Losing followers.

Posted on by

puzzled

As a blogger, I always worry when I lose followers, even if it’s only a few.     For the past few weeks my number of followers has remained steady (and the number of visitors and views keeps going up, thanks to the search engines and continuing popularity of certain posts I wrote a while back), but this week I lost about 4 followers.  Today I have 1314 followers; a week ago I had 1318.

I don’t know who these followers were, and there could be any number of reasons why they’re not following me anymore, including something as impersonal as a WordPress glitch (it’s happened before; in fact it happened to me yesterday:  I had to re-follow Bluebird of Bitterness, who I never knowingly unfollowed).  They could also be spam accounts who unfollowed me.    But I worry just the same, and I always start fretting about what I might have said that may have offended someone.

But what sort of blog would this be if I never offended anyone?  A boring one, probably.   Of course I don’t intentionally try to offend,  but whenever you state an opinion, someone might disagree with you.   It really can’t be avoided.  My blog is so I don’t have to keep my opinions all to myself!   I probably didn’t offend anyone anyway, at least not enough for them to unfollow me,  and even if I did why I am so worried about four followers who I can’t even identify and might have been bogus accounts anyway?

ETA: Twenty minutes after posting this, I gained three followers. 🙂  I don’t know if they’re the same ones or not.

40 thoughts on “Losing followers.”

  1. Unfortunately I find that if I neglect to visit a follower for a period of time they will drop from my blog, I don’t know it they think I have lost interest in them or feel neglected. There are so many blogs that we all want to visit, it’s hard to keep up, but I am finding it is tit for tat…visit to be visited.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Eh, if I lose interest in a blog, it’s usually too much trouble to unfollow it, I’m following a ton of blogs I have probably never read. I can’t even keep track of who I follow anymore because there are too many.

      Liked by 1 person

  5. …plus….it is good for people to have a forum to vent whether it is you or a follower and it may be too much for someone who has walked that walk to “listen to” (read) someone else pour their heart out. It’s not a popularity contest or a testament to whether or not someone likes you or likes/dislikes what you say. It’s the same with any relationship, in/out, up/down. Sometimes people get out of it what they needed and just move on and that can be a good thing. Besides, you are doing this for you, right?

    Liked by 1 person

  8. I have to admit, if a blogger gets to the point where they have not posted in months – sometime I will un-follow. The only other reason that I would un-follow is if I begin to feel a disconnect between what the blogger writes and what I enjoy reading.

    Like

  9. What worries me is when bloggers I care about suddenly vanish. Their blogs are still there, but they have stopped posting, stopped replying to comments, and stopped liking my posts. Two bloggers in particular, who used to post almost every day, have gone completely silent. I had an email relationship with both of them, but now they no longer answer my emails. One of them, who called herself “bdlheart,” has been silent since last May. The other, “SleepingTiger,” previously known as “SaffireFalcon,” has been silent since the middle of December.

    I fear the worst. 😦

    Liked by 1 person

    • Linda, I do that too — when a blogger I’ve been following suddenly stops posting, without any explanation, I start to worry about him/her. Usually I don’t know the person’s real name, or even where they live in some cases, so there’s no easy way of finding out what became of them. I hope that they’re all right and that there’s a good reason why they stopped posting, but…

      Liked by 2 people

      • You’re right, Bluebird….when a commenter suddenly disappears, you begin to think something may have happened…and on the web, there’s no easy way to find out if they are okay or not, unless you have their email, and even then you don’t know for sure.

        Liked by 2 people

        • Great news!! SleepingTiger, formerly known as SafireFalcon, sent me an email. She isn’t blogging because she’s been going through a rough time. But she’s okay!!

          Like

      • It hurts, doesn’t it? The first person to follow my blog died a little over a year ago. She was a young woman, a brilliant writer. We talked a lot, back and forth, through comments. She posted frequently. Then she stopped. About a month later, some of the people who followed her blog and knew her in real life posted comments on her last post, saying that she had died. Heartbreaking. She was much too young, only in her twenties.

        After that, when someone stops posting and stops commenting, I fear the worst.

        I also try to tell other bloggers how much they mean to me while I still can. You are one I’ve told because you always make me smile. How awesome is that!? Please don’t fly away any time soon, dear bluebird. ❤

        Like

    • I’m sorry to hear that. 😦 It’s understandable offputting comments could run you off though. What sort of comments were they? (You don’t have to answer). Email me if you want (you can find it under contact me). Anything you tell me in private will stay private. I want everyone to feel welcome here.

      Liked by 1 person

  11. You’re doing great, Lucky — I’ve been blogging for five years and I have less than a third as many followers as you have! I’m not complaining, though… well, maybe I am complaining a little bit… but only just a little bit. 😉

    Liked by 2 people

  12. I stop following people if they haven’t blogged within say a 6 month mark, I find especially with mental health blogs they take a break and it might be a long one. Otherwise, people are free to come and go, While I mainly try and blog about mental health, sometimes, like at the moment I am on an even keel, which makes it difficult so I might blog about my son or pets, and some people who follow who are mainly interested in mental health may unfollow because of that.

    Liked by 1 person

    • I’m the same way, I don’t blog only about mental illness and mental health. When I started this blog, it was probably about 90% mental health, now it’s probably only 50% if that. I guess being interested in writing about other things is a good sign. I hope!
      I think most readers do appreciate the break but at this point I don’t know if I even focus enough on mental health to call it a mental health blog or just a general purpose one.

      Liked by 1 person

Comments are closed.