How to invite subscribers with Jetpack – it’s inviting contributors instead

Hi Doug,

You need to select the Follower option as this will allow your readers to subscribe to your site even if they don’t have a WordPress.com account.

Hi. I’m not quite getting it. It’s all amazingly confusing!

What’s the difference, then, between “follower” and “subscriber” for invitations?

There are options to invite as a contributor, a subscriber, or as a follower.

I’m selecting subscriber. People end up being invited as a contributor. You are saying to invite them as a follower instead. That will invite them as a subscriber? The options are all misaligned by one?

The widget and subscribe block say subscribe, not follow.

I just tried selecting follower with a test email account. The invitation arrives saying I’ve been invited to “follow.” That’s different from the “subscribe confirmation” if I use the subscribe widget.

Also the message I type in with the invitation comes all as one line, stretching the invitation out, instead of in multiple lines as it does when I try selecting the subscriber option.

What is the subscriber option for then if it isn’t used to invite subscribers?

Also what you say doesn’t work. If I click on the link in the confirmation email, I’m asked to sign up to the site. And after clicking on the link it says, “Sign up to start following Doug Reports in the WordPress.com Reader.” Why am I asked to sign up? What is “Reader?”

And the confirmation message continues, “As a follower, you can read the latest posts from Doug Reports in the WordPress.com Reader.” The subscribe from the widget talks about subscriptions. This invitation to be a follower doesn’t mention that at all.

Isn’t there a way of getting people invited as an email subscriber just as if they entered their email address in the subscribe widget and have them just get a confirmation email for their subscription without them needing to sign up?

Thanks,

doug

Hi Doug –

It can be confusing at the beginning. No worries, we will get things sorted one item at a time.

What’s the difference, then, between “follower” and “subscriber” for invitations?

A contributor is someone actively involved and working on your site with you. A news site would have several authors as contributors, for example. Those different user roles are outlined on this page: https://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/

A follower is someone using their WordPress.com account to keep up to date with your site. They will follow through the WordPress.com Reader and get new post notifications there.

A subscription is someone who follows your site with their email address (instead of a WordPress.com account). So, with that option, you should have to add an email address to the invitation.

Does that help?

Also the message I type in with the invitation comes all as one line, stretching the invitation out, instead of in multiple lines as it does when I try selecting the subscriber option

Please take a screen shot. This sounds odd. The email should have better formatting. That screen shot can be added here with a third party link like snag.gy or droplr.

Why am I asked to sign up? What is “Reader?”

This goes back to my first answer. The Reader is a WordPress.com management tool for following, reading, discovering new content. It will help folks in the WordPress.com community find your content. https://en.support.wordpress.com/reader/

Hi Lizkarkoski,

Thanks for your response. I’m dying to get notifications working for my friends again. There were so many things going on with the change of era here in Japan, and the UNCC shooting incident, and so many of my friends missed my messages.

A contributor is someone actively involved and working on your site with you. A news site would have several authors as contributors, for example. Those different user roles are outlined on this page: https://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/

A follower is someone using their WordPress.com account to keep up to date with your site. They will follow through the WordPress.com Reader and get new post notifications there.

A subscription is someone who follows your site with their email address (instead of a WordPress.com account). So, with that option, you should have to add an email address to the invitation.

Does that help?

That’s what I would think as well, though the online documentation you mentioned above doesn’t describe the difference between followers and subscribers or even mention subscribers.

That’s why the first suggestion in this thread from support to try to select Followers didn’t make sense to me. What I would like to do is invite email subscribers – not invite people who necessarily have a WordPress account or people who have a certain app.

So when I sent the test invitations, I used email addresses and I selected subscribers.

But there doesn’t seem to be a way of inviting subscribers, even though that is one of the options. If I invite a subscriber they end up getting an invitation to be a contributor instead.

Here is as screenshot of a received invitation after inviting somebody to be a subscriber. Note that they receive an invitation to be a contributor, which involves signing up for a WordPress account, etc.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4bpygdqvmj2ys35/Subsriber%20Invite%20-%20looks%20like%20follower%20though.png?dl=0

If I try, on the other hand, to invite a Follower, like the first person suggested, they get the badly formatted invite (same pasted text as above) and it’s not what I’m looking for anyway because I don’t want to require my readers to sign up or use a special app.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/uhpg9tj2uwkk8b2/Invite%20to%20Follow%20-%20badly%20formatted.png?dl=0

No matter what option I choose though, I can’t seem to just invite someone to be a Subscriber. I’ve tried the last three:

– Contributor: sends the contributor invite
– Subscriber: also sends the contributor invite
– Follower: sends the badly formatted follower invite

Signing up as a subscriber from the right-side widget works though, so I know it’s possible to become a jetpack email subscriber.

Do you see what I mean?

Thanks,

doug

Hi Doug,

Since you reached out to Jetpack support by email I have responded to you there.

Thanks for your response. But it remains very confusing don’t you think? Subscribers aren’t subscribers. And they look like contributors. And subscribers aren’t defined in the documentation. And there is no way to invite subscribers by email…. Does it seem to actually make sense to you? ??

doug

Hi Doug,

I do agree, it is a bit confusing! The confusion is mainly due to the difference between registered users on your website, WordPress.com user roles, and Jetpack subscribers.

I found an older thread here which helps to explain the difference between Jetpack subscribers, registered users and followers: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/jetpack-subscription-and-followers-vs-users-vs-subscribers/?replies=15#post-4240396