and probably are not even Blokube members. I submitted the content just because I thought it was good and should be shared. Just as I was doing at BlogEngage before you wiped out everything I had contributed. Yes, I was doing the exact opposite of what you accuse me.
You state that “The sad part is their content is crap”. Really? Did you write that with a straight face? “Crap” is, of course, a matter of opinion and you are entitled to have yours. Here is my Blokube account: http://www.blokube.com/user/history/amabaie . Everyone who thinks I submit crap, please let me know. Post your thoughts right here in the comments.
By contrast, here is your Blokube profile: http://www.blokube.com/user/history/bbrian017/ Almost every post basically a sales pitch for your business.
One of the things that always amazed me when I was a BlogEngage member is how the site could have so much non-content voted up to its home page. Then you deleted accounts of people who were actually submitting useful and interesting content and saving the home page for you. I just went to the BlogEngage front page today and grabbed a screenshot of the current top 10 posts. (It is at http://www.seo-writer.com/images/blogengage.JPG for people who read this later). Of the top 10 posts, only five posts are actually content. Look what we have:
- Get a blog theme (a video on why a blog should have its own theme)
- I just entered a contest and Need Your Help
- Win a Free Year Gold Membership
- One of Our Blogs Won an Award
- Win a Free Gold Membership (Again?!?)
Five out of the ten top posts are administrative posts. Nothing wrong with a blog having admin posts. Nothing wrong with submitting them to BlogEngage or Blokube or anywhere else. But there is something seriously disfunctional about a “community” where admin posts are 50% of the best of what it has to offer. And look who the worst offender is in his own “community”.
Yet you deleted the accounts of a half dozen people who submitted pretty mcuh only real content because you didn’t want to see their posts on the front page? Huh?
Go ahead and compare the value of what I’ve been submitting to Blokube and what is showing up on the BlogEnage. Say with a straight face that I submit crap.
The one thing you said about me that actually was true is that I am not afraid to ask people to support my submissions. This is wrong? Do you really think that somebody should submit their content and NOT ask other bloggers to take a look and support it? You yourself are on a blog commenting group. You submit your endless sales pitches to Blukube. On BlogEngage, in the chat room, you used to instruct members exactly how to ask each other for votes!
It is a fact that you have published lies about me. It is my opinion that you are being grossly hypocritical, even in the thruths you publish about me. In both cases, you are being defamatory. A pretty big appology is in order.
“He has a 100% publish rate what a joke!”
So you want people to pay for a service that promotes their blogs, and then NOT submit their blog posts?
Thanks for posting this Jane. Sorry you had to go through all this. I haven’t been able to get an answer as to why the group of users with free accounts were deleted when all were ostensibly following the rules. However, David’s theory is the best I’ve heard to date.
About your point regarding Fiverr, one of the biggest problems I have with paid social bookmarking backlinks is the fact that the links are all coming from the same domain. If I have 10 posts on Blog Engage one more isn’t really helping IMHO.
Hey Emory, I do understand your concern about getting backlinks from the same domain. But isn’t that what we get from Twitter or Facebook as well? Sorry if I’m missing something
At the same time I DO understand that, yes the traffic from Twitter and FB or any other social media or blog community is free! That makes a lot of difference when compared to BE.
I do agree with Emory to a point. The first link on a domain has the most SEO punch. But I also believe that multiple links are still worth something, especially for bloggers, since they point to different pages on our blogs.
However, the links from Twitter and FaceBook are worth more in terms of spreading around one’s posts, just because there are so many more users. This means traffic. And if the post is good enough, it will often mean links from new sites (as folks post a link on their own blogs or on services like Tumblr). I personally love Twitter - just love it. I don’t care about the number of followers I have, as long as they are the kind of people who A) are actually interested in one of my pet topics and B) are likely to share it about wider than I could myself. Oh, yes. And it is free.
Hi Jane, Looks like David said it better than I could. I think the keyword here is “paid.” Imagine all of the links you get from Twitter and Facebook, both followed and unfolowed. Would you pay for those? Maybe, but I’m guessing it would be tougher to justify for a small social media site.
Emory, Facebook isn’t really “free.” Consider what they do with your so-called personal and private data, and how (unless you’re smart and opt out) they use your photos in the ads run in the sidebar. Let’s not confuse the issue too much re: “free” vs. “paid.” No one here is being completely altruistic, including the customers. The only real question is whether it’s a fair bargain with real or perceived value commensurate with cost. Most customers have no idea what “free” is actually costing them.
Holly,
The point is not how much Brian/BE is charging but that it is the decision factor for Brian how to treat his members.
He just don’t know how to talk with others. I think he should join KG or Class 1. :p
Holly, I didn’t mean to imply Facebook was so magnanimous
Permit me to revise and extend my remarks to state “give monetary compensation” rather than “pay.”
It may be worth noting: For me, Facebook ranks just below Google on my stats; Blog Engage usually ranks above Twitter. And I do think a lot of that has to do with how broadly or narrowly you define “community” and how engaged you are with each. The stats from Blog Engage are, in my experience, directly related to engagement.
But here’s an important distinction: It’s a large, but closed, community. If those 7000 members Brian claims are really into what I have to say or sell, I couldn’t ask for better targeted traffic. If not, I would have to say that the ROI (for the sake of argument, let’s PRETEND that I have a real financial stake in this) would be better in a more open, but well-defined community, such as the one I have on Facebook, or Empire Avenue.
Jane, I’m happy (no mistake) for you!
I was banned from BlogEngage few months ago and no matter what excuse Brian gave… it was just because my submissions reached front page with the fact that I wasn’t a paying member (I joined BE before the membership fee was applied).
The reason I’m happy for you is that you found that this service was not cost-effective for you and you took action to sort it out. I’m happy for you also because you stopped wasting your time on a service with bad management that doesn’t appreciate the members contribution, time & effort and can one day wipe off all of your stuff.
Assaf, I’m happy too (I can’t mistake you for that!). To me, the action I took is a great relief - saving my hard earned money on a service that gave me really very poor ROI and cutting off from a business that doesn’t know how to respect its customers.
Assaf I do respect my customers and to be honest I don’t recall why you were banned but it’s always a good reason however I don’t just ban users for no reason that’s why we have 7000. In all honestly it seems this article has turned into a compliant farm for the 10 bloggers in the blogsophere that are upset with us. If you feel you still deserve a blog engage account please e-mail me and explain you thoughts, I have a grass roots system and I’m willing to listen to what you have to say.
You can brag about 7000 members whether they are active or not… I’m sure the vast majority of them are not active but this is far from the point.
With all your actions that I’ve noticed before my account was brutally deleted and after it shows one obvious thing. As long as you are a PAYING member you don’t mind that the submissions will reach the front page. NON-PAYING members will eventually be deleted if they often reach the front page.
Don’t Lie Brian. You don’t know how to respect others. You have to learn. Business is something Where you have to respect others and you don’t know that so just leave business and join 9 to 5 Job
Wow Jane. I completely understand your reasoning behind the decision you have made and I am quite surprised about Brian’s response. In part he may be right that one should engage a lot more on BE to get noticed, but unfortunately there are just so many that we have to be engaged with that it is just not possible to be active on all of them. I for one have a subscription on BE too and I have to admit that I am not “engaged” over there as I would desire. I have been testing “other” Social Networks and traffic from Pinterest for example, is far, far better than BE and even FB in my case. And best of all, it is free
I think that you are right about your decision and IMO, Brian should understand that in some cases business is business.. Perhaps the best approach would have been to thank you for the time you have spent on the community, regret the fact that you are leaving, and leave the doors open for any “future” relationship..
Fran, that’s my personal approach exactly! Business is business and money is money. When I see no value on what I spend, I tend to put a check on it - that’s natural with any customer.
And on engagement, you’re so right. Without much work and only occasional visit to the corresponding websites, I get quality (people stay longer, they come back) visits from Blokube, Bizsugar, Facebook and Twitter - and yes for free, as you say.
Thanks for stopping by!
Hi DiTesco, when I suggested Jane re look at what she’s blogging about I was referring to her literally analyzing the quality of her content I don’t see what is wrong with this. If she’s not having success in blog engage there’s a good chance this is why. I don’t think it’s offensive I’ve seen many people have no success with blog engage when they have relationship making or heath lifestyle blogs. I also recommend to bloggers they re evaluate the blog theme and design. These are important aspects to blogging success.
Hi Brian. Unfortunately, different customers show different reactions and Jane in this case felt that perhaps you could have used a bit more of “business diplomacy”, something that is totally understandable. I know you and you are hard working man. I think you have built a nice community and the people over at BE are great bloggers and those that see benefit from it are there and most likely will stay there. Sadly, this is not the case for everyone and since your are in “business”, such shortfalls can happen, and you should be prepared for it. Just my two cents..
Hi Fran, I used to syndicate 5 blogs on BE:
Problogging Success - Internet Marketing/Blogging
Tech Buzz Online - Tech blog
Merry Relationships - Relationships, love etc.
Diet Fitness Deck - Diet and Fitness
Jane Sheeba - personal / self improvement.
So should I now find a new niche according to Brian?
Apart from this as I said in this post I get amazing traffic from other free blog communities, social media and search engines.
So should I rethink what I’m blogging about or about my BE subscription?
Hi Jane. I don’t think you should rethink what you are blogging about. That does not even make sense. You have been successful with what you are doing and you should keep up with your good work. As for your subscription, you have already made your decision and from a business standpoint, I think you have made a good judgement call, considering that you were not getting the return you were hoping for.
Brian, I’ve never understood your references to “crap” vs “quality” content. How about your subs? Like why would all of these (http://screencast.com/t/LXz1o2SgZkkx) keep getting published on BlogEngage? Is 10+ posts about your gold membership considered quality content?
Thanks for writing out what I had in mind Tom. I’m still surprised that Brian doesn’t see anything wrong in wanting me to re-look and analyze the quality of my content.
If there is one thing I would never say about you, Jane, is that your quality is not good. That is just plain crap to say it!!
Jrplaza says
Tom drake seems to have a point. The first thing I realized when I was at blogengage the first time was all that post - so much like $500 contest or something repeatedly. What was that for? And I may not be as perfect as anyone is, but using the words “crap” for someones work is obviously disappointing for someone who aims for bigger future. This is a professional blogging and most of us do it for a living.
Jane,
Sorry to hear about your troubles with Brian and BE. I have always only had a free account there, and figured the reason I rarely made any headway there was my own fault for not engaging enough. (but who has time to spend hours there).
Anyhow, regardless of quality of service, insulting customers is a pretty dumb thing. Specifically since each customer has a voice that can influence others (as all bloggers do).
Anyhow, thanks for linking my fiverr article. I agree that 30$ a month can get you some pretty useful deals there that are sure to do just as much as the BE traffic.
Exactly Steve. I already took your advice from the post and have put to action
Thanks for stopping by!
Hey I just read your Fiverr article and submitted to MySEOCommunity.com
Cool and useful article. I have already been using fiverr for awhile, but I like how you outline the specific link building tactics you can get for 5 bucks there.
Insulting anyone is really bad - it really hurts. Actually I am thinking to a take a premium account (30$) in BE this month. Now, I should re think about it.
Thanks for the post. Just chill Jane, you work hard for PBS, you really have a great content - everyone knows that here
No need to worry about negative comments
Thanks for the kind words Rahul. Just as I said in this post, I’m not trying to take you away from your decision to join BE. You may go ahead and give it a try and see if it is useful to you. Here, I’ve just narrated my own experience!
Having won a business account through the Surviving the Blog competition, I can honestly say that I have been pleasantly surprised at how much of my blogs’ traffic does come from Blog Engage. And I enjoy the community over there (moreso, since the redesign made it easier to interact with others). The incident with David actually proves that you CAN get to the front page and newsletter all the time with a free account; however, having also been on the receiving end of David’s community engagement and friendship, I fail to see what the real issue was, there, and I’m sorry that David is no longer part of the community. I didn’t consider his requests to read and vote to be “spam,” not when he was reading, commenting, and voting first, or in return, and so kindly.
Brian and I don’t always agree on everything (in fact, Jane, he’s who I had in mind when I mentioned the addition of in-context ad links and creation of “derivative works”; he will always have my respect for quickly deleting my guest post, there, a few years ago, even though I’m sure it annoyed him to have to do so - but moreover for his continuing to invite me to come back and post again after the links were gone).
I agree, though, that such a reply to “why I canceled my subscription” would have rubbed me the wrong way, and terminating the service early - after you’d paid for it - is something I hope you’re able to get resolved.
As someone who isn’t running a blog as a business, I would not be able to calculate the ROI from Blog Engage, but a glance at my stats does show it’s consistently about third or fourth on my traffic sources.
Holly, please help me here… How do I get into these situations? As you know I’m terrible with words I didn’t mean to offend Jane come on I’m a nice guy. I’m busy, stressed out and perhaps I can be a little short but asking someone to evaluate the quality of their own content is not a sin is it? When I get crappy bloggers with big pop up ads I refund their money and demand they redo their design, guess what they do it and they do everything I ask because they want to be a member.
I guess I answered my own question, I just need to sugar coat my e-mails more so I don’t hurt people’s feelings. Obviously Jane was extremely offended by my suggestions. I guess she don’t talk Brian, does she? I’m just surprised she had gone this far… She was really upset!
Yes, and I can see the hurt feelings on both sides. Business IS personal. (There was a time when I didn’t “talk Brian” and you didn’t “talk Holly” and fortunately we went to our neutral corners and didn’t escalate things. I am glad we got straight on the fact that I didn’t intend for you to delete my ACCOUNT, just that post.
It’s all worked out just beautifully in the long run, from my viewpoint!)
I’ve about come to the conclusion, as both a customer and a service provider, that it almost doesn’t pay to ask “Why?” when someone asks for a refund. Typically, by the time I’ve reached that point, my mind’s made up - you’re NOT going to change it right then. (You might, if I’ve expressed some dissatisfaction but not actually canceled an order or service.) I think this is exactly why “no questions asked” refunds were invented, as a matter of fact. A follow up survey with “What could we have done better?” would be great - for you, as the business owner, for general improvement purposes. And if you get constructive, actionable feedback - and make changes - it’s nice to go back later and say, “We’ve made some of the changes you asked for, and would be delighted if you’d give us a second chance” and then give a short trial so former customers can decide for themselves.
I’m not sure that you or Jane are capable of sugar coating, Brian.
Maybe the best thing to do is to compose replies, sit on them for a good hour (at least), reread them to be SURE that’s what you want to say, cut out everything but the essential message, hit send, and pray. 
As a general principle, I’d say the idea of paying a noticeable monthly fee and then also having to do loads of social activity seems like a double whammy. I’d go for one or the other.
Cutting a subscription before the end, however, is a strict no-no.
Her subscription was done as I gave her two months of our service for one month cost. When she canceled the services I felt to end the businesses at that point would be fair and I still think it was. Why would anyone complain I featured her twice for the price of one. Also back months ago she missed payment and I allowed all the feeds to continue without interruption. Jane got what she paid for and more just so you know.
Thanks for giving me the extra month and un-interrupted service Brian. Actually you cutting the syndication was not at all a problem for me (I enquired to know what was wrong). I’m not focusing that here - I totally understand the need to stop my syndication - no questions on that, seriously.
What I find most remarkable about this story is the reaction from the blog engage owner. He’s basically has alienated you for life a customer. You’ll never return. What company can afford to burn bridges like that? Its just bad marketing. I had a very similar reaction from a company (a big company, I might add) who said “you’re not managing and building [your] business”. In other words, choosing to not work with them anymore was a choice to not manage or grow by business. Brilliant salesmanship on their part …not.
Hi Geoff, I can’t promise success with our marketing services because it’s up to the members to vote and like the submitted content. If Jane is having a hard time getting votes and traffic of course I’m going to recommend here to re look at the quality of her content. FYI this blog is good but she has other blogs that aren’t so popular as they are in a smaller niche markets. When users don’t have success with us it’s p to me to let them why this might be. Sadly and sometimes harsh it may be the design and or content, in this case it seems to be a moisture of both plus lack of community interaction. People aren’t just going to like you Geoff, you have to build that relationship.
And of course Jane’s mentioned that she gets plenty of traffic from other sources. That only serves to emphasize the fact that what works well for one blog and blogger may not work for all. This is why I don’t drive a little low-slung sportscar - I prefer cheaper, more comfortable (at 5’11″ I practically have to fall in and out of some of them - it’s an act of faith and pain), safer, less gas-guzzling options. But I have two coworker who love sexy little sports cars and would drive whatever they could afford - no matter how uncomfortable they were doing it. Just like some women love high heels…
Okay, I’ve digressed. But the point is, one community or neighborhood may be perfect for Blogger A, and not work at all for Blogger B.
I totally understand that Holly!
Brian, when I talked about getting no traffic, I also include Problogging Success - to be honest, I had in mind PBS alone.
My other blogs are in development mode and I would never complain about getting no traffic. I myself do nothing to promote those blogs (except Tech Buzz Online).
Jane,
Sorry to hear about your experience with blogengage. I’m a blogger on a serious budget (i.e. - I HAVE NONE! ;-p ) so it is good to see testimonials such as this to see “both sides of the fence”.
But if a system doesn’t work - then it is definitely time to move on. There are a ton of ways to get readers and valid back links besides using that service.
Good luck and thanks for the tips for BizSugar and Blokube!
Jason M recently posted..How to Use Pinterest To Get Your Blog Noticed
Hey Jason, for me, having money or not having money doesn’t make spending money different.
Even if I’m the richest blogger in the world, I would still be very cautious in spending the $30 on a service with no ROI just like a blogger who has no income
I’m sorry Jane you know I’m not the best with words. I enjoy your blog and your content. But if you don’t get traffic you must start analyzing what your blogging about this is all I meant. You know many people have had great success with our services. For you to not have success has nothing to do with me our the 7000 blog engage members, it’s your content or lack of participation that has failed.
Sorry if I offended you and what I meant about saying thank you is I gave you two months of my services for the cost of one month and you say the services were no good so obliviously I’m offended!
The fact that you would do an article like this proves to me that you are not the person I thought you were, Sorry to see you upset but you should resolve these issues with me. Yes I make mistakes and sometimes I forget to remember the customer is always right … but I try hard and we could have worked this out in a more private manner.
Brian,
You continue to blame others and shows that you cannot accept feedback/critics.
You are asking members to increase their participation but once they reach the front page, you delete their account. The FAIL is yours and not your members or ex-members.
Assaf, you content has to be published by the community not your little group of 5 friends. This doesn’t represent the community it’s just the opinion of a few of you guys. Don’t be pulling my leg here you guys are always requesting votes and I banned you for it.
Lets’ be honest this is about me being a hot head and providing poor customer service training, not banning your accounts. Like I said if you want to contact me via e-mail with your side of the story I will listen.
What is a community if not making friends. That is the reason it is called SOCIAL MEDIA… you network, make friends etc.
If I socialize and make friends, vote for other members’ submissions then I think I’m the dream of any social media manager except BE.
Let me make it clear - I don’t want to have my BlogEngage account. The reason is very simple, I don’t want to put any effort in a platform that have no respect to my precious time.
This whole thing seems awfully ….petty.
Honestly I don’t see how Brians response was all that out of line. Jane obviously took it the wrong way, getting her feathers all ruffled.
Jane is a great blogger with an amazing track record.
Blog Engage is a excellent service that seems many many happy members.
I am new to Blog Engage, but so far my experience has been excellent. Brian is a super cool dude who actually takes to time to be a part of the community. If he was just our for cash he wouldn’t be so willing to get his hands dirty.
A little misunderstanding and a bit of wounded pride can make for a big mess.
Hopefully this is something we can all learn from, and get back to doing what we do best. Blogging!
Can’t we all just get along? lol
AMEN! Micah, I don’t believe we’ve met - but I do hope you’ll drop by my place. I try to get along with most everybody, and I really hate to watch people I like duking it out in public.
Come over and enter my little contest… (no kidding - “little” is the operative word, and it’ll be over by Saturday).
Hey Holly this post was not meant to pull anyone’s legs (although I can’t help others who already had a bad experience with BE commenting on this post). I was the one who was actively promoting BE until last week. And I can’t do the same, given my experiences with the service. As a blogger (I have a following that listens to what I say and go buy it on my recommendation) and an unhappy customer of BE, I can’t really continue to endorse the service, right? So how come I announce all this?
And what if my old written BE review takes someone to the service and what if they have the same experience as mine? - I see that as an even that will lead people to lose trust in me. I am accountable for people’s trust - no matter what!
Jane, I totally understand where you’re coming from, and respect your right and freedom to write about your experience and opinions - and for Brian to learn from it (unfortunately, the hard way). Just as I disagreed with Brian about David, but totally respect his right to do as he sees fit, to run his business according to his principles.
This is the challenge for ANY business when it comes to social media - a small misunderstanding can quickly grow into a bigger one.
I really do hate to see the members of the blogging community duking it out, though.
I like you both. (And I refuse to take sides, though I’ve made no secret of the way I’d have done things differently in anyone’s shoes.)
Brian. I believe you were right in your place. Reading your email reply to Jane for about 5 times, I guess there was just a big ray of misunderstanding between both of you.
I totally agree with you that your success at Blog Engage is in your hands. It’s the same case with other Social Media sites. Imagine if Mark Zuckerberg had kept Facebook a premium site (paid memberships) and not a free site, would he actually guide all the users personally on what and when to post? It’s not his job. What he can do is to create public posts where everyone can read the advantages and some official tricks to make the most out of the site.
You’re doing the same. Now it’s not at all your job to personally guide someone. A user has to understand the correct timing of when to post. The UPCOMING posts are usually overtaken quickly as they’re in larger numbers, hence missing the attention of many. So there are strategies like posting at some specific time etc which need to be followed in order to bring the word ‘Success’ into action.
I personally give a thumbs up for BE. I have no right to judge others’ opinions. Keep up the good work Brian. And sorry for what you’ve been through Jane.
All the best, to both.
Pleased I got the email alert to read this post. Fortunately I hadn’t subscribed to their service but their affiliate invite was in the queue. Since 99% of my time is focused on my health, relationships and golf niche sites IM products get scant attention and fortunately I have a couple of 10+ year marketing veterans to call on for second opinions on IM stuff.
Jon, it seems you too have a varied interest (in my case I have multiple blogs) just like me! Yes its good to call and chat with some experts, that’ll be great indeed.
I have to say that if someone should tell me that I must “rethink what I blog about” and I own a PR3 site, I would honestly burst out laughing as clearly this person wouldn’t have a clue what he/she is talking about!
Some people take things in different ways and I can understand that Jane must have felt hurt; many would have. Like I said, I would have cracked myself laughing, turned around and walked away, with my account cancelled as it wasn’t working out (my right as a consumer to decide, right?)
Jane did nothing wrong in my opinion as I would have excepted the fact that you’ll never be able to please EVERYONE at the same time no matter how good your services are (this one was for you Brian, except the loss, pick up and move forward).
Would I have taken things this far as Jane did? It depends. If I was in her position with her personality (something she can’t be blamed for at all) I might very well have done the same thing. Personally, I would have ended my services, cut my losses and also stopped endorsing the services I was not happy with but I would have kept it at that.
Many new bloggers reading an article like this wouldn’t even consider Blog Engage. To me that’s unfair. No two situations or client/company relationship are the same and to lose potentially other business of the way you may have treated one situation differently than what was expected; to me is just not fair.
So my point of view on this?
Neither have handled things to the best of business ethics and development. “PooPoo happens! So what? We bumped our heads now let’s move on and make sure it doesn’t happen again!”
Best of success to both of you good people!
Hey Ruan, in all honesty I didn’t want to take things to a new level with all that have happened in this incident. I did not want to pull off a “public fight” with Brian just because I was hurt.
At the same time, I feel that I need to be accountable to my followers and subscribers who go ahead and buy something when I recommend. If someone gets the same treatment as it happened to me tomorrow (I won’t be surprised), won’t that reader ask me? Will he/she not say that even though I didn’t get the result and I was not respected as a customer, I am still promoting the service?
Worse yet, I see it as a poor practice of trust to hide the negatives of a service while I was quick at publishing a review post (positives) about the service? If I hide the negatives and only publish positives, it means that I’m here to make money and I don’t care about my followers. There would be no integrity off me if this is the case.
Agreed Jane, and your decision should have been respected, which it was not. You had all the right to re-evaluate your opinion about the service publicly. You have done endorsement of the service in the past as you were happy with it, now things have changed and you needed to update your opinion publicly, you’re right.
Hmm. Interesting - my only PR3 site is my personal “no-niche niche” blog. My two more serious, focused, niche blogs (one of them a multiauthor blog) are both PR2. Could be age of the blog, I don’t know. They all rank well with Alexa. My only point is that I wonder if Pagerank and Alexa are really the best metrics for success or the need to change anything.
Over the years, I’ve had people tell me that if I want A to happen, then I must do X, Y, Z. To see an ROI from Blog Engage, then I assume one would have to do B, C, and D. (Get active in the community, promote the service, use the features to the fullest, etc.) Now, I can only speak to the traffic I get - which is pretty good. I’m not really monetizing my site, so there’s no ROI (but then I’ve already said there’s no “I” really, on my part). Still, if the community there was made up of my customers - or of people who were likely to spread the word of my content further than Blog Engage - my personal experience would tend to indicate it’s worthwhile. But ROI is the way to judge - are you getting more than $30 increase in revenues as a result? Simple, right?
Holly I’m missing something here (from you and Brian as well). According to BE, should I engage MORE to get traffic and recognition or should I pay money?
Coz, the premium service is for those who are busy to do manual submission of their posts and for those who don’t have time in general. If on top of that I have to spend time in engaging with the community I don’t have the time for it. I already do vote almost every other day on the posts I like. So what more should I do now? Pay $30 AND spend an hour, reading blog posts of all people go comment on their blogs and comment on BE as well and tweet and what not…. my fingers get tired even as I type this list
You know what, I LOVE to engage with people and build relationships. But I cannot force myself to do the same. If in a community, there is a rule as to HOW one should engage, I don’t think it will work. Of course lets cut off some guidelines that’s totally fine. But why should I pay money AND engage the way exactly as Brian tells me and fight for that traffic?
I easily get a nice bunch of traffic by casually engaging at other blog communities (I simply vote and occasionally comment on posts at Bizsugar and Blokube, for instance). The only difference with BE is that I’m paying $30 a month, do the same amount the same amount of engagement and get very little traffic.
And now Brian’s conclusion - I should rethink what I’m blogging about. Not that the system is missing something somewhere!
No, I don’t think I ever said “you should engage more, Jane.” For me, there are two major benefits to the premium service - I don’t have to spend time entering the particulars - the RSS feed simply pulls the information it needs from my blog; and the monthly spotlights. That’s what I’d be paying the premium fee for. But you still do need votes - and those can only come from within the community. So in order to get those votes, you’d need to get to know the members of the community and interact with them by reading, commenting on, and voting for their articles as well. What I SAID - or at least meant to convey - was that if that’s not what you signed up to do and you aren’t seeing sufficient benefit from it, then that Blog Engage membership (or at least that membership level) isn’t right FOR YOU. And that’s fine - remember, the sportscar isn’t right for ME.
As for rethinking what you blog about - well, I’m the poster child here, Jane. There’s not even a suitable category on any of these sites for 90% of what I blog about! As I said to Brian, the other day - where do I put posts on general writing tips (unrelated to blogging) or writing for children? With the new category preferences option that lets you choose to see only the topics that interest you, how much of that 7000-member community is likely to see anything I write - ever? (It’s a feature many welcome, though - so Brian can’t please everyone at the same time.) Am I going to change what I blog about? No.
Could Brian say, “If you want more traffic from THIS community, you might want to rethink what you blog about”? Yep - and he’d be right. Not really sure why he said this with regard to your blog, and my guess is, it didn’t come out exactly the way he intended it (but he’s a big boy - not my place to speak for him here or even speculate).
Bottom line: Blog Engage offers a big variety of memberships - from free to paid. If you’re not seeing ROI from paid, then you either do X, Y, Z or invest your promotional budget elsewhere, right? Just a good business decision. I’m not arguing with you about it.
I DO think that a lot of this post was prompted by an unfortunate miscommunication, and I’m sorry to see that happen between people who normally like and support each other. I’d also probably be inclined to react similarly, in your shoes.
(As, I suspect, would Brian.) I just don’t think anyone intended to hurt anyone’s feelings.
Yup yup Holly
I got your message wrong. Bottom line stays the same though - BE is not for me 
Thanks for the clarification!
Hi Jane, I was never too keen on an RSS service that charged like this. No offense to Brian. Everyone on the internet has their business model / concept / idea. I have thought of many and failed, and have been extremely successful with others.If it makes you feel any better, content submitted to Blog Interact is syndicated and pinged to several hundred sites at no charge. We are currently developing our own search engine that will be pretty cool. It will be an opt-in blog search engine only and extremely powerful built around the Lucene java framework from the Apache-Lucene project. So, the hardware is finally here and all of the infrastructure is too. We will be developing it over the next two months and submitting your blog as a Blog Interact member will be free. Look for the BlogInteractBot soon brought to you by apache.org and the lucene project!
Bryan
PS. The Blog Interact vote tabs work now….sidebar maybe?
Hey Bryan, I see that you’re making cool changes to Blog Interact along the way. I will have to clean up and do a major thing on the sharebar after the contest is over. Currently the sharebar buttons help me in updating the contest scores
I understand completely. I hope to see it when the “smoke clears”. Good luck with the contest and I am sorry about the situation with have had with the syndication service. I hope things will work out for everyone involved. Best, Bryan
I have to say I am really surprised that Brian told you to rethink what you blog about. Wow!
Also dictating the way people should engage is a bad idea. Different people have different styles. To me engaging usually means taking the conversation from comments to Skype or phone and sometimes to IRL meetings.
Others may do it differently, but trying to dictate EXACTLY how to engage is mistake.
Also I can tell you from my own personal experience the voting model just doesn’t work.
Do you think anyone on BE or any voting site make it to the home page without asking people for votes?
I can tell you from years of experience that it rarely if ever happens. It doesn’t matter if you are talking about BE or Digg or Reddit. People are always going to ask for votes and the majority of the home pages are the result of people voting up their friends stories.
So the end result is you have a home page that is representing what people have taken the time to ask for votes on or in the case of BE sometimes paid to appear on the home page, which clearly that is not going to represent what is the most quality. Rather it represent who has the budget to spend.
Agreed Gerald, which is the fundamental reason that in setting up Blog Interact, I opted to not have the popular on the landing page, but rather who comes is who is seen. I believe (and know) that this is why the vote count is lower, because it is more accurate.
Bryan
Sounds interesting Bryan. How will I know about when it gets off and where can I find out more?
Hi Ruan,
Well, the whole concept of what Blog Interact is going to do in conjunction with the site is going to change a great deal over the course of this year. This includes communication. As of now, the obvious choice is if you are on the mailing list, you’ll know everything. (If you read it!) But we are working on other ways of communicating certain ideas without spamming. The obvious means through networking are a no-brainer. But, if you are a participator of the site, you will certainly know. It should be pretty cool when it really gets underway. A “niche” search engine. Hope to have you….
Bryan
Bryan, I truly like this feature of Blog Interact… not showing the blogs with a thousand votes, but yet the most recent. I deliberately seek out newer articles, those in my niche, and those with fewer votes to check out. If it is too difficult to seek out the new articles I may just leave. It is refreshing to see the most recent feed as soon as your arrive to the front page. Cheers.
Hi Shonda,
Thanks for complimenting the site, Bryan
Oh Gerald, I so much agree with you on someone telling me “how to engage”. Even in one of the comments here Brian says, “Engaging means……” - seems there’s a strict definition. If I have to do all that I should only be engaging and not blogging
Plus, when Brian wants me to engage, why does he ban free users who engage more? He says that they’re a little group of 5 or 6 who vote and comment for each other. But how do you define a community? Do you have a numerical threshold for that. So if I have 25 friends, can I manipulate the front page as opposed to another user who has 5 friends and does the same thing as me and gets banned?
Gerald, Brian STILL wants me to look into what I’m blogging
But I went and looked at Blog Engage Homepage “published” posts. As of now I see, 3 “Win a free year Gold Membership from Blog Engage” and 1 “Do you want to win $1000 USD cash for….”
May be if I can blast out sales pitched posts everyday I can make it to the front page on Blog Engage.
Hi Jane
Sorry to hear that. Whoever came across with such a problem will felt the same way as you did. In fact some may go to the extreme and done something more terrible. You handle it like a professional I must say.
By the way, don’t you think posting about Blog Engage will drive more traffic to their website? Just a thought of mine.
Anyway thanks for sharing.
Haha
Well, if this post drives more traffic to BE, I’m not going to be worried. In fact, I don’t tell to the world that BE sucks. It is just not for me!
Hey Jane,
Sorry to hear about your bad experience with Blogengage and I’m really surprised with the Brian’s response.
I can understand where you’re coming from. You’re a hard working women & built a great community here at PBS and there’s no need to change your blog niche.
Thanks for sharing your insights, Jane.
Thanks for stopping by and for your nice words Dev
I’m still surprised with his response, but trying to take it out of my head 
Jane, it certainly sounds like this was an unpleasant experience and I can’t see where you did anything wrong. If you want to cancel a service, you should be able to do so any time you want. I am not aware of Blog Exchange or its premium RSS syndication service, but $29.99 per month is nothing to sneeze at and you have every right to expect good ROI for that kind of monthly fee.
I rather suspect that, in retrospect, Brian wishes he had handled this a little differently. I certainly hope so. It’s bad enough to lose a customer but sending them away with a bad taste in his or her mouth is particularly poor business. I think he tried to make up for it with his contest prize but for you, it appears to have been too little, too late.
Let us know if you find something comparable that pulls better numbers for you — preferably in the $19.99 a month range.
Kay in Hawaii
Hi Kay, I agree with what you say. My actual issue was not with the service (although there is an issue - poor ROI, but I could have sorted it by testing). The issue is about customer relationship.
Thanks for your comment.
Jane, your blog is great and you don’t have to re-think what you are blogging about. Keep up the good work!
Thanks Catarina
I’m glad!
Your experience isn’t very happy, of course,nut still this is an experience and it helped you to make some conclusions
Yes Amanda, I’m happy about what I’ve learned with this happening
Hi Jane sorry to hear about your bad experience, it’s not great when that happens. I’m always surprised companies (regardless of their size) don’t try and resolve things before it has to come to something like this.
I had a problem with Virgin and wrote a blog post within an hour the post had gone viral and they contacted me and offered me compensation. I kept the blog post up though… and it still to this day generates a ton of traffic - they messed with the wrong person lol
Hm.. yup! Actually I didn’t write this post expecting something would change. I just want to inform my readers that I no longer support or promote BE (which I’ve been actively promoting until last week); I want to tell them why I am unhappy with the service and the treatment I got as a customer!
Hi Jane
Interesting how this is so public…This is why I love the internet.
I think that paying for syndication to get traffic is fine, but to pay and have to engage is nuts. I would rather guest post and engage with real people, not just bloggers who already know about and have what I am selling.
My time is precious and if I am going to engage anywhere there has to be a great ROI. In fact I look for the things that require less engagement and more ROI.
Unfortunately Brian himself says that his service requires more engagement so that clearly counts me out.
By the way Jane… I thought your content was great and I see your blog promotions all over the place!
Mitz, very well said! I don’t have money AND time; well I do, but I would prefer to sacrifice one for the other on a reasonable proportion.
Thanks for stopping by, Mitz
Much appreciated.
Thanks for sharing this Jane. and like the others have said I am sorry for your experience. I also read David’s article and from connecting with him on BizSugar I have always found him very generous in voting and encouraging others.
What I got from this is regardless is a reminder that when we pay for a service we have expectations that must be met. If customers leave then make sure they are treated the same as when they joined.
“If customers leave then make sure they are treated the same as when they joined.” ~ Enough said!
I actually would have left Blog Engage silently if I did not experienced this customer treatment!
Hi Jane,
Whatever people says, I think the most important thing is what you think. I like to come here again and again. Keep it up and carry on with your great writing skills.
Best wishes Jane for your great success……..
Thanks Prakash. I’m glad you like my blog
Hi Jane,
thanks for sharing this. Doesn’t it prove once again that we can’t buy our way to success ? Just my 5 cents…
Cheers
Oliver
Very true indeed Oliver
Hello, hello, hello, Jane! You wrote an interesting article. Usually people have only good words about Blog Engage. Like everything in life, it has its pros and cons.
Sure it does Marian! I used to be one of those who were writing good things about BE too. Thanks for stopping by.
Well, this has turned into a PR cluster**** for them.
I can see why you’d quit. I’ve dropped all these sharing and syndication sites because they just don’t deliver an ROI.
And “engage more” is such a ridiculous bit of advice. Why? Why engage more? Why spend my time on your website, upping the ROI that you’re delivering to other customers? There’s no benefit. You’re paying to be part of a closed sharing circle.
I’ve never paid for this sort of service, and thanks to my experiences on free versions, I won’t be considering it in future: http://www.unmemorabletitle.co.uk/giving-up-serpd-sphinn-blokube/
Oh, if you ever want to promote your blog with a guest post, give me a shout. I don’t charge a penny.
Hey Andy, a voting system over a paid system should be re-considered. But Brian wants all his customers who couldn’t get ROI on his paid service to re-consider what they’re blogging about
Sounds pretty funny to me.
Thanks for the invite by the way!
Hi Jane!
wow, I can kind of feel your anger through this post! And I agree with it.
Like @Lilach Bullock mentioned in the comment above, it is always surprising when any company handles their customer relations so badly!
I feel a simple “no problem, I’m sorry the service didn’t work out for you, would you like 1 free month for your troubles…” type approach would have left you in good spirits and maybe even led to you writing a post endorsing blogEngage!!
Carl
Yes Carl, that’s the simplest and the best way to handle a situation when the customer is not satisfied.
Thanks for stopping by
And they call their service BlogEngage. I can’t see the engagement in this. If they couldn’t handle such a small problem in a more polite manner, then i believe that they should rethink their whole strategy. Also, i believe that your content is of the highest quality, so no need to “rethink” what you’re blogging about. Thanks for sharing your story Jane
M Mark
“And they call their service BlogEngage” - haha, well spotted Mark.
Hey Jane..!! Sorry to see that you’re facing the problem with the thing you were promoting from so much time. I was thinking to try for a month but this stops me from getting onto blog engage. I am happy with blokube, you can try it too.
*long soft whistle* Wow… just wow…
There’s a lot of truth and emotions on both sides that look like they slammed into each other and made quite the mess.
Even if Brian feels that perhaps your posts are not performing well based on content (or more typically subject line) there are much more gentle ways to help a client/customer GET performance so they come back than to throw it in their face. Tact is something many of us in business struggle with (I’m not exempt there) and it can cause a lot of hurt feelings when it’s not used gracefully.
Big hugs for you Jane!
Kim
I don’t really think it’s about tact or not tact.
There was no basis for Brian’s recommendation to “rethink her content”
That to me is casting blame. Perhaps Brian should be more professional and less insulting to customers when they cancel the service and potentially leave open doors instead of burning bridges.
And it’s funny to me that in the comments of this very post he is still maintaining his position that Jane needs to “rethink her content”
*phew*
Brian has sent me an email today morning asking if I really think it is worth me writing this terrible blog post. He adds: “All I said was to evaluate what you’re blogging about. Perhaps you have overreacted?”
He STILL maintains his stand and I’m extremely surprised.
I’m not going to react for this!
I don’t know why he doesn’t understand that it is HIM who has to evaluate what’s wrong with the system, rather than asking all bloggers to change their content to suit Blog Engage’s system. All I can see on the front page of BE is “Win a year free Gold BE Membership ” - the same post at least twice, and other BE blasting posts.
Is this is what he thinks quality content? So does he want me to evaluate my blog and start writing reviews and praising blog posts about BE so that I can get my posts published in BE and get traffic from BE?
This is really driving me nuts!
OK, girl you know I can’t keep my mouth shut
My account was deleted once as soon as I registered “for posting a spammy link”??? Never ever have I in my life posted a spammy or an unrelated link! So I contacted him (as a brand new blogger at the time) and he created me a new account.
Few months ago I wanted to see what is the paid thing all about and got the cheapest package ($1.99 a month at the time). So it saved me a few minutes every 4 days when I post, cause it submitted the post for me. OK. Good enough! Worth 2 bucks.
Then one time Brian asked me if I want to host the giveaway for the RSS service membership or what ever and I said of course. He said I will get a spot on the home page or something. So I was waiting to see what happens. Nothing. We ran into each other a few weeks back and he asked me the same thing again. I kinda didn’t see my blog in any page so I realized I am supposed to do the first step and post first before he would put me in the spotlight. I asked him what was he expecting me to write. “Just a review of the service you are using”.
Note, I was using the cheapest service for testing, I never was offered to test anything and I told him that I am getting no results from BE and that I can’t write anything when I have no results. So I got similar reply about how I should engage, vote, comment, etc.
That was my cue for stepping away from the service which I canceled. If I have some extra time to comment and engage, I will do that where I get more ROI. Where my market is. As simple as that. I don’t want to have to pamper another social community because I don’t even have time for the ones I do want to use.
Brian was never directly mean to me but there were times some things ticked me off but I like to keep some of them for myself.
But this is very unprofessional from him to treat you like that especially that I know you were probably the person that was promoting BE the most. I also don’t think his first response up there is very nice. I guess we are all getting our accounts canceled for agreeing with you, girl, but I admire you for this and like me getting traffic for MMS and Lilach for Virgin I hope you get piles for this haahhaha
Hey Bran,
Ah. Thanks for sharing your experiences with BE.
As I just responded to Gerald (just above), Brian STILL wants me to consider what I’m blogging about. I’ve got an email from him this morning (apart from his multiple comments on this very post saying the same thing).
And you won’t believe what else he said in the following emails during the conversation (I’ve put only the first reply from him on the post). He wanted me to remove him even from the list of people whom I know or talk to! - Just because I unsubscribed. And I don’t know why he emailed me this morning again telling me to re-evaluate my blog and that I over reacted! Didn’t he wanted to stop talking to me?
Driving traffic to BE? I don’t care really.
And I still remember how MMS people took your review so constructively and came up with improvements on their system and made you re-review them! I see that they care about their customers. Brian doesn’t seem to have an ounce of it!
MMS people didn’t blame you (the customer) and they didn’t think that their system is just perfect! That single thing makes me still use MMS!
Hi there, Jane. Thanks a lot for sharing this. Well, I think, if your content is relevant, that it is simply an unprofessional behavior he showed there. Chill.. I think it means you’re going to get a better way than the old one! Keep your spirit up!
Thanks for the nice words Andrew!
Thanks for sharing - you were more than fair in keeping the dialogue open. Let’s hope the guy reconsiders.
I hope so Susan, thanks for stopping by!
I think he wouldn’t expect this kind of reaction from your side Jane.Better he would have add this word “blogging about” in his T & C bcoz the other side of blog engage has come out by u so he might have got frustrated with the comments and updates from your post.I just love your blog Jane love to be part of your community. Thanks for an view about BE
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Yes Mohideen, he has emailed me after this (after he wanted to stop communicating with me) and asked if I’m over reacting to this issue
Even if he asks me to consider “what I’m blogging about” - that’s ridiculous, coz I have 5 blogs in totally different niches! And I’m not the only blogger/internet marketer experiencing this issue. So I suggest Brian to reconsider his system rather than we all bloggers reconsider what we blog about.
Sorry to hear about that Jane but will still wish you all the best for your upcoming events
Thanks Ricardus~!
You dis right by letting other people know about this situation an by writing here your dialogue, everyone will make conclusions
That’s what I wanted to do with this post Melissa. I wanted people to know the other side of this service too.
Agreed! The service is really not worth 30$, I’ve tried it and received very less traffic so I too unsubscribed from the service.
Glad you made the decision Sagar. You saved some hard earned money for something else useful.
Hmmm… personally, there is nothing wrong about this post… a blog is about self expression and you are doing just that… you are simply expressing your thoughts about your latest experience with blog engage… I’m a member of blog engage but I’m not active there…
Thanks for stopping by Romelo.
Jrplaza says
I recently get a membership for Blogengage last month and still deciding whether to get a Blogengage RSS Syndication. This post makes me think through since I aim all for an article marketing strategy for my blog in blogengage.
Good to know I haven’t get one yet.
Jane, I read your reaction post about BE and I’m glad you did the right thing. Ciao and more power to us all
Thanks Jrplaza! Take your time to think and if needed you may even try the service. Don’t take my word for it
This post is about my experience with the service!
Hi Jane,
I have never used Blog Engage, but I understand why you cancelled your membership. To me, it’s not just about a product and if you’re receiving good results, but it’s about the service and how you connect with people.
I always seem to relate this type of things to pizza, and there’s a reason for this. To me, it’s always about the people and not the product. I go to the restaurants where the people with the biggest smiles are. The pizza should be ok, but it doesn’t have to be the best. And that’s the same with online marketing, I stay with the companies that are personal and creating strong relationships with me. And if I complain, I want them to answer quickly and say they are sorry and treat me with respect
Never tried the premium service but I think paying 30$ a month is too much investment and you can get good amount of targetted Facebook fans/subscribers for that amount which will increase the value of your blog.
Whenever a customer gives feedback always respect his opinion, rethink again about the product. It’s a good way of expanding and improving business. The above post teaches us a lot. It’s quite supportive.
Sorry to hear about that. i think blog engage is not in serious business, insulting other is not good enough. they are just making money.
I must have been on vacation when all of this happened, I just came back from vacation and saw this and the article on The Bad Blogger that contests it. Aye Carumba is all I can say, this is a PR nightmare for any company honestly and I think it started with a simple miscommunication.
Jane,
I don’t how could I miss out this post of your. You know I also have had bad experience with Blog Engage. The only think due to lack of time I could not write about it on my blog though I desperately wanted to write to convey the message to others. Blog engage owner, Brian has been acting very unprofessional while dealing with its subscribers. He and his blog engage are totally not reliable. He chooses to delete any one’s account and rss syndication as per his own will and whenever he wants. I also spent lots of time initially on Blog engage but just because I could not be regular, he chose to delete my account altogether on his own will. I strongly recommend everyone to stay away from Blog Engage.
Imran says
Hi Jane,
It is really sad to hear what had happened with you and completely agree with you.
After a very long time I have commented on a blog, since I have been keeping busy on some project work. However this post has become a very strong debate.
Last year even I had subscribed for a business plan with BE and never received traffic, so I didn’t even bothered to revenue the service again. Though my major traffic source is from twitter, stumble and facebook, then why should pay for something which is worthless for me.
But today when I was checking for the broken links on my blog, and found a blog post I made on BE Rss service has been redirected with my knowledge to the Rss Syndicate Sale page. Here is a link to the post : I tried to figure out the problem of the redirect on the page but could not find any solution, eventual I forced by replacing the url to shariff.org/premium-bookmarking-services.html and it worked.
However this url will only be for 1 or 2 days, since I will be deleting the url coz it does not service any purpose anymore.
According to me you did the best, what you felt right, and one has rights to point out someones else work.
I was looking around for BE Reviews and I was about to apply for BlogEngage before finding this post. Glad I found this. Thank you for sharing your experience
Sorry to hear your experience with blog engage Jane, I’ve only been using the site for a few months, but I’ve since given up on it. I even thought about paying for a gold membership but Brian comes across to me as a pretty careless, rude and unhelpful individual from my own brief experience with him. One thing I do know is that I wouldn’t recommend blog engage to anyone now, you content is worth so much more, keep up the great work as always
Yeah i am agree with you Fab. I think everyone should delete there account from that useless and waste bloge Account.
Don’t waste your money.
I tried using tribepro for syndication, yes Id get a few hundred shares but actually it brought no traffic and I think those links are worthless for seo too and carry little to no value… not worth the subscription, as usual most of these services are more hype than action!
Sorry to hear about your experience. It’s sad that you would get disrespected by sharing your experience. Typically most good companies would take feedback to make the service better.
Hey Jane,
A couple of days ago I have seen an article at BlogEngage “(8 days left) Win free $19 account blah blah” and I thought to write an article to try my luck. But due to not having time I didn’t do it and decided to take a premium BE account.
As Amit is my good friend and I’ve also seen many posts of him at BE, I thought to ask from him that will is be a good to buy a premium BE account or no. When I asked from him, he said he closed his BE account and showed me this post and suggested me to don’t waste your money.
I thank to him.
After reading the post and all the comments here, I must say that Blog Engage is also not for me!
Hey Ehsan nice to know that you’ve saved some bucks!
Everyone should Stop this
I am thinking to write a article about my indecent. As i will get time i will write for sure… I can forgive but i can’t forget.
Brian is Obnoxious weed in this blogosphere.
yesterday, another incident happened with me. He is just a creep.
I am thankful to all my fellow bloggers (Amit, Bashir, Nishant, Amir, Purbita and others) who supported me.
Everyone should close their account on BE.
Jane I won the contest you had previously conducted & I’m very sad to see the news.
May be some what miscommunication between you & Brian
Mate Its Not Miscommunication
BlogEngage is Just Useless and Waste of Time and Money. You will understand after 1 month for sure 
Keep it up
JamesRoy Daley says
I’ve been thinking about joining Blog Engage, but I’m on the fence. Can you guys tell me, how much traffic does the average person see per month?
Thanks.
~Roy
James If you are joining BlogEngage for Getting Traffic then be sure you will get 0 Traffic from BlogEngage…. And Its upto you, if you want to waste your money then Move On
Hi Jane!
The digital and analog worlds are al;ike in that they are powered by people. People sometimes do or say or write things for reasons only they know. Someone anonymously referred me to your post here after a strange “run-in” I had with BlogEngage. I look forward to receiving your newsletter and perhaps working with you as time moves on.
Dave
BlogEngage is definitely a scam. Not recommended. Read this post : http://www.wickedfire.com/shooting-shit/164646-blog-engage-scam.html
That’s so hot!
Woah!
I am about to subscribe to blog engage since I was hoping to get some seo back links. but after reading this article I’m having second thoughts. Are there other services where we can syndicate our articles to get more traffic and backlinks? That’s REALLY worth our money?
Hello Jane,
Blog Engage is spam site. Brian has a loose screw in his mind. He only knows to attack on other bloggers.
Blog Engage is fully wastage of your priceless time. Everyone should remove their account.
Thanks
Obinna @ Onwaweb says
Blogengage is a classic rip off. Glad you realized this on time and pulled off.
Hi Jane thanks for share your BE Story with us. Actually I was thinking to join Blog engage that’s why I came here. Now I have made my decisions.