Blogging- Where are you all, my silent friends?

Blogging, Sadje's View

When I started to blog, gradually the number of my followers grew. It is an exciting process, especially if one is new to the blogging world. But the thing that I learned to value the most, as most of the others here in this world, were the comments. They give real meaning to our writing.

As my following grew the number of comments also grew. But a not so surprising phenomenon also occurred at this time. I say not so surprising as I heard other bloggers write about it. As the number of likes increased, the people commenting on my post did not grow in the same proportion. In fact, the new people who followed seldom comment.

The bloggers who comment on my posts remain almost the same. They are the ones who are supportive and genuinely interested in my writing.

But what about the rest?

Why are these new friends so silent and hesitant to share their opinions?

I know that this is not just my issue but I would love to know where these 1600-1700 people are who follow my blog. Why do they bother following the blog if they neither like nor comment on my posts? And lastly, why would they want to follow without interacting?

The maximum number of likes I have ever gotten on any of my posts is still less than a hundred.

Who will solve this mystery?

Can anyone enlighten me!

#Keepitalive

#Blogging

Published by Sadje

I am writing to express my opinion, share my experiences and to maybe provide some insight. My blog is addressing women at 50 ( but men are welcome to read my posts) ,their issues and the questions that come up at this stage in life. I don’t aim to teach, but to learn together.

Published

87 thoughts on “Blogging- Where are you all, my silent friends?”

  2. The stats thing is an enigma. My followers have certainly grown, but many are commercial sites which have little if any interest in what I write. In fact their sites are nothing to do with what I write about anyway, but if I delete them, they only refollow.
    I have my regulars who I love to hear from and a few newbies comment occasionally which is also nice. It is the comments that matter more than likes or views, though if those are quite generous, that gives me a good feel good factor for the day. 🙂

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  3. This is happening when the number of followers increases. Some blog rarely. Some stop blogging. According to WP 95% of blogs open in one year fail. Even successful bloggers quit. So the number of followers is, to a large extent, deceiving. That may partially answer your question.

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  4. As you know, I enjoy the give and take of reading and commenting and know it goes both ways. I think some people just follow and don’t even read or may not have much time to comment. I just take it as part of the process. Thanks for our exchanges)

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    1. Like you I think it’s the best aspect of blogging the interaction between the bloggers. Some people just follow and are never seen. I guess one shouldn’t complain too much as I can boast of having 1700 plus followers!

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  5. On social media sites approximately 1% of posts are liked, about 1% of people who like a post will comment on it. That’s human nature. The only way to increase the number of comments is to write a post about no comment or give something away to every person who leaves a comment, however, if you believe every person who read your post thought about it, you win.

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  6. I think some people start a blog and then become to busy or just lose interest. I helped a friend of mine set up a blog a while ago. She liked a few posts and about ten other bloggers followed her (she had not even published a post yet!) I think some bloggers are perhaps very prolific with their LIKES and FOLLOWS and sadly, it often doesn’t mean much.

    There is a steady group of bloggers who publish regularly, read and like the posts of the bloggers they have chosen to follow because they like them and their posts…and as far as I am concerned, that is a lovely community I want to continue to support and appreciate. I am not too worried about the once in a millenium bloggers. 😀

    Having said that…I find it hard to comment as often as I would like. Some evenings read and like is all I can cope with. But when i have time….I love commenting.

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    1. Sometimes life becomes too hectic and we don’t find time to comment and that’s okay. But when one never heard a peep from these new people following you, one becomes curious!

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  7. I hope I have commented here before 🙂 I know I’ve “liked” a lot… A lot of people follow because they go by the philosophy that the more blogs you follow, the more bloggers will follow you. Others with better intentions, but too little time (i occasionally do this, follow a blog that looks good, but then rarely visit it afterwards.) Some drop out of blogging, or out of your circle. But it is strange how many people follow a blog that never like or comment afterwards. And I like “BrendanDunne”s comment about it 😉

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  10. I’ve never trusted the stats. I figure the people who matter are visible and vocal, supportive and real. Those who lurk (and I lurk on a fair number of blogs I follow) may or may not be actual bloggers, but could be someone who just passed by and liked what they saw, but were transitory in nature. That’s a very impressive number of followers. Good for you!

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  12. This is a questions that boggles me as well.
    First, I am so tickled pink that I have such wonderful, funny, kind, and down to earth followers. They are the diehard ones that you love to read, follow, heck… become very good freinds with. (Example, us). LOL!
    Second… As my followers hav grown (esecially over the last year), I have noticed these new followers don’t comment and if they do, it is so few and far between.
    If I had to take an educated guess, I would say out of the 3K followers that follow me… Maybe 1/4 of them really follow.
    I think it comes down to key words in the process of “Tags” whatever we put out, is what is received. I could be wrong, but I’ve noticed if I place a new “Tag” word in, I end up with at least two new followers.
    They will follow, and I never see them again.????? What do they gain from following someone that they are indeed not actually following?
    I don’t get it either, but I really think it has a lot to do with “Tag” words.

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    1. I am also very grateful for the friends I have made here! A very precious gift indeed of camaraderie that I have been given. The tag idea is very interesting ! I will see if that is the cause. ❤️🌹

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  13. I think a lot of it is a numbers game, like on other social media sites. They follow you hoping for a follow back so they can have a high number of followers.
    I’d have to look to see how many followers I have. I honestly dont know. I DO know who reads my blog. Those are the people that matter. It’s nice to have new people find something interesting in my writing and it’s even better to find new Blogging Buddies!

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    1. Good distinction, those who follow vs those who read. We actually should consider only those who read as our friends and followers ( though followers sounds like a cult or something!😜 ).

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  16. I agree Trent and King Ben. A lot of people follow for followers not because they are interested in reading. They like everything in their reader, but never really real the posts. I say I’d rather have three readers than 1000 followers, and I have a few more than that like you who read and comment every day, so I am ever so content.

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    1. That, I think is the answer. People follow us so that we follow back. Well I have such good friends here with whom I interact daily, that I seriously cannot go out and follow everyone who follows me. I won’t have time to read their blog.

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  17. Oh I am one of the people who fail to comment, why? well partly because whenever I am on a blog with lots of followers and lots of comments already, I often feel like my thoughts have already been expressed by someone else in the comments and the other reason is that I feel that the person might not want to keep reading so many comments especially if I am not able to add anything really new. But I will take the time to comment from now on.

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  18. I’ve noticed the silent followers too. Plus there are always more views than either likes or comments, so I suspect it may be a simple case of ‘filtering’. We all do searches for info and land on strange [as in unfamiliar] blog posts. If something about those posts appeals, we may hit the like button. If we really like the post, we may follow the blog, but that’s usually in relation to whatever it is that brought us to that blog in the first place. If subsequent posts aren’t of interest we may not visit again. Or, if we start to find more and more things to like about a particular blog we may start to comment. Eventually we become ‘regulars’, which is just another way of saying ‘friends’.
    The exact process involved in filtering is probably more complicated, but the end result seems to be that like-minded people find each other. It’s one of the best things about blogging, imho. 🙂

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  20. This was so relatable! Everyone’s already explained it much better than me above, but I’ve grown out of worrying about the numbers game compared to when I first started. The total audience participation in my writing (your wonderful self included 🙂 ) still stays fairly low – maybe 15-20 people (if that?) who consistently enjoy what I’m writing and leave meaningful comments. I’d much rather have this smaller but more engaged audience whom I can learn how to improve my writing from.

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  21. Just an FYI, Sadje. I often don’t get around to reading other blogger’s posts until nighttime. When I read their posts and the comments, if what I would have commented has already been said by another blogger, I typically will not repeat that in my own comment. This blog already had 50 comments by the time I started reading it and, given what others have already commented, there’s really nothing I have to add. That may be why I don’t post comments on your posts that often.

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    1. Thanks Fandango! I get that. It’s often how I feel too. But I was talking about those invisible people that follow me and I am sure you and a lot of other bloggers who seldom if ever make an appearance.

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      1. Based upon the number of followers I have and the number of daily views I get, only around 15-20% of my followers actually read my posts on a daily basis. And of those, an even smaller percentage like my posts, and I get only half as many comments, on average, as I get likes.

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        1. Same here. I think the answer lies in these comments. The most likely that I think is that people follow so that we follow back. And if I would follow, read and comment, they may do so too.

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  22. I follow a lot of blogs, but then never see or hear from them again. I think it’s because I only use email notifications and not the reader. Most blogs, if they have a follow button, but it’s not for emails, then they never show up for me. Then, I can’t remember who I followed, even though I thought I’d like to read their posts. Well, if any of this makes sense – I can’t continue to like or comment on theirs posts, because I never see them. 🙂

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  23. I have the same experience, Sadje. I think there are probably a bunch of reasons. When I first started blogging, I was clueless and didn’t understand the importance of comments in building relationships. It took me a while to learn that important (and obvious) concept. But I also think that some people don’t care about creating online friendships – they’re happy trading “likes” or they really just want a place to record their writing. And then there’s that persistent problem of TIME. There is only so much time and it would be impossible to leave comments everywhere. We gravitate toward some blogs, away from others, and have to prioritize. It’s all good. Happy Blogging!

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  25. What I feel like is that for most bloggers, the initial measure of success is the number of followers. That seems like a concrete measure of how successful we are. So, those people might follow you in the hope of being followed back. But later, some change the measure of success to interaction. Some may drop out of blogging. Some may still be interested in numbers. My observation is that either one of the first two happens.

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  26. I find when I get behind I will sometimes only like and not comment as much, but I read everything and only like what I like. I do agree with Fandango… it can get repetitive see the same comments from five people so I sometime don’t have anything new to contribute. Good questions Sadje!

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  27. Perhaps some of the bloggers,
    who themselves have multiple
    followers, have become too
    WordPress time poor. Yet still
    wish to acknowledge and
    encourage the efforts of others?
    As for myself, I am very shy 😎
    And being a gentleman, often
    will not speak till I’m spoken to.

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  28. Thank you very much for this interesting and challenging post, I totally agree with you! I find that the joy of writing is through the interaction and encouragement of others, often through the comments. I have recently published an article on my blog talking about this and how it impacts my love of blogging. If you have the time, It would be great if you could check out my post as I would be really interested to hear your thoughts! Thanks 🙂

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  29. I’m not receiving any notifications of your posts. I have learned that in some cases this is due a disjunction of some bloggers using an external platform to WP like weebly or other and it interferes with the feed or even liking posts. I have also learned that some sites are inexplicably excluded from feeds but can be filtered into notifications so I will try to do that with yours. Strange world the net.

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