Q And A 003 Friday Follow (and why I don’t)

Question 003
Friday Follow (and why I don’t)
From Anonymous

“I first came to your blog as a "Friday Follow" person. I left you a comment and you responded with a smart aleck remark. What exactly is your problem with me, or Friday Follow?"
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I don’t know who you are, but based on your question, I’m pretty sure I can figure it out. If you are in fact who I think you are, I have one problem with you and another one with "FF."  In a nutshell, you “misrepresented” yourself to me, and I believe that for the most part, Friday Follow is nothing more than a gimmick to boost the number of followers a person has.

The first time I noticed “Friday Follow” I thought it looked pretty cool and signed up. Somebody (you?) who also signed up, came to my blog and commented; “Hi, I’m here from Friday follow! Follow me back!” I remarked to her/your comment, “thanks, I’ll check you out!” When I went to the blog I found out a few things.

• She had not “followed” me at all.
• She already followed 300 people and couldn’t follow me, even if she wanted to.
• This person had well over 900 followers.
• She averaged only about 20 comments per post.
• Next, I went to several other sites who also participated. Found a lot of the same thing.
• Three others actually did sign up at my blog. I liked one of them and follow her blog to this day.
• The other two have never left a single comment at my blog.

I’m just not that easy. If I like a blog I follow it. If I don’t, I’m never going back there. I know a few folks who participate in FF on a weekly basis; I like their blogs, so it doesn’t bother me at all. If they like to participate in FF, that's fine with me.

I don’t “expect” a blogger to follow me, just because I follow them. It goes the other way also. I like followers, but if they don’t ever comment, they probably aren’t reading what I post, so what’s the point?

Currently, I feel pretty good about who follows me. I’m happy to say that I get regular or semi-regular comments from about half my followers. They don’t all show up on blogger though. I get a lot of comments on Facebook, on Facebook messages, and email. I clearly spend as much time dealing with comments as I do “blogging.” But I’m fine with that. I feel like I know a lot of the people who follow my blog. I truly think I’d be friends with many of them in “real” life, if given the chance.

At least one person “caught on” to my feelings about FF, because they appear to have signed me up on a few occasions without me knowing about it. I know somebody else did it, because I didn’t.  I must admit, it's pretty funny...

Seriously, this isn’t a contest to see who can get the most followers.

Well, maybe it is to some folks...

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