There are a few bloggers who everyone seems to know about, and everyone loves, and their readers just grow and grow with each post.
Then there are bloggers like me who have to work to get engagement and bloggers to come here. I’m not throwing myself a pity party, I didn’t start blogging with the expectation of becoming blog famous, but I’m 100% sure that if I didn’t actively engage with other blogs, I’d probably have a lot less readers and online friends (for want of a better word) than I do. I promote my blog on Twitter, and to a lesser extent Instagram (and damn I really need to start Pinteresting again, I have about a four month catch up to do!), and I spend a few hours a week reading blogs, commenting on said blogs, finding new blogs, talking to bloggers on Twitter, blog blog blog.
It’s basically an unpaid part time job, albeit one I do voluntarily and enjoy. I only comment on a post blog when I genuinely have something to say, and I spend time thinking of how to say it. I wouldn’t comment on a post purely to link drop, because I think it’s disrespectful to the hours put in composing a post!
Ah, you’re saying, isn’t that basic stuff? Isn’t that what we all do? Well, if you’ve got this far in my post then you’re probably also a genuinely nice person who reads blogs to be part of the community, not to promote their own. I salute you. Unfortunately, there are people out there who aren’t so kind and will spam their way to the top. And even more unfortunately, I think there are newbie bloggers who see these tactics, don’t realise that they’re not the way to go about things, and copy them. So this is for you – how not to promote your blog, interact with bloggers and get followers.
Do not follow and unfollow someone constantly in the hope they’ll eventually follow you
Most commonly done on Twitter, this is something that’s more likely to get you blocked than followed. I noticed the same girl doing it to me over about three months and I ended up DM’ing her when she was following me for a day to be all “Look I didn’t want to follow you when you first followed me, I sure as hell don’t since you’ve spammed my notifications and are clearly going to unfollow me the minute I return the favour”.
It’s safe to say she never followed me again.
Leaving spammy comments
There are two types of spammy comments, in my opinion.
The obvious
Hey! Great blog. Let’s follow each other! You follow me then I’ll follow you. “insert blog link, twitter link, GFC link”
And the not so obvious at first
Great post/ jumper/ picture! “insert blog link”
This sounds great! “insert blog link”
When you first start blogging, you think wow people love my posts! It’s only when these comments become increasingly more noticeable, and someone commented saying “sounds like a great product” when you wrote about how said product burnt your skin so badly you needed a skin graft. Or maybe something less extreme but the point is still there. They’re not commenting because they like your post, they’re link dropping. I have no issue people leaving me their link in a comment, and I actually will respond to comments by commenting on their blog as I think it’s nice to return the favour, but people who can’t be bothered to even skim read my post to put in a meaningful comment are dreaming if they think I’ll be visiting their blog.
Do not send me your link on Twitter if a) I’ve not asked for people’s links and b) you’ve never bothered to talk to me, don’t even follow me on Twitter, and have clearly browsed #bbloggers to find people to tweet spam
Hi @indiabenjamin please check out my latest post and comment “link”
I get these quite a lot. Investigation will reveal their past 10 tweets have been exactly the same but to different people. Erm, no.
If I’ve been talking to you on Twitter and you seem nice, I’ll check out your blog. If I ask for new blogs to read on Twitter and you send me yours, I’ll check it out.
If I have no idea who you are and you can’t even be bothered to build up a relationship with me before sending me your unsolicited link, I will not be checking out your blog.
Insta-spam
I have two Instagrams, one for my fitness journey and one for me/ my blog. I get comments like this on both-
Nice!
Great profile!
Nice pic!
These comments not only get deleted, they get reported as spam. They do NOT get me on to your profile, unless you’ve spammed me a few times and then I’ll go on and report your whole profile rather than the comment. Soz.
If you do any of these, please stop. Maybe you don’t realise how disrespectful it is to bloggers who invest time and money into their blog, in which case I’ll kind of forgive you if you stop right away and start having real engagement with bloggers. It’s taken me over a year to reach nearly 1000 followers, which no, does not make me a big or popular blogger, but has lead to me meeting some people online who I genuinely like and have a connection with, and has seen me get a few people come up and say I really love your blog, and meant it. That
If you can’t be bothered to put in the work to let your blog grow, you’re probably in it for the wrong reasons!
How do you engage with bloggers?
