Today’s discussion is about something that I do and do quite often with no shame about doing it at all. I remove followers regularly, if you follow my blog and have never commented on any single one of my posts, you will be removed. I don’t care about your reasoning for following my blog. I’ve said time and time again that I don’t care about how many followers I have, I don’t blog for followers I blog for the interaction and conversation. I’ve removed the same followers countless times, which I’m sure they’ve noticed. But maybe people will finally understand that if I remove you from following my blog, there’s reasoning behind it. If you follow my blog put in the effort to actually comment on my posts.
I know I haven’t been commenting on posts like I normally do, but I’ve been away from the blogging community for a little bit and I wrote a post detailing why. I’m slowly making my return, which means I’m going to start reading and commenting again. And speaking of reading, I’m getting back to that again too.
Inside My Minds 
The amount of likes/comments I get versus my follower account is way off!! I have no idea how to remove followers but I’l definitely look into it in the future. Glad to see you back, also!
I didn’t realize that you could remove followers from your own blog. I do stop following people who haven’t posted in months. Maybe they plan to come back one day, but I don’t know that and I’ve seen too many people disappear, so I just don’t see the point of having them in my reader. The same goes for people who pop up in my reader all the time with, “I’m back!” Well, I didn’t notice you were gone (three times), so I guess I don’t really follow your blog? So I might unfollow those blogs, as well.
On the other hand, I don’t mind people who follow and don’t comment. We can get 80 views on a post and have two comments on it. That doesn’t mean the other 68 people didn’t read it or didn’t enjoy it. I read tons of posts I don’t comment on either because I don’t have time or feel I have nothing valuable to say. That doesn’t mean I don’t regularly read and enjoy the blog, however! 🙂
Or sometimes I follow a blog because they did a few posts I liked, but then they just started posting stuff I’m not into, so I don’t look at it. But I guess I keep following in hopes that they’ll have those really great posts again. I don’t want to miss out because I stopped following!
Perhaps the people who keep following you back really do love your blog–hence why the keep trying to follow it–but have their own reasons for not commenting? They could even by shy!
I’m really not here for the followers, views or the likes, I’m here to have conversations and discussions with my followers.
I can see that. I think that most of us are blogging because we like interacting with others. We don’t change our blogs and do things we don’t enjoy just to add up the numbers.
I think that I may have a different perspective on this because of my pedagogical training. In teaching, we often assume that only students who speak are participating. However, if you have a class of, say, 20, maybe only 2 or 10% of them will speak. That doesn’t mean 90% are not participating. It means that they may be participating differently, perhaps by actively listening or taking notes. Unfortunately, the American school system at least still doesn’t really recognize silence as a potential form of participation.
Anyway, because of my research in this area, I am interested in the idea of followers who may by silently reading and processing our blogs, but who are not yet comfortable participating by speaking. I would want to know why they’re not speaking and what we might do to encourage them to speak. Obviously, however, it’s kind of difficult getting someone who doesn’t talk to you to explain why they aren’t talking to you. 😉
Of course, we all also have followers who just follow for a follow back or who follow for giveaways or who follow for reasons unknown to me. (Why is a video production company following me or someone who posts about video games? I have no idea and never will!)
Those followers confuse the living hell out of me.
I get your point, even though it did sound harsh when I first read the title, haha. I don’t really mind the ghost followers, simply because I have my periods of being one myself. Sometimes I’m simply not in the mood to like / comment – sorry world – and other times I just wordvomit every thought I have while reading a post.
Or I simply got nothing decent to say and just like it, haha.
We all have our ways of looking at and handling things; no shame in coming out and simply saying it!
[Adding: At first I had a quick tendency of following someone after reading one fun post; lately I’ve been checking blogs more thoroughly before deciding whether or not to follow them. Found out that one good post doesn’t mean I like more of their posts so following them just feels.. stupid then.]
Yeah, I don’t like ghost followers. If I was blogging for followers, it would be one thing, but I’m not here for that.
It’s your blog and it is definitely not something to feel ashamed about. I found that a lot of my early followers have not posted on their blogs in months and haven’t posted on mine either. It does get rather annoying when most of us do blog for the communication and book discussions!
It really does. I know life happens and stuff but keep your followers updated. Like my blog hasn’t been anything like it was in the beginning of the year but at least I’m putting some effort in to get it back on track.
Right. You have made an effort to come back and say “hey, here is whats going on.” I do look forward to your posts when things settle down for you! 🙂
Thank you!! I’m actually starting to plan my discussion post for Thursday and then I think I’m going to do a combined wrap-up for August and September.
Very awesome! Happy writing! ❤ Can’t wait to read them!
Thank you!!
I actually wasn’t aware that there was a way to remove followers. I do agree that there are a lot of people that just hit that follow button and then just disappear and are never heard from again. Very interesting thoughts, Ashley as always, and now I have to go and try and figure that dashboard out again since I’m apparently missing things. XD
Thank you!! I discovered it a few months ago and was very happy when I did. I know it might seem petty but I would rather have followers who interact and want to have conversation.
I’m big on comments too…but this sounds scary harsh lol. I rarely unfollow people but will maybe not subscribe to their posts (I get emails when people post and I try to visit when I can). I’ll usually only unfollow when it’s a blog that is not something I am into, like erotica books or something.
I know there are a lot of followers I’ve never heard from as I get the same people commenting over and over…or the same people liking my posts…but yet the follower count goes up.
Hell, it’s your blog so you should run it however you like! 😉
I haven’t unfollowed people in a while. I actually remove people who follow my blog.
Wait, I don’t understand…you remove people who follow your blog? Like me? I’m just trying to understand the process… 🤔
I hope it’s helped in getting more people who interact with your posts! ☺️
Yes. People who just follow my blog and never comment, ghost followers, and inactive blogs.
Ghost followers? I’ve never heard of those. And I didn’t know you could remove people who follow you…that’s pretty cool.
Yeah, I did a post a while back about ghost followers, I actually enjoy removing people. It does sound mean, but what’s the point in following my blog if you aren’t going to comment and engage in coversation?
True…I get behind all the time…I have been busy the last couple of months. I have so many blog posts that I try to read and comment on. I don’t ever auto-follow bc then there’s too many, but I try to keep dialogue going with my friends from blogs that are outside the blog world…like on Twitter. We talk outside of blogs so I try to interact here.
There are some blogs I just like to read, like the bigger bloggers. Sometimes I just don’t know what to say, lol. 🤷♀️ I know people can be shy, too.
But we all run our blogs however – I wish I had a better system!!
I’ve gotten behind too, I feel like I’m slowly starting to get caught up. I have blogs that are my favorites that I read all the time and try to comment on. It takes some time finding a system that truly 100% works.
You’re inspiring me to do that 😀 Idk if I’d actually spend all time doing it , but it’s awesome that you do it !
Thank you! It really doesn’t take as much time as you think.
This is interesting! I never heard of anyone doing this (at least not openly), and your reasoning makes sense. I would never go to the lengths of doing it, but I find your attitude towards blogging very refreshing. Personally, I always look forward to comments, and the comments have been the thing that kept me blogging for so long.
Thank you so much! So many people just blog for the followers, and not the interaction, but I feel that the interaction should always be priority over followers.
I agree. If you aren’t going to comment, why follow the blog in the first place
You’d be surprised by how many people actually do this.
This is so relatable Ashley! Honestly, ghost followers are pretty irritating so I completely understand. Most of us do follow blogs and blog in general for the conversation so I don’t get people that follow and never do anything. Really interesting post! Love it! 🙂
Thank you so much Heather!! I don’t understand the people who follow and don’t do anything either.
Same!!! Why follow me if you’re not going to interact? And I hate when people expect that I’m going to follow them back just because they follow me.
I also unfollow people who post things that are offensive or start arguments for no reason. I don’t have time for that nonsense
I hate that expectation too! It also annoys me when I remove followers and then they follow me back. I don’t have time for that nonsense either. People who do thinks like that take the enjoyment out of blogging.
I agree!
I’m just guessing here, but, since quite a few of the comments here admit that most of us didn’t realize you could remove followers from your own blog, do you think it’s possible that your followers keep following because they think there’s a weird glitch? (Even the comments that don’t say they didn’t know you could do this are assuming that you are talking about unfollowing OTHER blogs, not removing your own followers, suggesting that no one really knows this is a thing you can do). I suspect your followers are not trying to annoy you or waste your time, but just read and enjoy your blog. 🙂 They probably are very confused about why you keep disappearing from their feed!
I know several bloggers who admit that they have social anxiety and are afraid to comment on posts or even answer comments on theirs, so this could be something affecting your followers, as well. Of course, since they are not commenting, I guess we’ll never really know what’s going on their lives, however.
The followers that I’ve removed haven’t refollowed my blog.