follower fever

How many followers should a blog have? Well, I've been thinking about that for quite a while now... See, many people say blogging is not all about followers, that only leaders need followers and all that jazz. Maybe blogging isn't all about followers, but it definitely is all about readers, isn't it? 

Let's face it: there is absolutely no reason for writing on a blog if nobody is reading you. Otherwise, you'd be just fine with a paperback diary or something. See, I'm a blogger and a blog reader. I love blogs in general and I have my favorite blogs' new posts delivered by RSS to my email account (which I check on a daily basis and makes the whole reading a lot less time consuming). And I try to comment on every nice post I bump into - that's because I want the author to know I was there. 

It is so awkward when my real life friends say: "Oh, and by the way, I always read your blog", which totally sounds like an apology for not doing it, not even once in some cases. Though I must admit I actually made them do it in the beginning (who hasn't? anyone? no? ok, then.. I'm sorry, friends!), now I understand they don't have to read my blog if they don't want to (yep, it took me some time to figure that out!). Then I realized most of my real life friends are not at all interested in my blog and that, maybe, I should simply focus on a different kind of audience: strangers. 

Making new online friends is the coolest thing! I really like to see Blogland as a huge party where communication flows and everybody has fun rather than a static place where you only go for a specific purpose and leave right away. A blog with no readers is like a party for one. It might be interesting at first if you have a hermit-like personality (not judging - I'm a lot like that sometimes), but c'mon... you'll eventually feel awkwardly isolated. 

I guess sometimes people say that the number of followers doesn't matter either because they already have a big blog or maybe they have just started one and they're too proud to admit they'd love it to grow. Maybe some are trying to encourage beginners to keep on writing no matter what, even if there's nobody to comment on your posts. The thing is: every blogger wants to know that people read what they publish. I guess it is that simple. 

So, let's go through the three basic ways of showing appreciation to a blogger here in Blogland: 

1. First and foremost, the nicest way of showing someone you like their blog is to follow it publicly. This is what we love the most! It's such a great encouragement for a blog owner to see one more follower there, to watch their own little community grow. I've read about that many times on many different blogs, so I guess I know what I'm talking about here. It has the power of lifting you up and it's the very best cure for blogger's block.

2. comments. Who doesn't like to read comments? Comments make Blogland go round and you know it! So, bloggers, let's try to leave a comment to all the posts we read, will ya?

3. e-mails. I got my very first personal email from a reader last week and I'm very, very happy about it! Sending a blogger an email is like… buying them a very nice gift. They'll love it, I'm sure they will. 

I am not teaching anybody anything and I am not a superblogger in any way. In fact, my blog is only about five months old. I just want you all to know that I care. I propose we celebrate a Blogger's Appreciation Week. How about that?

This blog's newest followers

PS. I'm thanking every new follower by either adding a link to their blog to my posts or placing their button on this blog's sidebar for as long as possible. :)