When I first started blogging, I casually followed blogs, but hadn't really gotten to know any bloggers yet. But as the months went by I started consistently visiting some people's blogs and certain people consistently visited mine. Now, I'm pretty picky when it comes to which blogs I will religiously follow. I'm talking about the blogs I read every day. The ones that I don't skip a post on. I still read other blogs, but just on occasion and I don't worry too much if I miss a post. Here's my method for how I choose which blogs to follow:
A blogger needs to interact with me in order for me to follow them. I hate the bloggers who never respond to comments, never tweet you back on Twitter, etc. It's so frustrating to me. The whole point of having a blog is interacting with your followers and discussing the thing we love the most, in our case, books! If a blogger consistently doesn't respond to my comments or tweets, I will stop following them. They just almost seem stuck-up to me at that point. Maybe they're busy and I get that, I really do. And I don't even expect people to answer every single comment I leave on their blog. But when I've left about ten comments on their blog and they haven't answered a single one? That bugs me.
This one is really important to me. If your reviews are riddled with grammatical errors, I'm probably not sticking around. It's just a pet peeve of mine. It makes the posts look sloppy and I just don't enjoy reading them. I also like unique styles. I love reading
Book Rock Betty's synopses written by her husband, Mr. Betty and her review style is super unique. And I love
Jamie's reviews on a post-it note. It's these little things that make me follow a blog and keep coming back for more content.
I don't need the blogs I follow to post every day. If they did, it would probably get overwhelming. Just a few times a week is good enough for me. I also don't mind if they post every day though. It's the blogs that post multiple times a day that drive me nuts. Why do you need to post more than one thing in a day? It just seems unnecessary to me and makes my blogroll feel cluttered.
Obviously I like to follow blogs that share my interests in genres. I don't read adult hardly ever so I don't follow any adult book blogs. Maybe I'm being too prejudiced. I have gotten some great book recommendations that I wouldn't normally read from bloggers so perhaps I should expand my tastes a bit more. What do you guys think?
And finally, the type of content. Reviews are my favorite posts to read. It gives me more information about a book and I find tons of new books to read from reading reviews. I also really enjoy
Top Ten Tuesday and
Waiting on Wednesday and discussion posts (like this one) are also fun. I'm not a huge fan of cover reveals, interviews, blog tours, etc. Cover reveals are boring to me. There's not much for me there. Interviews only interest me if it's an author that I love. Blog tours I really don't mind, but when a blog participates in too many I get annoyed. When it's a constant blog tour parade showing up in my blogroll I tend to start skipping over posts.
So that's how I choose which blogs to follow. What do you guys think? Do you agree with any of these? Disagree? How do you decide which blogs to follow? Leave me a comment so we can discuss!
<33 *smooshy hug*
ReplyDeleteI'm honestly really picky about the blogs I follow these days just because I read A LOT of other blogs in other niches -- travel, food, lifestyle etc -- so I can't follow sooo many. I tend to follow people who I hear a definite voice from, who are unique and engaging. I do follow people I've grown close with. I don't have type really now that I think of it. It's just kind of a gut feeling. I think that's where Twitter helps a lot because I can click random links if I feel lead to rather than having EVERY blog ever in my reader.
The interaction thing doesn't bother me so much -- if I love a blog it's because I love what they have to say so I don't really care if they don't comment back. PLUS, I know I don't always get to comment back all the time because, as a blogger, there's always so much to balance -- blog stuff and life. I try to do it all but I am only human! It's hard because sometimes you get people saying they want a reply back ON your blog (but then most people don't come back to check) and then others want a comment back on their blog and it's just hard to please everybody. :/ I try but then I just get burnt out.
Interesting discussion! I've learned that I'm an odd one when it comes to following blogs because it's very much a gut feeling rather than certain things I'm looking for. HM!
Yeah, I agree with following blogs that are unique and engaging for sure. And I'm not even saying that a blogger needs to answer every single one of my comments. (Half the time, I don't even go back to check because I forget.) But it just bugs me when maybe I've tweeted someone a few times and they never reply ya know? I'm here to make friends and that's what I'm trying to do! Thanks for your thoughts! <3 you!
DeleteTotally understand! Especially on Twitter when it's an ALL the time thing. I admit to maybe forgetting to tweet back sometimes if I go offline for a few hours and then jump right back on to Twitter and get engaged in new convos but I've been snubbed by a few people consistently.
DeleteI think interaction and type of content is the most important to me. Like you, I want to read book reviews and also hear about books that I may not know about. I've read quite a few books that were recommended from other blogs, which has been so great. Top Ten Tuesday and Waiting on Wednesday are also great for that. And I do enjoy discussion posts, those can be really fun. Cover reveals, book tours without reviews, etc...not as interesting, although I guess if part of the blog is about promoting books, that's a way to do it.
ReplyDeleteAnd I love being able to make contact with other bloggers and actually have a conversation, but I do wonder when I'm commenting back (since I use blogger) if anyone comes back and reads when I reply. But I try to do that anyway, just in case. I should probably get on Twitter because it seems like that's where more interaction and conversations are happening, but I just haven't done that yet.
And right now I'm so focused on YA books I don't really follow other blogs, and the ones I keep coming back to are the ones that have well written, thoughtful book reviews and interesting discussions.
Interesting post!! ~Pam
I love TTT and WoW. I have found so many good books to read through these features and it's a great way to discover new blogs.
DeleteI just absolutely love discussing books. Our emails to each other are my favorite. It's so fun to discuss books you love with other book lovers! :)
Please get on Twitter!! Then we can talk all the time! I also wonder the same thing. If the person commenting on my blog doesn't hit the subscribe to follow up comments button, are they even coming back to see? I know that I usually don't check back on blogs I comment on. Sometimes I do, but more often than not I forget. That's why I really like Disqus for commenting because I can just log on to disqus and see who has responded to me. Idk if it can be used on blogger though. I've never looked into it.
Yeah, I don't follow many other blogs besides the YA book review blogs. I do like to cook and follow a few cooking blogs and there's one fashion blog I follow because the girl has like the greatest sense of style ever. I really should branch out more though. There's so many great blogs out there!
My criteria for following blogs are essentially the same as yours. I look for bloggers that have similar tastes in books, who post quality content, and who focus on original content rather than excessive book promotions. I don't necessarily follow based on whether bloggers reply to my comments- but I will certainly stop commenting on a blog if I never get a reply. I also won't comment on any posts where I can clearly see that ten other people have commented but have received no response from the blogger.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I don't really follow based on if they reply to my comments but if they never reply or never tweet me back, then I may either unfollow or just skip over most of their posts in my blog feed. :/ But quality, original content is definitely one of my top priorities. Excessive book promotion drives me crazy. I don't mind a little, even once a week book promo or something like that, because I mean that's what these blogs are for. Promoting books. But when it's every single post (or sometimes multiple posts a day) I get super annoyed.
Delete" I also won't comment on any posts where I can clearly see that ten other people have commented but have received no response from the blogger."
DeleteAww that point kind of made me nervous/scared for my own habits because throughout the week I don't necessarily have time right away in that particular day when I posted something to comment back. So you could catch me on a day when I can and see replies or when I can't right away and it's not always indicative if I will or won't respond back..just might not have had time that day. A lot of times I will save that task for the weekend where I can really sit down and reply to comments. So that scares me if that is the way people think..that just because I didn't respond within a day or two that I'm unresponsive?
I agree with you Jamie. I think that you definitely need to give a blogger at least a week or so to reply to comments. So if you're looking at a new post and there are no replies, it's probably just because the blogger hasn't had time yet. I think that a lot of times we have to remember that bloggers have lives outside of blogging and it's all about balancing things. I don't think it would be healthy for us to just blog all the time and do nothing else.
DeleteBecause i am such a blogging noob, i don't really have many standards but this post definitely gave me some! You raise some really awesome points :) Great post ^^
ReplyDeleteThanks!! <3 *hugs*
DeleteWhen I first started blogging, I used to follow everyone, and I mean EVERYONE. Then, a few months ago I realized that I was getting so much spam in my emails/bloglovin' accounts that I went on an unfollowing spree. I started following those "friendly" bloggers who I actually interacted with and also those bloggers whose reviews I actually trust. The blogging community is so big, though! I'm always meeting more people I wish I could meet in real life.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree to this. I tend to follow a lot of people on Twitter and then just click on the links that sound interesting to me. But the blogs that I really love I follow with Bloglovin' and those are the blogs that I read religiously. I wish I could meet all my blogging friends in real life! Stupid geography.
Delete#4 and #5, common interests and content play a huge factor in following for me too! A blogger fangirling over a TV show or a book that not many know about is a sure way to get me to follow, and I love bloggers who have similar taste in books as me. I have to admit, if that person returns comments plays a roll in following too. There are bloggers I've followed and left comments on a TON of their reviews, but they never followed or commented back at all...that gets me to stop visiting their blog. I don't expect them to visit my blog every time I visit them, but i do expect them to, you know, visit it sometime.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! :)
Alice @ Alice in Readerland
Agreed. I definitely don't need a blogger to follow me back or even reply to every single comment I leave on their blog, but to never respond? And like you said, if I visit someone's blog a lot, I appreciate it if they visit mine once in awhile. I won't stop following them if they don't, but it is nice when they do.
DeleteCompletely agreed on the content! Whenever I find a new blog (like this one :D) I see if I recognize any of the books reviewed recently or on lists and I see how many blitzes/reveals/etc they have compared to their own posts. The one other important thing for me is that there is an RSS follow option, since that's how I read all my blogs, hehe.
ReplyDeleteAnya @ On Starships and Dragonwings
That's exactly what I do! Yes, I follow via Bloglovin' so that's a really good point. If there's not a Bloglovin' follow option I normally will only follow on Twitter, but then I end up missing a lot of their posts. Thanks so much for stopping by!
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