I’ve had a few blogs and websites over time and I’ve see some of them languish and others continue to get followers. I think I’ve figured out the secret to success. It’s not a secret really, just common sense. Full disclosure: many of my blogs tend toward the ‘naughty’ side of things, so I posted over here on my tumblr which has a total of 1 followers 😉
Here are the five secrets to gaining followers.
1 – Tag your stuff.
Those little tags on an article or blog post? Those are the words that are loaded into indexes and search engines. A great example is tumblr. let’s say you’re a big One Direction fan (or, insert the name of your favorite band or celebrity here). You have a Tumblr. If you don’t tag those photos of Harry and Louis, how is someone going to find them when they type in Larry? Speaking of One Direction, that leads to…
2 – Have a Focus.
Look around, you’ll probably find lots of tumblrs or twitter accounts that are labeled ‘random crap’. You know, somewhere that the owner says, ‘I just post whatever I want.” I’m not a statistician, but I feel I can safely state that ‘random crap’ accounts have about 99 percent fewer followers, on average, than accounts with a focus. Pick a topic that you like, and I guarantee that no matter how obscure that topic is, there are THOUSANDS of other people in the world who like that thing, too. Coat Buttons, Joan Jett, knitting, naked women popping balloons (that’s actually a thing, who knew?), once you find a focus, the followers will… well, they’ll follow. They’ll follow if you…
3 – Post Consistently.
You might have the funniest, coolest, and most inspirational posts. That might gain you followers when they happen across your site, but they’ll quickly drop you if they don’t see something new. Post a lot, and stick to it. Hint: Most blogging platforms have a queue feature, so you can create lots of posts at a time and put them in your queue. I’ve actually found that you don’t have to post massive amounts. Just one a day often does the trick. Queue things up, have them release once a day, and that will get you through the busy times in your life when you don’t have time to post. In terms of what to post…
4 – Be Original
Originality is key. It doesn’t mean you have to be a brilliant creative writer, or anything like that. It just means that you need to come up with content that nobody else has seen. Let’s go back to the One Direction example (for the record, I’m actually not a fan, but they’re a good example). Let’s say you’re a Larry Shipper (google it if you don’t know what it is). Simply reposting photos of Harry and Louis from other blogs won’t get you much traction. However, if you create new images or photosets with those two guys together, or add something to existing images, you’ll start to get more followers. Lastly…
5 – Interact with your followers. I’ll be honest, this is the part I’m not great at. How to interact? Posts questions that people can answer. Set up surveys. When you’re starting out, simply reach out to say thanks to someone who ‘’likes’ a lot of your posts. Reply to comments. People are a lot more likely to follow if they can connect with the real person on the other end.
Hope this helps, now get blogging!
Thank you ❤
The Six Wives of Henry VIII 