Many moons ago, when I first started following blogs, I didn’t follow many at all – you could probably count them on the fingers of one hand (o.k., maybe two). Depending on how I came across them would depend how I ended up following them. So, if I had seen a link on Facebook, I followed them on Facebook, if I saw them on twitter, it was twitter and, if I came across them whilst randomly surfing the web, I usually subscribed by email, possibly following them on twitter and / or Facebook too.
Over time, the number of social media sites I signed up for grew, as did the number of ways I might follow someone (see Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram …). Then, as I started to blog myself and because I was using WordPress, I started following people through their Reader feature, occasionally automatically signing up for email following as well without necessarily meaning to but also never unsubscribing.
By now, my inbox was starting to get a little full, so I tried Bloglovin’ which kind of worked only I didn’t always remember to go on it for days. The same could be said for Facebook, which I am rubbish at, and Google+, which I got because I got a gmail account and rather randomly started following people through to.
As you can probably tell from my rambling paragraphs above, the way I follow blogs is pretty messy as well as confusing (at times) and time consuming at others – with me often seeing the same post two or three times in two or three different ways whilst at the same time completely missing other posts I wish I had read when I eventually happen to see them in an update post or someone else does me the favour of retweeting them and I realise what I was missing.
Recently, I tried to add up all the blogs I follow and I couldn’t keep track. It wasn’t necessarily a huge amount but so much duplication. Along the way I discovered blogs that no longer blogged and blogs I no longer read or comment on. So, I’ve decided to do something about it. Starting this week I am going to reform my messy ways and get a system in place that works for me. I did ask about what other people do on twitter but it seems there are as many ways as there are bloggers so (to quote Frank Sinatra) I’m going to have to do it my way.
My plan is to use Bloglovin’ as my primary following “tool” and stop using WordPress or Google+. Everything will be in one place and if I get the settings right I think I should be able to get alerts when people post, which is what I need. I’m going to go through each site and stop following anyone who hasn’t posted in six months (sorry!) and also stop following anyone whose site I haven’t visited in six months (sorry again!). The number should be much more manageable then and I’m less likely to miss things. For the blogs I just can’t miss I’ll use email too, just to be on the safe side till I know my system works.
Along the way, I’m going to use it as an excuse to make sure I’m following everyone on twitter and liking their pages on Facebook (if they have accounts); I might useless at Facebook but I do find it’s a good way to talk to people during challenges and things so I don’t want to get rid of it entirely and Twitter is such a good way of sharing people’s posts but I don’t always know their twitter names when I click on the icon on their post and if it doesn’t come up, I don’t end up tweeting it.
And that’s it, my plan of action. I hope it works – if it does, you might hear from me more (possibly not a good thing but sorry about that). What do you think – will it, or is it a flawed plan? What do you do that I might want to steal instead or do you have the same problems I do?
Emma
I am linking this post to Feed Your Fiction Addiction and It Starts at Midnight’s Discussion Challenge – clink on the button below to find out what other bloggers have had on their mind this month.
One Readers Thoughts 
I get how complex everything gets…I follow people on Bloglovin or by e-mail…but then there are the Twitter and FB follows, too….so it is hard to keep track. I have no idea how many people I follow, but when they are the ones I follow on Bloglovin and via e-mail, I always get a notification by e-mail. So far, so good.
Enjoy making sense of it all.
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I do like the blog loving daily email. That is why I thought I would try to use that as my primary. With WordPress reader you miss people who aren’t on WordPress and I hate that.
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I get email notifications for the blog posts I don’t want to miss and use these to RT on Twitter. While I might follow the same people on FB I tend not to comment/ post there as well. Maybe I should but I simply don’t have time. With regard to Twitter I don’t RT every blog notification. I try to stick with books/ genres I would also read so that my Twitter feed still reflects me (via someone else) if that makes sense. Social media is a great medium for meeting fellow bloggers and sharing, but it can start to take over. Do what suits you.
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I tend to tweet anything I comment on on a blog but also people I visit regularly even if on that post I don’t have anything to say. Facebook I rarely comment on but I’m using it more with challenges. I just can’t find the time like you say. If I could give up work it would be fine I’m sure!
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I need to do this myself, I follow a ton of blogs that I don’t actually look at and I am sure there are a lot that are no longer blogging. I need to take some time and do some weeding.
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When I’m looking at some these blogs I wonder when I followed and why. Weeding is a good word to describe what I need to do.
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I’m on self-hosted wordpress so the follow option isn’t there on my blog so I tend to use Bloglovin’ Twitter and Facebook. I’m pretty rubbish on Facebook but and use Bloglovin to read the blogs I follow and then share via Twitter. It can get ridiculously time consuming though!
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It’s the time that’s killing me. I feel I could spend all day going through the sights and still miss things.
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It does take up so much time. I think I’m quite glad I don’t have the follow me thing and bloglovin suits me along with Book Connectors on Facebook. Then I feel so guilty if I miss sharing someones post…
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I use Feedly and add blogs to follow through there, so I can go to that site and check what new posts are available. I can read some posts there or leave them unread for later, or click on them to read the whole thing.
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I tried Feedly but couldn’t get away with it. I probably didn’t give it long enough (often the case as I don’t like to read instructions)
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I use Bloglovin and like it the best. I don’t think there’s a perfect way to get to all the blogs I follow as often as I’d like but I feel like it gives me a fighting chance. I hope this works for you!
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I hope it works to. I cleared out WordPress reader this week which gives me a clear list to copy over. Fingers crossed.
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This is something that bothers me – there doesn’t seem to be a suitable tool that allows bloggers to follow folks and keeps track of their blogs reasonably. I think I should take some time and construct a schedule, but it is a question of time! Weeding probably would be a good start, though. I’ll be interested in how you get on. Do keep us updated.
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I agree. I feel like I’m making the best of a bad situation. I have started with my reader this week and already I feel a bit lighter. Now to get the ones I’ve kept following over to bloglovin, which decided it didn’t like me this week.
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We REALLY do need something effective like tootsuite for blogs, don’t we?
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If I knew how to do more than turn on a computer I would create one 😀
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Me, too:)
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I’ve tried to reform my blog following ways in the past as well. I mostly follow using Bloglovin’ and I created a list called “Active Followers” so that I can follow more closely the people who follow me closely—I figure, that way if I have limited time to check on blogs in Bloglovin’ I’m starting with the bloggers that I already have the most interaction with. It works for me, but lately I’ve been spotty about managing to keep up with Bloglovin’ at all. I find that I keep myself busy with visiting bloggers who comment and the Discussion Challenge!
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Oh that’s a good idea because I do feel bad when people comment or retweet my posts and then I miss theirs. It is so hard to keep up no matter what you do I think.
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I use Bloglovin’ also as my primary source of following blogs. I’m very happy with that system, although some posts do get lost because I follow so many blogs, but it seems to work well. My issue is sometimes I follow people on Twitter but then forget to follow them over on Bloglovin’. I read posts on Twitter, I don’t tend to comment though. Something I should work on I suppose. Hope the new system works well for you.
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I hope bloglovin works for me. This week I cleaned out WordPress reader and will transfer then next week. I read from Twitter but normally on my phone which isn’t as good as on a big screen,
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[…] Wednesday I wrote about Simplifying my blog following ways and how I have developed a plan for making sure I get to visit and read all my favourite blogs, […]
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I don’t follow blogs becasue I have a hard time keeping my inbox managable. I have a list of blogs that I like to visit because I like to chat with the blogger. I leave a comment, they reply and I sometimes reply back and that goes on LOL
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That’s not a bad idea. What if I lose the list though?
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haha! good point. That happens to me ALL the time. First I created I blog roll on my blog. I don’t have it now because I started a new blog but I think I know them by heart now. 🙂 See? I came back! So I’ll remember you now
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Sounds like you’re doing something similar to what I do! I used to follow through a hodge-podge of methods, but primarily relied on the wordpress reader. And since that was my primary go-to, I didn’t really follow any non-wordpress blogs (which is just SAD). So I Worked my way to “migrate” all of my subscriptions to Bloglovin’, and I find that it’s a really good tool to stay current, when I remember to go there. Periodically I go through these big blogging slumps, and then it gets somewhat unmanageable because you log back in to 1,000+ unread posts in your feed (talk about overwhelming). You can mark all as “read,” but what I typically do instead is use that as an opportunity to go through my follow-list. Since Bloglovin shows you the last couple dozen of posts or so per blog, I pretty liberally went through blog by blog and scanned for posts that I would actually READ (were I willing to put time into it). If any blogs had 0 posts that looked interesting to me pop up, I stopped following them. Some I know that I’ve happened to RE-follow them, and I figure they’re always re-discoverable! The “purge” helps keep me a little sane when I first come back after a longish time away from blogging.
~ Michelle @ FaerieFits
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I like that idea of regular purges. I have only just started…after three years and I don’t think I can wait that long for another. I have set some blogs I love to show me as soon as they post so I am hoping that will help. I am also hoping only having one place to go will mean I go more often and miss less…we’ll see. Thanks for stopping by.
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When I first started, I would follow blogs using Mozilla’s live bookmarks, but that got tiresome having to scroll though and hover over each blog in a giant list just to find which ones had new posts. So now I use Bloglovin’ as my method of following. I like it because it just updates with new posts every day, and I can scroll through and see all the posts without worrying about checking individual blogs or feeds or anything. Sometimes I wonder if it really shows me *every* post though, and it’s possible to miss posts sometimes, so there are still a few blogs (my favorites) I follow with live bookmarks and check regularly.
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I noticed you can comment through bloglovin now but haven’t tried it yet. I don’t follow that many blogs on it yet but it does seem to like letting me know about some more than others it seems.
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[…] I still have a ways to go as I have only done three of my goal of ten. I’ve written about Simplifying my blog following ways, Blogging rules (a.k.a. myths) I’m not very good at following, and yesterday’s Reading red […]
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