Oct 16, 2014 / Beginner

The Art of Following a Blog

There’s nothing passive about being a good listener.

<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tarale/6573479549">Image</a> by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tarale/">Taryn</a> (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>)

Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, your blog: pitch a tent anywhere on the web, and the expectation is that people will quickly line up to give you a (virtual) high five in the form of a “follow.”

It’s pretty clear what the followed blogger’s supposed to do: keep posting stuff that others enjoy reading. Be a gracious host. Ensure posts are readable. But what about the follower? Is there a job description for what happens after you click on a blog’s “Follow” button (or Follow Blog Widget)? Here’s some food for thought.

Don’t expect instant reciprocity

Take the plunge only if you want to read new content from the person whose blog you just followed.

When you follow a blog you’re making a light, but real, commitment: each new post from that site will show up in your Reader (and/or your email, depending on your delivery settings). Take the plunge only if you want to read new content from the person whose blog you just followed.

Interaction and reciprocal generosity are among the cornerstones of the blogging community, and form the basis of any meaningful online conversation. But you should never expect immediate reciprocity in the form of a follow-back. Demanding it, however politely or indirectly, cheapens the gesture of following someone’s blog in the first place.

Slow-cooked admiration is the best kind

There’s something intoxicating about discovering a great voice you hadn’t read before. I stumble on new, fantastic blogs every day, and when I do I follow them. I then immediately want to read, like, and comment on every single post.

Note: If you wish to resist instant gratification, you can opt to receive new posts on a daily or weekly basis, instead of instantly. Just tweak your email delivery settings (which can be done for individual blogs as well as in bulk).

I stop myself from actually binge-reading (most of the times, anyway): I prefer to think of following a blog as a longterm relationship, one in which I gradually discover more and more of the blogger’s voice, skill, and temperament. It takes a long time to build a blog (though taking our Blogging for Beginners course might help). Following it should equally be considered a process that unfolds over generous stretches of time.

Don’t be a (total) stranger

It’s nice to  show a sign of life to the bloggers you follow every once in a while: a comment here, a well-phrased reblog there, a sprinkling of likes.

These are not huge gestures and don’t take a lot of time, but they can mean a lot to those who receive them. It’s these kinds of gestures that make followers feel like engaged partners in a conversation rather than disembodied Gravatar images hovering in your blog’s attic. It’s also the best, friendliest, and most organic way of drawing another blogger’s attention to you and your own work.

The idea behind following a blog is to give you an easy way to focus your attention on something you find valuable.

It’s fine to pick favorites

I follow more than 800 blogs. While I’m happy to have discovered each and every one of them, I most definitely have my favorites — the ones I return to time and again, the ones I always hope to see a new post from in my Reader. Blogs are like people, in that sense: having strong preferences doesn’t take away from my appreciation of everyone else, but rather grounds the value of my affection in the first place. If you like all blogs equally, you don’t really love any of them.

What does that mean in practical terms? No need to feel bad if you find yourself engaging with some followed blogs more than others.

There’s an Unfollow button, too

Given the number of blogs I just confessed to follow it might sound hard to believe, but I unfollow blogs all the time. There’s nothing personal or vindictive about it: sometimes, my reading relationship with a blog has simply run its course. You can unfollow blogs for any number of reasons — they publish too little or too much for your taste, repeat the same idea frequently, or have taken a turn in their editorial style that doesn’t mesh with your current preferences.

It’s ok. The idea behind following a blog is to give you an easy way to focus your attention on something you find valuable. There’s already so much distraction in our lives; why dilute our attention with things we’re no longer passionate about? Unfollow! You might still rediscover an old blog you used to follow later on — and fall in love all over again.

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  1. Wow this is insightful….. i am new to the blogging community and i find it fascinating what people blog about and how those beautiful taught run through there heads. thanks for this.

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  2. Interesting food for thought. As a new blogger you raise a number of ideas I hadn’t yet considered – but will now for sure. Most importantly how and why I follow different blogs. Thanks!

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  3. I loved this piece! Very informative indeed. I’ve been gone from my blog for some time due to work but I’ve been feeling that burning sensation to get back on. Your post is just what I needed for a kick in the but 😉

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  4. Reading a blog is almost like watching YouTube in the sense that when you find a new YouTuber you want to watch all their new content and get to know them. Thanks, I didn’t think of it that way 🙂

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  5. Interesting that I am reading this post now; I have been spending seven to eight hours a day reading all my socia media. I have made the decision of cutting back a bit. Great post!

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  6. Thank you for this great post. I’m new in the blogging world and still fumbling my way around, but value lesson like this. I want to follow so many blogs but it can get to be too much.

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  8. Thanks for sharing these insights. I’ve often struggled with the issue of who to “follow.” On WordPress, there are many quality bloggers that participate in challenges that I write for, so there is a built-in social group of sorts for me. I only follow those that I most enjoy reading because I am a rather picky reader–topics that don’t interest me or stories that have too many typos just aren’t going to get me pressing the “like” button or coming back for more. On another site, I have about triple the number of followers as there are bloggers that I follow, and I feel a little awkward about that. But the truth is that the content that tends to be written in that forum just doesn’t interest me. So even those I follow I don’t often read. Maybe it’s time to trim the list a little.

    MG

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  9. My only criteria for following a blog (so far, because I might change it later on) is competence in writing. Then again, so many are competent writers here on WordPress and I don’t follow every competent blogger. What I noticed though was that the aithors of blogs I’ve chosen don’t necessarily agree with my world-view, infact, they are the opposite. I do believe this gives me a richer perspective of peoplein general and a new awareness about how they think.

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  10. Good article. I wish I received more comments on my blog posts. Due to time constraints I tend to read several days posts at one time and am more likely to “like” the post then comment. I like your thoughts on the “I follow you, please follow me” comments. I have encountered such requests in the past and I prefer to leave it up to the reader to determine whether or not they wish to follow me.

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  11. I see that I have to re-think how I follow blogs. I admit I usually read, but rarely comment not always knowing what to say. I am also one of those followers who will not always click the follow button, but I do look up the blog on occasion.

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  12. I’ll admit that I follow blogs and do read them, but sometimes don’t voice a reaction in the way of comments because I don’t feel like I have anything to say. I suppose in being a better part of the blogging community that I should comment more? But I feel silly if I’m not contributing to the conversation.

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  14. Thanks for the valuable info, I’m actually thinking of becoming a real time blogger but didn’t have a clue what to expect but your write-up gives me an informed understanding of how the blogging world operates.

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  16. When i first started blogging many years ago, i followed nearly every blog that was available to follow. It got to the point I hated getting notifications from them. I also got suckered into following a lot of mommy blogs because they were friends of mine. Yeah. SO not my cup of tea. *sigh*

    When I stopped blogging a year ago (I abandoned the self-hosted site I wound up hating), I promised myself that I would stop following so many people because I felt obligated to. I have to start being picky for my own sanity. I can’t follow a bazillion blogs and still keep up with content of my own.

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  17. Wow, this was so insightful and timely. I just started my first blog roughly a month ago for the love of creative writing and teaching. I found myself quickly caught up in the excitement of watching stats, and followers (which at its best was 3, two of which I knew personally, and the 3rd disappeared and that was depressing) and hoping for comments (which hasn’t happened yet). I lost sight of why I was doing this basically because I was beginning to feel like people weren’t interested in my subject matter. As for following others, I haven’t yet found similar content here so I haven’t followed anybody. I will continue to post because I like to write and I will continue to search the right key words for blogs that interest me. “If you build it, they will come” … right?!

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  18. I loved this, as someone who is brand new to the blogging community I truly appreciate advice like this. It offers a little insight from the other side, those who have hundreds of followers to those who are yet to become familiar with common courtesies. Thank you, and I look forward to more good reads.

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  19. The blogosphere is such a vast arena. By following a blog, it becomes a bit easier to catch with the type of posts you’ve already read. I can very well relate to the disadvantages of not following a blog, which I thought was interesting, but forgot to like or follow it. Consequently I spent a couple of sleepless nights, only trying to recall the blog’s title.
    Trust me, following a blog is uber necessary.

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  20. Elegantly written. Thanks for the timely reminder. There should be a “follower’s manifesto” created out of this somehow. Some embeddable infographic thingamajig that we can all pledge allegiance to and repost.

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    1. This sounds like a neat project for a graphically-talented blogger to try and tackle! (My infographic-creation skills are exactly zero).

      Liked by 2 people

  25. I am new to Word Press even though I opened my account
    over a year ago. I have only recently answered the question
    of why I want to write this blog and what I am going to provide
    as content.

    I am very active on Flickr and I have noticed that good relationships
    on social networking sites take time and of course, a consistent
    presence.

    I extrapolate what I was taught about manners as a child to the world
    of blogging: If someone is kind enough to view my work and to leave
    a note of encouragement then the least I can do is find out who that
    person is and what he or she has to say.

    Thank you for an informative and thought provoking post.

    Rob Goldstein

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  26. Thank you, this is a really useful read – including the comments! I’ve recently started blogging, and have even more recently realised that being part of a blogging community is about way more than posting my own thoughts.

    I made a commitment to myself to spend the same amount of time reading other blogger’s posts and commenting when appropriate, which I can highly recommend to other new bloggers. In fact, I now probably spend 80% of my time reading / commenting on other blogs versus 20% of my time on my own blog!

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  28. I never follow a blog..but i do love reading blogs. I just choose though especially if the blog is all about topics i love to read.

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  29. I don’t have many followers and few people comment on my blog but I do average around 50 readers a month. I realise people think this is far too few but some of my friends just say the subject is too niche to attract a huge readership.
    I’m just glad, that some people are interested in history and will continue to write into the second year of my blog.

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