Yesterday I went friend fishing on the Independent Fashion Bloggers website, contacting a whole bunch of bloggers (maybe around 100) whose
blogs looked cool to me and vaguely in the vein of street style, in the hopes
that they would follow my blog and participate in this project. I felt kinda
cheap and tawdry afterwards, though I’m not entirely sure why. We all want pageviews, don’t we? They are blogger currency. Are we not willing to do what
it takes to get them? Bloggers, I would be curious to hear what your own
personal feelings/policies are about soliciting followers. Also, is there a
word for this practice, that is, the seeking out of other bloggers in the hopes
that they’ll follow you? If there isn’t, there ought to be. It can’t possibly
be “friend fishing.”
In my own defense, I assure you, my intentions were good. I
want a dynamic discussion on my blog, and for as many bloggers as possible to
have their voices heard in this project. And I fully intend to pay careful
attention to the blogs of all the people I friended. That’s probably what they
all say, though.
In any case, the move paid off. I had a significant increase
in pageviews yesterday (though, it’s difficult to tease out whether that’s
about the pictures/people I posted or my soliciting of IFB friends), several
new “likes” on my Facebook page, and a couple new followers on Twitter and
Blogger respectively. Most importantly, I had several new, very interesting
comments on my posts from other bloggers. If my purpose was to kickstart discussion, it worked, and thank you those that participated. So I feel ambivalent about it, but I’m going to keep friend fishing. The benefits outweigh the risk to my reputation. I will probably, however, do so more gradually than I did yesterday. I can
only take so much solicitation in one dose.
Hi, this is an interesting project :))
ReplyDeleteI don't have a lot to say.. I mean, I'm blogging because I really like doing it. Of course I'm happy when I get a nice comment or a new follower but this is not the main reason. And I don't like when people say: "Follow me, I'll follow you back!"
Because I don't want anyone to follow me if they don't like my blog and my posts, and also I won't follow people, which blog's content I don't like.
And one more thing: I guess I'm the only one blogger ot maybe one of a really small bunch of people that have no ads on the blog! I don't even use AdSense.. :))
Desislava
http://truedreamcatcher.blogspot.com
Thanks for your thoughts, Desislava. I agree there is something uncomfortably instrumentalist in the whole tit for tat, you follow me, I'll follow you thing. When did we all become such hustlers? But then I have found most bloggers to be quite sincere and genuinely supportive people. I'm not sure what to make of peoples' choices to advertise or not to advertise. I'll have to start asking people about that. What about you, Deislava? Why do you choose not to use AdSense?
ReplyDeleteI just don't get blogging as my job, it's more like a hobby :))
ReplyDeleteHaha so that's how you found us! I don't go on IFB actively apart from reading the occasional post that catches my eye on Twitter. If you had contacted us directly via email it might have felt more personal? (and we would have seen it earlier). Though it definitely would have taken more time. Especially since your project has much validity to it and would be of interest to many street style bloggers.
ReplyDeleteBtw, your message didn't feel like blank cold solicitation, especially since it's all in the name of science! (or social science) *insert gif here*
what I meant to say was: it gives you a certain street cred...
ReplyDelete