You can ask any of my fellow bloggers about the one thing that is vital for any blog and I am sure most of them would assure you that it is ‘blog engagement’. It is no news that we bloggers love making friends and look out for the approval from our peers in form of comments and follows.
When I decided I would stay on top of the blogs I love and follow, I promised myself that I would have meaningful engagement with my fellow bloggers, not just for namesake. But I confess, I didn’t realize how difficult it was gonna be, given the humongous number of blogs that I ended up liking.
For me following means reading all of their posts and commenting on them. The number of followers doesn’t matter for me as much as the number of responses I receive, in the form of participation in the discussion through comments, likes or shares. If you think like me, then you might like the bloggers comment junction. Now getting on to the topic at hand.
Earlier in one of my posts, I started a discussion on why I would follow a blog and what you can do to make your blog more appealing to your readers. This post is kinda its logical continuation where we will discuss how I follow these blogs, bookish or otherwise.
Depending upon the number of blogs that you are following regularly your method might vary. Keep doing what works for you, and if it works well share it with us in the comment section so that we can try it as well.
Keep yourslf updated in three ways
- Social Media
- Visiting your blog regularly for updates
- RSS feed subscription
Following your social media
While there are so many social media websites that help you follow a blog, not all are equal right? As a book blogger I have my profile on all these sites but when it comes to using them to keep myself updated with the happening in the book blogosphere the following are my favorites.
Twitter:
If you are a book lover, then there is no better place to waste spend your time than Twitter. As an obsessive book blog reader, I love the community and to top it all, I get to read about all their bookish / bloggish and personal stuff here.
Type of update I find: Rants, New Post updates with link, what you are reading – All in tweet length.
Facebook:
While I do have a profile I visit Facebook for personal usage and my feed is filled with bookish posts and updates. I like it that way.
Type of update I find: Funny Memes, New Post link
The only problem I have with Facebook is not many of the book bloggers I know and follow have a Facebook page for their blog and if they do, they do not update them regularly If your favorite bloggers are on Facebook then you should definitely give them a follow.
Instagram:
These image friendly sites are usually the fastest way to know what my favorite bloggers are upto. I use them only to stalk their book shelves and know about their book hauls. Once I start on #bookstagram I usually end up with some serious book envy.
Type of update I find: Book haul, book shelves, What you are reading – pretty book covers.
Visiting your blog regularly for updates
To know what is happening in a blogger’s life, the no-nonsense method is to visit their blog regularly. Of course. But if you happen to like more than say 3 blogs, you know you can’t keep visiting them to get th updates. And here are simpler ways that I use or used.
Email Subscription:
I am sure even friends who do not have a blog would know about subscribing to blogs via email. I had been blogging for years before I even understood, why everyone (read as all websites) wanted my email id and kept offering an opt in or freebie when I sign up.
I know many of my friends still have subscribed my blog through email because it is the most convenient to read the post directly from their inbox as and when they are published or as a weekly digest. Well, this worked for me before I turned a blogger.
Bookmarks:
I used to mark the sites that I wanted to revisit as a bookmark on my browser. Well, it worked until the number shot up for obvious reasons. Also I never remembered whether I had checked a site in a while or not, let alone leave a comment on them.
Spreadsheets:
When I was following about 25+ blogs I realized bookmarks may not work, especially when I was hoping to leave a comment on them regularly to boost engagement. You know, give and you shall receive has always worked for me.
I am a spreadsheet addict who uses it even to-do list, so no wonder I ran towards a spreadsheet to tackle this problem. This worked so well that I never even thought of looking for another solution. For a while.
My spreadsheet told me when I had to visit a blog and when I had left a comment recently. I almost had 35+ blogs on the list and religiously visited them for about six months, thanks to my sheet. Then something happened and that broke my system.
RSS based subscription
I moved to WordPress and my own domain, and shortly the number of bloggers I wanted to talk to, learn from and be friends with exploded. And that meant the end of my pathetic little system and I needed the big guns.
The Rich Site Summary AKA Really Simple Syndication AKA came in as a savior. After the closure of Google Reader I never found a good RSS reader and I had not looked hard enough. But now I had to find one.
WordPress subscription
Since I moved into WordPress, I tried using the default reader for sometime. While this did its work, but its feed works like Facebook. And I kept missing a lot of posts. Though I still look at it once in a while, I am not fully sold.
Feedly
I should start with I love Feedly and I use it almost everyday. Feedly is a subscription platform that help you read and follow blogs without much hassle. It is pretty much everything that Google reader was.
I organize the blogs that I have subscribed into smaller groups and I hop unto the latest post from the unread list. It lets to add specific posts to boards, which I love.
There are more features like integration to Zapier and IFTTT (another tool that I love) and social scheduling apps on the premium accounts, which I am not using.
Bloglovin’
Bloglovin’ is almost similar to Feedly. It also allows a blog owner to claim their blog and lets them flaunt the number of subscribers. A few websites even let us read their full content without leaving the Bloglovin’ website itself. Of course we have to hop to the blog / website to make a comment.
Bloglovin’ lets us even to categorize the blogs you follow into groups and even share them from the app. I know a lot of bloggers swear by Bloglovin’.
Yet I had no luck on it, until recently. Due to some technical glitches I had not been able to claim my blog and that put me off for a long time. Now their support team has sorted out but I am already in love with Feedly and I might not make a switch any sooner.
Now that you are here and thinking about following book blogs, start by following my blog and me right now
Blog | Bloglovin’ | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram |So what are your methods to keep yourself updated? Do you use Feedly or Bloglovin’? Which do you prefer? Are there any spreadsheet lovers like me? Let us chat.
I’ve recently started trying to get more organized about this since digging through emails is becoming an overwhelming task. I love your idea about the spreadsheet.
And, I’m loving feedly. Chrome has an extension for it and I use it regularly.
I am currently using WP Reader but your post has made me want to try Feedly. I feel like I’m missing posts with WP Reader and sometimes it refreshes itself and I have to go back and see what I missed. I hope Feedly is not like that.
I also needs lists and spreadsheets to get through life.
feedly is my go to as well! i love it so much 🙂
i wanna sign up to bloggers comment junction but i know im going away for two weeks so gonna wait till im back!!!
Have a good trip and you are welcome to join us when you get back.
As a blogger, I try and hit all forms of social media and have my blog represented on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram (although this one isn’t updated as often). To follow bloggers I primarily use Feedly because it is easier to keep up with them.
Wow, we almost share the same method. Yay!
Yep, I love following book bloggers on Twitter! Although I’m sure I miss a lot of tweets just because of the algorithms not showing me things :-/ And I too love Feedly for following blogs! Although I try to follow blogs I like on Bloglovin or WP too just to boost their stats 🙂 I just followed you on BL! I love how it lets me keep things so organized. I am a spreadsheet lover, just not for blog following lol. I use spreadsheets for all my other bookish/blogging stuff.
I do the same with Bloglovin and WP, to improve others’ stats. And I use spreadsheet for everything.
You are so organised! And I am not. Haha. I’ve reached a point where I just delete blog posts from my email that I don’t think I’ll read, just for my own sanity. I’m going on a holiday soon and I’m dreading the number of emails I’m going to come back to, but also now that I delete emails too, it helps.
I am definitely not all that organized. And that is why I have been looking for these tools to make things more manageable. I hate an overflowing inbox too.
I use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest, as my main social media to follow. I also have a subscribe button and Bloglovin button too. I was asked why I need so many, but it’s not that I need to more I like people to have a choice how they read our posts.
Yes, that is exactly why we need to have so many options available. I do the same.
I can’t agree more. I have a habit of following people who follow my blog. I used to read atleast one blog post a day and leave a comment but now the amount of blogs I follow has exploded and couldn’t read them as well. Thank you for introducing me to Bloglovin’ and Feedly. I’m going to try them and use the best out of both 🙂
You don’t have to use both Bloglovin’ and Feedly. They both do the same thing, more or less, you can just make do with either.
It is hard to keep up! But whatever way one does it, I think it’s important to set aside time to devote to it. That’s been a challenge but I am thankful for social media and commenting groups.
I have finally got into the habit of commenting weekly, without fail. Thanks to Feedly it is so much simpler.
Excellent post! Some great suggestions, too. 😊
Glad you like them.
Great post, I use bloglovin’ and wordpress mostly but I will have to check out feedly too!
I use all of them but I rely on Feedly much more.
Whenever I set up any platform to follow blogs on (like Feedly or any other app), I still notice that I stop even turning it on for a while. Because basically I have enough blog hopping to do by just following back the comments people left on my blog, and I can never catch up. Although it makes sense because I can only find time for blog hopping once a week. I should try and make it a daily thing for short amounts of time, but I’m just so exhausted from the computer every evening that I don’t end up doing it.
Although I’ve been loving Instagram lately! And I love Insta stories the best, because they can quickly update you on very recent things.
I also tried spreadsheets for a while, but just… It started feeling like work! That didn’t make me happy.
So now I just visit back the comments because that’s the only thing that makes sense at the time, cause I already have to do it anyway. Meh. If I had more time!! But, you know. If I had time to actually blog hop independently, I’d probably use Feedly too. It gives you such nice ways to organize! I don’t like Bloglovin’ though because it messes up almost everyone’s pictures and a lot of other things.
I can understand what you mean by Spreadsheets making it like work. It was tedious for me as well, but it worked.
I get most of my engagement from Twitter so I spend more of my time on there promoting my posts. I’ve tried Bloglovin but haven’t really put my best effort towards it.
Ya whatever works for you!
I’m not on feedly and blog lovin. Having found so many mentions in fellow bloggers posts, I would have to give it a try.
It will be definitely useful if you do blog hopping often.
I love Twitter for keeping up with bloggers between visits. Bloglovin’ is my preferred method of following. I’ve tried Feedly, but I was already so entrenched in Bloglovin’ that I never really shifted over. I know lots of people love it, though.
I understand that, cuz I feel the same way about Feedly. I was already too invested in Feedly to move over to Bloglovin’ anymore.
I’m really over the board with how I follow blogs! Some on email, some on social media, and some through the blogger platform (they let you add links).
I so understand. I used to be on Blogger and I clearly had no system. Things have improved now.
I have more or less backed away from the social media aspects as I wasn’t enjoying it and it wasn’t leaving me any time to read. But I am a very lazy blogger 😉
I totally respect your decision.
It is truly overwhelming and so hard to find the time to be a good, interactive blogger. I go in spurts, and I hate that! You have some good info to get more organized about it. Thanks!
I understand how easily this could turn overwhelming especially without a system.
I think I update my Twitter more
Pl do. I think it will be worth the effort.
Thanks for sharing the info. Feedly and blogivine are new to me
Let me know which works better for you.
I have a Facebook page but I don’t visit there much. My engagement is lowest there. I don’t think anyone even sees it, though I update it regularly with each post.
My favourite is Instagram though, not for blog posts but for a general engagement. I like Twitter too but it is too fast and I keep missing the important news.
As far as the reader is considered, I am yet to get used to Feedly though I use WordPress for now.
I agree with the least engagement on FB as well. I am sure you will love Feedly if you give it a chance.
Ooh nice one !
I personally hop onto Bloglovin’ first, if I wanna generally bloghop – as i’ll return my comments aswell whenever possible. I personally love their “adding to a feed” option, as it helps greatly for my BuJo post when I go and showcase some specific posts ! I can keep track of thoses ive “saved” in that folder throughout the month !
Then, i’ll take a peak at wordpress feed ; as not everyone have bloglovin’ (or i’ve found them all, rather).
Also may often use bookish twitter & tumblr.
That spreadsheet is such a good idea !! I just .. habit track if I did returned my comments or not on all days of the month ..
Now, emails subscriptions actually bothers me. yes, it is easy. However, I use the same email for everything, as as of right now – this is where I get my work related stuff. and idk, my phone is set to let me know whenever I get emails.. and such things tend to notify more often than necessary ? I so much more prefer to calmly browse the methods above.
Yes, I totally understand what you do. I have more or less discontinued all my email subscription except one or two.
I’ve actually given up on Facebook now, despite the fact I have a page, due to the algorithm they implemented not too long ago.
I am SUPER picky about Twitter though, since I’ve come across many people who would follow and then unfollow, so I’ve reserved my follows to those I REALLY enjoy talking to and talk to often or I find them interesting enough in the case they decide to pull the follow/unfollow game, it doesn’t hurt as much.
I actually don’t follow through email since it clutters my email inbox, haha. I do, however, stalk blogs on Twitter or other platforms when I can, but I think my blog hopping is those who end up commenting because I’m a super forgetful person. (I’M SORRY EVERYONE I KEEP FORGETTING TO FOLLOW SOME OF YOU.) >_>
I understand the frustrating follow/unfollow Twitter game and I have pretty much sorted that out by ignoring the follower count. And then religiously organized the ones I follow into lists, so that works well for me.
Email subscriptions are definitely my favourite way to follow a blog. That way I never miss a post! It irks (and surprises) me when blogs don’t offer subscribing via email as an option!
How do you even keep up with the unread mails in your inbox? You should help me out!
I check them daily? Haha. I will admit that I don’t read the whole of every post I receive in every email. I look at the title and if it interests me, then I’ll read it. So, I guess that helps? I did go through a time where (after my daughter was born) I fell out of the loop of blogging and checking emails and oh my I had sooo many unread emails! I, honestly, just went and batch deleted all the older emails once I was back into the swing of things.
If you even follow just 10 blogs, that would mean about 50 mails a week right? And if you miss one day, that would become such a huge back log right? Wow, I am astounded!
I use a mix of almost everything above! My favorite is twitter and email subscriptions. Keeping up on all this social media is hard, but somehow I’ve been making it work.
I have too much going on my inbox without the 100s mailers from the blogger. But I think I have yours subscribed.
It’s a lot of hard work, and I’ve been slacking a lot lately. Mostly because of things going on in my life. It’s great to hear you’re subscribed to my blog! 🙂
Do your best! That is all we can all do.
I started using feedly recently and it’s pretty good.
I do like the wordpress reader too though.
Email, not so much. I went on holiday in August, and while i travelled and then did a bit of sightseeing, i accumulated 135 unread emails. Just looking at that stressed me out to no end 😅
I totally get with what you say about emailers. I hate a cluttered inbox but now I have given up.