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

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