Thursday 24 May 2012

The Blogger Zeitgeist

Being a relatively new blogger - new defined as blogging under a year or having fewer than 500 followers - I often wonder about blogging etiquette.  What are the rules?  If someone follows me, must I follow them back?  I check other bloggers and find that some have more followers than they follow, and others follow more than have followers.  I usually do try to follow back others who follow me, but only if their blog is of interest.  If the blog is just a bunch of ads for clothes or hotels, then no.

What about people who say "Follow me and I'll follow you"?  I always check out their blogs too and won't hesitate to follow, but then what if they don't follow me back?  I feel cheated.  I feel let down.  I feel that someone has broken their word.  But I continue to check their posts in my reader anyway.

When surfing the blogosphere, I must admit that I am sometimes afraid to follow people whose blogs are a good read and instead just bookmark the page.  I don't want to appear too eager, and would prefer to lurk.  I do try to follow new bloggers because I know it can be intimidating and disheartening if you think no-one is listening.

Sometimes when I want to comment, I don't - again for fear of looking like I'm fishing for followers.  And what are the rules for commenting anyway?  I see a lot of blogs with comments and yet the blogger is silent.  Is this okay?  Do they see the comments?  Why don't they answer?  In the real world I would feel rude if someone spoke to me and I ignored them.  So I try to reply to all my comments.  This brings me back to the followers, what if a blogger has too many followers and too many comments?   How can you possibly keep up?

I have other questions too.  Experts say a blog should have a theme and many blogs are very very consistent, always posting on topic: outfits, crafts, recipes, photos or what-have-you; but what if your outfit was nothing special, you didn't have time for crafts, you bought take-out and your photos were blurry? What do you do then? 

Have you asked yourself these questions?  Are there any rules? What do you do?

Today's topic is linked to: alphabe-Thursday

5 comments:

  1. Hi Narda, I've wondered about these things myself. I've decided not to worry about followers. I just want to make friends and have some fun and talk about thrifting. Once "rules" get implemented it seems to ruin the fun.

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  2. Hey Sheila, You're right, I'm overthinking it ...

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  3. I have pondered these very things. I've been blogging for almost two years and still have under 500 followers, but gradually I've come to recognize that I value the personal relationship I have with many of my readers. I have always replied to readers in my comments (which is why there are often so many comments). I often follow bloggers that are similar to me back. I recently unfollowed some big name blogs where I felt that I had no personal relationship...although I had left a number of comments over time.

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    1. I am thinking the same, there are blogs where I leave comments but it's like no-one is there ...

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  4. Hi Daisy! Thanks for following and commenting!

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