Because watching anime is time consuming, I occasionally publish posts on blogging between more anime centric material. I try to share the whenever I pick up any useful tips that could help other bloggers or when a lot of people seem to have similar worries, I’ll publish something to let them know they are not alone.
And along the way, I’ve been given a lot of advice on increasing my followers and/or views. I’ll let you in on the secret right now: apparently all you need to do is add the words “naked”, “sex” or “boobs” to your tags. I have in fact heard about these tricks in the past. You want views: put salacious tags. Cryptic titles that will make people click just to figure out what you’re talking about. Episode reviews that have the word watch or view somewhere in the post, so they come up when people are trying to watch the show online. Or carefully chosen and also excitingly tagged pictures. All of the above if possible.
For followers, the follow for follow exploit is usually the most commonly recommended. If you’re wondering why a health and wellness blog with thousands of followers is suddenly interested in your anime rants, you may have your answer there. Also creating multiple blogs that essentially do cross promotion can help you reach a wider audience.
All these tricks work quite well. In fact I hesitate to even call them tricks. They’re fairly legitimate marketing techniques. However, they’re not that suited to my needs.
First of all, my blog is only sexy if your definition of sexy is…well… not sexy. Anyone that stumbles onto it hoping to find some suitably “exciting” good times, is probably going to be very disappointed. Even with pretty much zero adult content on my blog, I still regularly seem to get searches for hentai and I feel sorry for these poor folks. I doubt they would ever come back.
As for increasing follower count. I’ve noticed something, generally speaking, people that are great at promoting their own site, aren’t that good at promoting others or reaching out to the community, with some notable exception (and we have no proof black magic isn’t involved). And that makes sense. Searching, discovering and liking new blogs regularly is very time consuming, as is not only writing your own posts but getting them noticed, publicizing them on several platforms, creating and maintaining an active social media presence. That leaves little to no time for reading, commenting and actively interacting with other bloggers. And vice versa.
For most of us, we need to strike a balance. For bloggers that are hoping to use their blog as a tool to further a writing or journalism career, focusing on the actual writing and quality of posts is the logical step. Other who are monetizing, follower count is very important. But I don’t fall into either of those categories.
Personally, I really love the interaction. The main goal of my blog is to discuss anime with others. I don’t particularly want to turn my blogging into a job.
As I write this post I realize it may not be clear what I’m on about (what else is new!). I started out trying to compile a sort of general guideline for how different people go about generating views and followers depending on their priorities, as it’s a question I’ve seen come up time and again. But thinking on my own experience, I realize that that’s not the post I want to write anymore. I’m going to write about us instead. About You and Me.
I’m almost at my 1 year anniversary and I have come to realize that my readers are the best. No I’m not just sucking up to you. I have proof.
I know that my numbers are decent. Not exceptional but nothing to be ashamed of either. I have not put in the same time and effort as other bloggers into making my site grow so I’m extremely grateful to have gotten to this point and I know for a fact that it’s in no small part due to the nurturing care that You, readers and bloggers, have offered me as a community.
My readers have regularly featured my posts on their own blogs without ever even thinking of asking for anything in exchange. They have tagged me in award posts or mentioned my blog to others. You have no idea what that means to me.
But beyond that, you guys are there.
Yeah, that doesn’t sound like the compliment I mean it to be. No matter how many views or likes I may or may not get, I regularly get conversations. Not only superficial comments but actual well thought out arguments, counterpoints, suggestions. You go out of your way to encourage me. You recommend things to me and so far, I’ve always loved them. You fill my comments section with fascinating analysis and constructive comebacks that make most posts I publish much more interesting than they would have been otherwise.
You joke around with me and playfully tease me and sometimes confuse the heck out of me. You regularly bring a smile to my face. You take the time to just stop by and say hello, and just like that the world is a little sunnier.
So forget the beginning of this post. I will stop pretending to know the secret of creating a huge blog. There are people much better suited than me to tell you how to do that. And I don’t even know how I got lucky enough to have you guys read my posts. All I know is that as far as I’m concerned, I’ve stumbled onto a nice spot that’s perfect for me, because I get to share it with some great folks.
