I May Run Out of Money Before I Get 3,000 Followers

Blogging, humor, lessons learned 1 Minute

It happened again.

Somebody, somewhere in the world made a decision they may soon regret. He or she decided to follow my blog, and in so doing, became follower number 2,000 of Borden’s Blather.

I wrote a post last November about how it was kind of a letdown when I finally reached 1,000 followers, and this time it’s no different.

And while it didn’t take as long to add the second 1,000 followers as it did to get the first 1,000, I am living proof that the number of followers doesn’t seem to matter. Despite the increased number of followers, the number of daily views of my blog has been declining for the past three to four months.

What does matter, and what many people have told me over the years, is the amount of engagement.

And thanks to so many wonderful readers, the number of likes and comments has continued to increase or at least hold steady over the past few months.

So a big thank you to all of you for taking the time to read my daily blather and to share your thoughts.

And as a token of my appreciation, I thought I would offer some free advice as to how you too can get 2,000 followers.

First, you start with 1,000…, and then you just buy a few more each day…

Published by Jim Borden

A 60-something guy trying to figure out the world, and his place in it. Happily married for 40-plus years, three wonderful sons. Accounting teacher, fitness enthusiast, blogger, reader.

Published

130 thoughts on “I May Run Out of Money Before I Get 3,000 Followers”

  2. I have more followers than I have before, and my views have been all over the place, and so have the likes, but they go down with every person that becomes a follower, and I think that makes no sense, but that’s how it seems to work.

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      1. I think i get it. your followers go up, but they’re also finding other things they like too and suddenly their reader has a ton of stuff in it. it also appears to be some type of etiquitte that I didn’t understand, that when you follow someone, they start following you. Then I guess their reader becomes inundated with new thngs to read and if you stop to read one, 12 new things have become available to read. It could be that, or could just be that people are skimming in said reader (which now oddly lets you see almost the whole post IN the reader) and not actually coming by and reading.

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      16. How was it an opportunity for me?? You only were paying NEW followers for head smacks! In spite of the fact that I think I am the one who made the “head smack” famous! 😛

        Liked by 1 person

      25. Ummm …wait a minute! I protest that! It should not just be for.new followers. But if you want to pay them 50 cents that is fine as long as you pay, cerrtain other, loyal, long term followers a Dollar per head smack!

        Liked by 1 person

  9. Well, once again all that certainly rings a bell. I remember getting to one thousand and being rather pleased with myself, but this didn’t last. I started to realise that I had only a very small handful of followers who really engaged with me via the blog. It has taken almost as long to rise to 1250 followers, and test I still have only a couple of engagers. One is very special, lives in Italy, has collaborated with me on writing a wine book, and I have reciprocated by helping her with a business plan for setting up a wine and culture association. Rare indeed.

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  11. The least I can do is show up every day. You’ve got the hard part—thinking of something to write each day. When was your first blog post?

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      1. Then I don’t feel so awful. I have been blogging for over two years, and I still haven’t hit 500 followers. Like you, the number that matters to me is engagement. I like talking to people. I look at some blogs with something like 4,000 “followers,” but then they may only have four comments on their posts. The point of blogging to me is to exchange ideas and thoughts with others.

        Liked by 1 person

  12. You should consider buying your followers in bulk for cost savings. I have had the same number of followers forever, but I try not to notice. It never works, but I try. Although many of my followers are not engaged, there are some who are consistent and super-supportive. Always enough to keep me motivated and hopeful. By the way, did you mail that check like you promised?….😁

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  13. Congratulations on your milestone! I lag quite a way behind you, but have some of the same thoughts about lack of engagement by a lot of them. I guess when you’re a bot it’s hard to write real words for a comment – many of mine seem to be like that, anyway…

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      1. YVW.

        Out of interest I just looked back over my twenty newest followers. Total who have interacted with me since following: two. Possibly slightly higher than I was expecting, if I’m honest…

        Liked by 1 person

      3. I was surprised at 10% – it doesn’t feel like that. I’d be interested in what response you’ve been getting – there could be a blog post in it for you…

        Liked by 1 person

  16. I pick up three or four new followers each day, but it never seems to have any bearing on the number of page views, like or comments I receive. Many of the followers are suspect. They look like they’re just trying to sell some random product and think by following my blog, I’ll check out theirs, which I do.

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    1. I rarely check out who follows me. I usually start following someone after they’ve left a few comments on my blog, and their blog looks interesting… I figure that passes the legitimacy test…

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  18. Congratulations Jim! As for me, I never considered offering signing bonuses for my followers. Being a pensioner now means my cash flow will slowly dry up over the coming years. Perhaps I can get followers to pay me . . . until they all disappear!

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    1. thanks, Richard. I wouldn’t ever consider buying followers as well. seems like they would add no engagement to the blog. I’ll be retiring in a few years, so maybe I can get my followers to support me at that time 🙂

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  19. Congrats, Jim another milestone…I think followers come and go and guessing some are bots I always thank people for following my blog although many don’t have anything but a gravatar with no image and no links to a blog which means then I can’t or I have noticed many have the same stock image either male or female maybe they are clones 🙂 x

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  20. Congrats on hitting another metric, although you have a wonderful Blog no matter what that number means. “Followers” is such a funny term to me. Maybe it would be less amusing if I had a bunch of them!

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  22. Congratulations on the followers! Unfortunately, your engagement does fluctuate when you grow and it kind of sucks but hopefully it will pick back up soon. Mine was down for the last two months which was a bummer but life goes on I guess. That’s some solid advice on gaining followers- that’s how I got mine 😂

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  28. Jim. I am amazed at all of the responses you are getting to your posts. That is absolurely great, and I am jealous!

    I have been writing on my WordPress Blog for over four years but still only have a little over 100 followers, and rarely if ever get any comments on my posts. I love the interaction when I do get some.

    I have the free copy of WordPress. Do you have any idea what the major reason might be why your blog has generated so many followers, and in particular, why you seem to get so much discussion for your posts?

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    1. Hi Pearl, I know the feeling. After four years I only had 50 followers, and my posts average less than one comment or like.

      Around that time I did a few things, that may have led to the increase n followers and engagement:

      1. I switched from wordpress.org to wordpress.com, and it just seemed like a more welcoming community
      2. I started becoming a more engaged member of the WordPress community by following and commenting on a greater number of blogs. I think at the peak I was following over 120 blogs. Many of the people I followed and commented on returned the favor.
      3. a small handful of my followers enjoy trading wisecracks and puns back and forth on each other’s blogs, often leading to a large number of comments. such comments make blogging fun.
      4. I spend a lot more time on blogging now compared to my first few years. Between writing my own blog, reading others, and commenting and replying, it’s over two hours per day.

      Hope this helps!

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      1. Well, that gives me great hope. I have been using that Reader functionality to identify other bloggers who have similar interests, such as you, and I am Liking lots of stuff, and making a lot of comments. Besides your feedback, which is greatly appreciated, I have already gotten at least a dozen new followers in just the past few days. So I seem to finally be on the right track.

        By the way, as you might be able to tell by my “tree falling in the woods” comment, I like to have fun on this blog, and on Facebook, as well.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. that’s great about picking up so many followers in just a couple of days. and yes, it is fun to come up with a clever comment. I get lucky maybe one out of every 100 that I make 🙂

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