9 Ways the Bandwagon Effect Will Make You Change the Way You Blog

By: | October 24, 2015 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

BandWagon Effect in Psychology Can Help BloggersAre you familiar with the Bandwagon Effect in psychology?

What if I told you that there was one way to increase all your stats–your comments, your page views, and your follower counts?

There is one way to do that which is based on psychology.

It’s called The Bandwagon Effect. Marketers use it all the time.

This post will tell you 9 ways to take advantage of it.

Simply put, the bandwagon effect is the label for “the phenomenon of a popular trend continuing to gain popularity”.*

According to Neil Patel, people like to simplify their decisions by trusting the crowd.  If a ton of people think something is good, it probably is.

You can use the bandwagon effect to increase all your blogging stats. Other blogging advice articles explain how to write quality posts and have an appealing blog in order to attract readers. This article assumes you have strong writing and an engaging site but not enough readers to engage with.

How to Get Visitors to Your Site Using the Bandwagon Effect

  1. Make a Facebook page for your blog, and invite everyone you know to like it. I have a Facebook page for my blog, but I never understood the appeal. In the year I’ve been blogging, I keep getting invitations to “like” bloggers’ Facebook fan pages. People who have businesses as well as blogs have pages for those things. People are sent invitations. In order to support their friend or relative, they agree to “like”. The result is the number of likes rises. If that many people like the blog, the readers think, it must be good, and blog traffic increases from the overflow onto the blog.
  2. Get followers from Pinterest. Most people will follow you back.  It will be a way for you to get your numbers up. How to Quintuple Your Page Views Using Pinterest explains how I successfully followed these instructions. My experience is not unique.
  3. Join Facebook groups. that will follow you across your social media and “like”your Facebook page. If you are looking to take advantage of the bandwagon effect by raising your numbers, I recommend the Grow Your Blog Facebook group.
  4. Join other Facebook groups. that will increase your comment count. Bloggers Rule SEO is designed for doing that. It focuses on increasing your search engine optimization as well.
  5. Join Follow to Follow Directories. According to Michael Rios, he and I are the only two people with Follow to Follow Directories. All you need do is request access to have an instant subscriber increase. Here is the link to Michael’s Follow to Follow Directory, and here is the link to my Follow to Follow Directory.
  6. Use Twitter. Neil Patel discusses the importance of asking people on Twitter to follow you. He reported a study which found that if you spell out the words “Please Retweet,” you are more likely to get your links shared on Twitter than any other Call to Action you could put in your link.
  7. WordPress.com bloggers should have publicize on. Then, their follower count will include all their social media, and the number will look inflated.
  8. Ask your readers to help share. Ask them to share your post at the end of the article.
  9. Ask your readers to comment. According to Neil Patel, “The truth is the hardest comments to get are the first few dozen. Once people see those, they are more eager to contribute their opinions as well.” End your post with a strong call to action. If you end with an open-ended question, people will not only engage with you, they might engage with each other. According to Patel, “If you have those initial 5-10 comments and also encourage new comments, you’d be surprised to see how quickly people will jump on the bandwagon.”

Conclusion: How to Capitalize on the Bandwagon effect

In conclusion, the greater the number of people who believe in something, the more credibility it seems to gain, whether it has any basis in fact or not.

A reader read my interview with 15 blogging experts. I asked them what characterizes blogs they follow. I thought my readers could put those characteristics into their blogs in order to get followers too. The reader astutely observed that the influencers only like successful blogs.

I hope you realize the Bandwagon Effect helps you make more sales. If people believe something is popular, they want it too, even for a cost.

By following the advice in this post, your blog will have such high numbers of followers and commenters, it will look successful. Then, once people are at your site and realize how helpful it is, it can actually be successful.

I realize the bandwagon effect is deceptive. However, if someone genuinely has a weak blog, even if people check it out due to the high numbers of comments, likes, and followers, they won’t stick around for very long anyway.

There is an applicable line from the song, I’m the Greatest Star from the musical Funny Girl.  The lyric goes, “I’m the greatest star; I am by far, but no one knows it.”

You know you write quality blog posts. If you follow the band wagon technique, people will flock to your articles and your blog, and then they can discover how beneficial your information really is.

Readers, if you feel the bandwagon technique is a good strategy for bloggers that can’t get attention to their blogs, please share.

What is your opinion? Do you feel the band wagon could help bloggers struggling to get their numbers up?  On the other hand, do you feel that because it “pads” the numbers, it is deceptive and want to avoid trying it?  I look forward to your views.

Related Post:

How to Quickly Get Comments on Your Blog

Sources:

Dictionary.com*

https://www.quicksprout.com/2015/10/19/6-psychological-principles-that-influence-reader-loyalty/

http://www.quicksprout.com/2015/10/23/get-more-out-of-facebook-12-effective-tactics-to-get-more-shares-and-likes/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email

www.sandboxadvisors.com/work-performance-management/biases-decisions

    • Melinda

      Hey Charles, how are you always the first commentor? I guess I need to be an earlier bird!!
      If Janice says it, take it to the bank!
      Great content as always, my BBFF!
      Melinda

      • Janice Wald

        Hi Melinda,
        What kind words, thank you! Your compliments are always so well-worded, too–they bring a smile to my face.
        Thanks for the creative compliments, reading what I wrote, and writing me this morning. Have a good weekend if I don’t see you. Taking care of baby?

        • Melinda

          My pleasure, my friend. I love reading you, it’s always so informative.
          You know it. I live to keep her every weekend!!
          Had a party for my youngest the morning. PP had so much fun, running around and screaming with the cousins! Now we’re both exhausted!!
          Talk to ya later.

  1. John Doe

    These 9 suggestions are fantastic. I love the one that WordPress uses the number for all social media. The expression goes “bodies bring bodies”. People love to try restaurants that are busy People read and follow others who have a large following. Jason Cushman is a perfect example.

    • Janice Wald

      True. He has over 55,000 followers! Funny, I was thinking of mentioning him in the post!

        • Janice Wald

          You had mentioned the use of publicize where WP shows all your combined followers. I miss it. I had it before I started self-hosting. It’s invaluable for bloggers who can show that number because of the bandwagon effect.

          • John doe

            That number is huge. The bandwagon effect as you stated is so so important

  2. Melinda

    If Janice says it, take it to the bank!
    Great content as always, my BBFF!
    Melinda

  3. Charles Rogers

    We the “Blogger’s First Responders” never sleep! 😉 charles

    • Janice Wald

      Hi,
      I know we are round-the-clockers! Melinda and I were once writing in the wee hours of the Florida morning where she lives. We don’t sleep. We blog!
      Thanks for the funny comments.
      Janice

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  5. Alana

    I admit I do take a peek at how many follows a particular blog has when I land on it for the first time. But, a lack of followers does not discourage me from checking out the post that brought me there. A great headline will get me to a blog, and your headline worked perfectly. There are also certain features that will drive me away from a blog, never to return, no matter how many followers it has.

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Alana,
      Great to see you. Thank you for visiting my blog.
      Thank you for your positive comments about my headline. I spend so much time at CoSchedule trying to get my headline score as high as I can. Thank you for letting me know it is time well-spent.
      I agree with you. There are some blogs with so many followers, yet I can’t understand the appeal.
      I don’t generally check out the follower count (okay sometimes) since self-hosted bloggers can’t have a grand total of all their social media followers. I think this inflates the count erroneously on WP.com blogs. Thanks for writing me.
      Janice

  6. Ellen Dolgen

    These are really helpful tips! It goes back to that old adage – everyone loves a winner.

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Ellen,
      I saw you over at FB today! When my daughter was a little girl, she had a friend with your last name. Seeing your name makes me think of him.
      Thank you for the compliments on my post. It is a shame that we almost have to trick people into checking out our blogs. Yet, I think that is the society we are living in, as you said.
      Janice

  7. Chris Hufnagel

    Excellent post! Absolutely love this technique. One of the best tips I have used from Neils site is to add “Please Re-tweet” to some of my tweets, it truly does work!

    It really is important to get those first few followers on social media. No one wants to be the first Facebook like or follower on Twitter, but if everyone else is doing it, why not!

    Chris

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Chris,
      I saw you at Ileane’s Basic Blog Tips. Thank you for clicking my link and coming over. I was so flattered that they included my Piktochart article in the post.
      Thank you for your compliments on my Bandwagon article. They mean a lot.
      Janice

    • Janice Wald

      My pleasure. Thank you for visiting me today. I just came from your site. I am using you as my tech guru.
      Janice

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Tech,
      Your follower count will look so much bigger, people will be more inclined to follow a blog that seems that much more successful. Thanks for writing me over the weekend. Let me know about the guest posting opportunity I offered you I think you’d be great for.
      Janice

        • Janice Wald

          HI,
          I saw, and responded to, your question. Was there an Email after that? I didn’t see one. I was wondering your topic and a deadline at the outside.
          Thanks.

  8. Anonymous

    [ Smiles ] Yes, those methods do work; especially the part about asking your readers share your blog posts.

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Renard,
      I still need to master how to get a Click to Tweet in a welcome Email. A friend sent me screenshots, I just have to find time to view them, LOL.
      I saw you over at Pinterest this weekend. Thank you for writing me today. Very nice to see you.
      Janice

  9. Maura Sweeney

    Funny how all things eventually come full circle — including the “Bandwagon” effect. Another helpful blog about blogging!

    • Janice Wald

      HI Maura,
      Thanks for visiting my site today and reading what I wrote. Do you mind if I ask what you mean by “full circle?” Thanks for the compliment on my article.
      Janice

  10. Leisel

    Oh great, now I’ve gone and joined two more FB groups. Janice, I’m blaming you for this one! (But hey, hopefully it works…) Thank you.

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Leisel,
      Facebook is my Number One referrer of traffic because of the Facebook groups I am a member of. Sometimes, I still get traffic the next day after I post my link in the group. Just be cognizant of any rules the groups have. Some let you post your link conditionally, some not at all, some unconditionally… Off to the right the rules are generally listed. Good luck. Keep me posted as to whether you enjoy them.
      Janice

  11. Joanne Corey

    I knew that my follower number at WordPress included my email, twitter, and Facebook page followers as well as my WordPress ones, but I didn’t realize that having Publicize turned on was what activated it. I noticed above that you were talking about OM. In a recent post comment, he and I were discussing that of his 55,000+ followers, 51,000 are on WordPress, which is a pretty amazing percentage.

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Joanne,
      Great to see you here. I was just at your blog yesterday, and I did go to Jay Dee’s as well.
      About OM! That is insane! And he works outside the home! How does he have the time for all this? Do you think because he blogs so much he has so many followers? When I started blogging more, I got more followers. Sometimes, he posts many times per day. I don’t have time for that. What do you think it is? The variety? His poetry, blogging articles, etc. I heard you should have a niche. What do you attribute 51,000 Email followers? Thanks for giving me your take on this.
      Janice

      • Joanne Corey

        Hi, Janice! Thanks for visiting Top of JC’s Mind and Jay Dee’s blog, as well..

        Just to clarify, OM has 51,000 WordPress (not email) followers. Some of the things that helped him to do that are: his one-third model (one-third of blogging time each for writing, commenting, and reading); that he sought out lots of new blogs to follow himself (which has been curtailed by new WP policies); he promoted a lot of bloggers on his site, especially new bloggers; for much of the time he was building up his numbers he worked a night job in IT that allowed him to blog some of the time he was at work; he posts often, but also keeps his posts in the reader by spinning or hand-holding them; he works very hard at commenting and responding to comments; and he is his own brand, in that the blog is very much about his viewpoint on life, or rather his blog persona.

  12. Anonymous

    Ah, these are some great tips that I really could use! Thank you so much for the ideas! 🙂

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