1000 Up

On By Mick CanningIn blogging, followers, posts

Apparently, I how have 1000 followers.

Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

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But, really?

I suppose this should be reason to celebrate, or at least look pleased with myself, but let’s just stop a moment and examine the figures a little.

Out of those 1,000 followers, 150 of those are my Facebook friends.

Because that’s what WordPress does, it automatically adds them to your tally. No matter if they are all blog followers anyway, they add the lot. So lots have been counted twice.

So that takes out around 50.

And of the rest of my Facebook friends, a good half never, ever, visit my blog (fickle lot!).

So, another 50 gone. And we’re down to 900.

But out of those 900, there are a lot who have left the blogging scene completely. Without trawling through every one of them, it is fairly easy to take a random clutch of them (quite a large clutch, I must say) and go to see whether they are still active. It’s hardly a scientific method, but approximately one third have either disappeared completely, or haven’t posted for three months or more, leading me to suspect they’ve packed up.

So, down to about 600.

Of those 600, again looking at a few random clutches, after their initial contact and ‘follow’, I don’t think a good third ever came back again; they probably just hoped to get a follow back.

Down to about 400.

And out of those, about a third again don’t seem to have visited for at least a year.

So, I suspect the number of actual, active followers is close to 250, or a quarter of the ‘official’ figure.

But what does it matter, anyway? The point about posting is that someone should read what has been written, and then hopefully interact by commenting occasionally, or at least ‘liking’ now and again. It’s not compulsory, of course, but it would be odd if a regular visitor never did either. So as long as I get a decent number of regular readers who do interact with my posts, I’ll be a happy bunny.

On the other hand, if this post gets 1000 likes, I will eat my words.

71 thoughts on “1000 Up”

  6. Spot on Mick. I find the duds are fairly simple to detect, though:

    1) They follow without having ‘liked’ or commented on anything.
    2) They follow having ‘liked’ 6 or 8 lengthy articles in about 30 seconds flat.
    3) They follow having made some brief but inanely congratulatory and irrelevant comment.

    1 in 4 sounds about right.

    Only one issue with what you’ve said, which is that like myself, a fair few bloggers I know are still active readers but aren’t themselves posting for a period for one reason or another.

    Liked by 3 people

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    1. I had not included you in the ‘inactive’ numbers, Hariod, as you regularly visit and comment. When I look through my ‘followers’ list, I think I recognise the ones that are inactive, when I look at them and think ‘Who on earth is that? I don’t recognise them.’

      And your three points are certainly true.

      Hope all is well with you, Hariod.

      Liked by 1 person

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  9. I read your post and ended up with a smile! Yes, many followers can be whittled out, my OH said to me “well you seem to have around 750 followers, so why do you never get 750 likes?”, he is very practical. But what it comes down to is the freedom to post whatever you want to and if it gets a like or 25, then you are pleased someone has enjoyed your experience or writing.
    I’ve been a fairweather blogger recently, been too busy, but have just kept my hand in with some weekly photo challenges (easy to rustle up and post quickly). I tend to bulk read the people I follow, when I have time to head to the reader (I like to save TV series to watch all once, the same goes for blog reading, that’s just me). To some, it’s a competition to gain zillions of followers, to others, blogging is a lovely sideline and if it’s tickled someone’s fancy, then it was worth a press of the publish button!

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. it is an interesting point that, about the 750 followers / likes. Not that I would ever expect every follower to ‘like’ a particular post, especially as I post about lots of different topics anyway, but it does lead me to think about another set of statistics, other than the ones I played with.

      My last dozen posts have gleaned the following number of likes: 40, 39, 53, 39, 44, 51, 45, 33, 38, 34, 48, 37. That’s 501 at an average of 42. If I really have 250 ‘real’ followers that means on average they like 1 in every 6 posts. That could also mean they either don’t like or don’t read 5 out of every 6.

      If I was to take any of this seriously, I would be really disappointed. As it is, I get a lot of great interaction on my blog, and I have some great followers.

      The blog’s the thing, the numbers don’t matter.

      Liked by 2 people

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  10. I think you’re right. I’ve suspected the same of the majority of my followers. And I’d say even some of the likers are just hitting the button as they scroll past in the reader. Ah, well… as long as you have a nice core of friends to interact with and get feedback from, I’d call that a success!

    Liked by 2 people

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  13. Mick, I guess wordpress wants to encourage its blogging “customers” which explains such notifications. I find it surprising that some post hit record despite being average while the ones that are long and detailed tank. This has been the case for last few months, Some say your time of posting matters….but with international readers does it matter if my friends in US or Uk are awake. Complicated it is! Congrats anyways

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Thanks, Arv. I suspect the timing may make a little difference – I tend to get a lot of interaction in the first hour after I upload a post, probably because it is sitting at the top of the pile in the Reader. After that it falls away, and then happens in fits and starts – partly because of the different time zones, I suppose.

      Liked by 1 person

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  14. Interesting. Thank you for explaining. I have a “blogger friend” who started her blog with wordpress about 2 years ago: within the blink of an eye she had over 2000 followers, when I asked her How, she never replied. I know that she is big in to instagram so quite possibly also in to facebook (which I don’t do) so it all makes much more sense now. It still is a little strange that so many people sign up to follow but cannot even tick the like button. Sincerity is not so common now days. Fortunately my main reason for my blog is for my friends and family to follow my travels through my stories and photos. Social media !!! It is a world too strange for me. Have a great day Mick.

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. Thanks, Lyn. I’m not a great fan of social media by any means, apart from the blog. The only one I’m on is Facebook, and that is partly as I have an author page (I’m told it may help with book sales – ha ha), and partly as a way to keep up with some distant friends and relatives. I don’t ‘do’ it a great deal, though. I’m also on Goodreads, but I’m not sure that counts as social media.

      I’m sure that’s how your blogging friend’s 2000 bloggers appeared – I can’t imagine any other way, unless you can get them from Amazon!

      Have a great day yourself.

      Liked by 1 person

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  15. A pretty good analysis, Mick. I too have over 1000 followers, though my blog isn’t linked to Facebook – I just Share my posts to there. And I know the number of regular or occasional readers is way lower than that number suggests.

    But wotthehell. I was thrilled by the first follower I got who wasn’t personally known to me (that man can do no wrong, as far as I’m concerned) and I’ve read some great blogs and “met” some fascinating people in the blogosphere. And had fun.

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Thanks, Denise. Yes, although numbers have their importance, it’s the quality that’s important – the quality of the interactions with those ‘genuine’ followers who do visit and like and comment and occasionally share.

      Liked by 1 person

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  16. Like I said sometime ago in a different context, numbers matter: it’s the kind of numbers that we focus on that’s makes all the difference. 1000 is a great achievement, it means 1000 people liked what you write and decided to keep coming back; if they failed in their resolutions, let’s not minimize their intent. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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  18. I think 250 is quite a healthy number. I figure of my 300 or so “followers,” I probably have about a dozen actual readers (including my mom, and I’m not convinced she reads all of my stories), but that’s still probably more than the number of people who read the (non-travel) pieces I get published in obscure anthologies and even more obscure literary journals. I wouldn’t bother with this writing business at all if IT would leave ME alone. But I do wonder if there is some better way to go about getting my odd little travel stories out there. Anyway, thanks for commenting on a topic that’s on a lot of our minds.

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. If you’ve got 300 or so followers, Monica, I’m sure you have more than a dozen real ones, unless you have reason to think otherwise?

      I do like your comment about not bothering with the writing if IT would leave YOU alone – I so understand that!

      Liked by 1 person

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  19. I suspect you’re not far off in your guesstimates, although I’d probably edit even more severely in the followed but never visited again category. If I get a new follower these days I have a pretty good sense whether they’ll be back even before I write another post (3-4 out of 5 will not). I used to pay more attention to stats, but like any small business I eventually figured out it’s those return customers that make all the difference. In any case, 1000 is a nice milestone, regardless of how much is “real”.

    PS: thanks for being a return customer 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. My pleasure, Dave. Interestingly, I think I now get more non-returning followers than I used to, and I wonder whether it has something to do with the algorithms allowing your post to be picked up more widely when you have more followers / likes / visits.

      And I agree that you frequently get a sense of whether or not they’ll be back (and not just when they are called something like paydayloans.com!).

      Liked by 1 person

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  20. If I could, I’d “like” this post a few hundred times just so you could get 1,000 of them. (But I can’t…if I hit “like” more than once, it just takes away the like and then switched it back on, like a light switch.) LOL! But seriously, I know what you mean about followers. I have some that haven’t been active bloggers for years, and others that don’t seem to speak or read English. I’m no longer concerned with numbers of followers, and I focus more on how many people actually read my blog. Those numbers don’t have to be large, but I do like the thought that at least some people are reading my posts. When someone says that something I’ve written really spoke to them, for whatever reason, then it is all worth the effort!

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. I do agree with you, Ann, on all of that. It is all about the interactions, hence this post and a few others I’ve put up over the last however many months.

      And it wouldn’t surprise me if someone re-blogged this just to try to get 1,000 likes on it (I’m joking, by the way. Please don’t take me up on that!)

      Liked by 1 person

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  21. You make many excellent points here Mick. I believe that much of what you say also applies to my blog. You mention “likes”. Its great to receive a “like” (particularly if its from a regular reader). However not all “likes” are genuine, hence my use of quotation marks. I have, for example had around 10-20 of my posts “liked” in approximately 1 minute. Obviously anyone doing this has not taken the time to digest what they are reading or, in some instances bothered to read the articles at all. I’m not decrying “likes” as a blog would be a lonely place without them and comments. I am, however sceptical that every “like” is genuine. Again, as regards comments, I recently saw one on another blogger’s site asking that the website owner visit the commenter’s post on a particular subject. The topic in question had nothing whatever to do with the content of the blogger’s article. He none the less allowed it. This is, of course his absolute right, however I, personally would have deleted the comment as not being genuine/relevant. Kevin

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. I couldn’t agree more, Kevin. I’ve certainly had a number of the ‘ten likes within a minute’ visits, and the comments that simply suggest you go to their sites and like/follow them. Those I do delete, as you suggest.

      I have, incidentally, just visited one of the sites of someone who followed me a while ago, yet has never come and interacted on mine since. It is one I was sure was only after a return follow, and had no real interest in my blog. The post I’ve just looked at went up over a day ago, yet they have had no likes or comments on it. I consider that their just desserts.

      Liked by 1 person

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  24. I have to say that having accumulated 1000 followers is quite an achievement, whether or not those followers are still on the radar. There were lots of interesting thoughts on this subject both in your post and also in your comments. I always enjoy reading the comments as well as the posts of the blogs I follow; all be it not very often of late due to personal issues and commitments. Personally, when I follow someone’s blog, I do eventually read all their posts, and when I ‘Like’ them, I do genuinely mean that as I’m sure the majority of your readers do too.

    As for followers of my blog … I supposedly have the grand total of 302 which it’s taken me a whole four years to accumulate. Not much of a ‘fan-club’ really! I’d say, out of that 302, approximately half-a-dozen people read my blog, and if I’m lucky, I’ll get perhaps three likes and even fewer comments.When I do get round to writing, it’s often to get something off my chest or to express my personal thoughts and feelings (perhaps a little self-indulgent of me) and I guess, that’s not likely to connect with other people much or be a topic of interest to them. Nevertheless, I write as I do because I feel it’s my ‘private’ space (although my blog is actually open to the public) to use as I wish and that’s just about ok with me.

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. You’re certainly not alone in using your blog as a ‘private’ space open to the public. A blog is often a good way to, as you say, get something off your chest and at the same time it invites readers to comment / offer advice if that is the nature of the post, or for the writer to use that just to see what the reaction might be to their thoughts. Naturally, it will not appeal to everyone, and i would imagine different people comment on different posts.

      You might have 302 followers ‘signed up’ and only a half a dozen viewers on a regular basis, but I would imagine that suits you in a way, as your posts are personal as a rule, and so you would theoretically be getting readers that cared enough to connect on that level.

      And I always look forward to seeing you have visited my blog, Ellie.

      Liked by 1 person

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  29. Pingback: Writing Update – Mick Canning

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