A Few Reasons I WON'T Follow You Back During A Blog Hop

If you've ever seen my linky in a blog hop, you know that I always use to put (Follows Back) next to my name. However, I feel that I should let you in on a secret. There are a few major exceptions to my (Follows Back) statement. If you commit these blog hop faux pas, you may want to consider drastically changing how you participate in blog hops. If not, you're going to find that making true bloggy friends is not quite as easy as it could be.

Let me start this off by saying I typically love blog hops. It's a great way to network and meet some pretty amazing friends. Especially when you make the effort to get to know the person. Whenever I join a blog hop, I make it my personal mission to actually visits blogs.  I'm not kidding when I say I like to get to know a person. I tend to make myself at home on a blog for a while and peruse a nice bit of content before hitting that little follow button.

I also make RELEVANT comments on your posts. You see, the way I figure, if you took the time out of your day to post, then I owe it to you to actually read your post before commenting. What I do not do, what I will NEVER do, is go straight to your first post, and without ever having actually read your post, leave a generic message such as "Hi there, just stopping in from the blog hop. New follower. Be sure to follow me back at www.desperatetoincreasefollowers.com. Looking forward to getting to know you."

Seriously???

You might as well have just written "Hi there I'm super excited to increase my follower count by any means necessary. Oh, and by the way, I don't care about you or your blog, but be sure to follow me, read my posts, and comment daily. XOXO"

Today's word of the day is rude. I have taken the liberty to highlight the most appropriate definition for this situation.

The second reason I will NOT follow you back, is something I have begun referring to as the follow-dump method. If you follow my blog, with the express purpose of getting me to follow you back, and as soon as I do, you decide to unfriend me, that is basically the equivalent of slapping me in the face. I can attest from personal experience that I do not like to be slapped in the face. Please don't do it.

Another common variation of this is joining a blog for a few days, and then unfollowing the person when you find that they have not reciprocated your follow within a timely manner. People are somewhat busy little creatures. It is quite possible that they don't sit in front of their computer for hours, anxiously watching to see in their follower count has changed. Be patient. It pays off in the end.

So to the girl who followed me from the GFC hop last week, and left that generic comment on my sponsors guest post (which was a really great post by the way) and then unfollowed me a few days later because I hadn't reciprocated, there's a reason I did not follow back. I saw your comment, I even visited your page for a while. It's a shame, had you even pretended to take a general interest in my blog, I would have loved taking the time to truly get to know you.

To me, blogging is seriously not a popularity contest. I wasn't popular in high school, and I certainly have no illusions that the blog-o-verse will be any different. Sure, it's great to have a nice amount of followers. But at the end of the day, having 2000 followers means nothing if they don't interact with you and vice-versa.

Here endth the lesson.

      XOXO Reese