Calculate the math.
What percentage of people who you network with follow you back?
1 out of every 2? Â Less?
For the sake of this post, letâs assume 50% of the people you network with follow your blog.
You would have to network with twice as many followers as you would want to subscribe to your blog.
Please consider this a follow-up to my recent post, How to Quickly Get 3,000 New Blog Followers.
My guest author Eric Schlehlein explained how he managed to get 3,052 new blog followers in less than eighteen months.
In order to get 3,000 new followers, if you have a 50% follow-back rate, you would have to network with 6,000 people.
If you are going to get 3,000 new blog followers, quickly or otherwise, you have to know where to find them. Â This post will tell you where to look.
According to A Good Blog is Hard to Findâs Jason Cushman,
Most of the blogging articles I see and read arenât great. They offer no real tips, are simple regurgitation of what other people are saying, and they offer very basic advice on how to network on social media. My conclusion is that these posts read as such because the bloggers generally have no idea what they are talking about.
I could spend an afternoon reading tips under the tags âblogging, SEO, and WordPressâ and feel fairly confident that I would have enough knowledge to share something new with the world. But what is the point? So often people write tips on blogging and they really have nothing to say⊠they just think they do. I will read lines like âit is always a good idea to interact and meet other bloggers,â but that will be it. Ok, thanks for the obvious tip, now tell me HOW to do that. Tell me WHERE to do that and tell me HOW OFTEN to do that. Specifics make or break an article and if you arenât going to get specific for us donât bother writing that junk.
Jason, your words have not fallen on deaf ears. Â Although the previous post this is based on explained how often to network, this article will explain exactly where to network in order to find the 3,000 blog followers.
13 Places You Can Find 3,000 New Blog Followers
- Meet and Greets.  Jason Cushman and Danny Ray have frequent Meet and Greets that attract many bloggers looking to meet new bloggers.  People actually go to  Meet and Greets just for this purpose.  Some months Jason has them weekly, Danny has them bimonthly, and I have monthly Meet and Greets.  (If you would like to participate, these are links to our recent Meet and Greets.)
Iâve seen them on many other blogs as well although with less consistency.  You can actually type â(Your niche) Blogger Meet and Greetâ into a search engine to find one in your blogging category.  It doesnât matter if itâs a few months old.  Those bloggers should still be happy you dropped by to network with them.
If itâs Monday, the Daily Post is holding their weekly blogging event.  Bloggers leave links to posts they desire feedback on.  By browsing the links, you can find like-minded bloggers like yourself. You can leave feedback and perhaps make a new blogging friend.
3. Facebook Groups
Go to Facebook.com.  In the search bar type your blogging niche.  In the entries that come up, look for the word âgroupâ.  If a closed group comes up, request to join.  If the group allows you to promote your link, do so.  Because the bloggers in the group are in your niche, they will get introduced to your blog and become potential new followers.
4. Reblogs
WordPress.com users are able to reblog posts they feel their readers would find interesting.  Jason and Danny frequently reblog other people.  They implore their readers to send links they want reblogged.  This is a great way to be introduced to new readers. For your purposes, you want to go into their blogs and introduce yourselves and network with them.
You will not only meet new bloggers, but you will meet the authors of the best articles of a certain time period.  Blogs generally hold weekly roundups monthly or weekly.
Go to a search engine and type (Your blogging niche) + Weekly Roundup. Â This is another way to find like-minded bloggers in your niche.
What began for me as a way to support my blogging friends who have linky parties turned into a great way for me to begin relationships with new bloggers.
7. Â Award Nomineees
If you hear of a blogger who has been nominated for the Liebster Award, the Dragons Loyalty Award, or another blogging award, go into their blog, congratulate them on their nomination, and introduce yourself.
8. External links
Have you noticed the external links in this post?
External links are to bloggers outside Mostly Blogging. Â Iâve linked to Danny, Jason, a blogger that wrote one of Dannyâs reblogs, and in my conclusion I link to Charles. Â I often have external links to sources when I use ideas gathered from their sites.
When you read posts of bloggers in your niche, if they have external links that sound interesting, click on them, and introduce yourselves to the authors of the posts.
You donât have to just network with the blogger who wrote the blog post you are reading. Â If you see an interesting comment on the post, check out the comment writerâs site.
10. People who click the like button on your site
Go into their blogs and thank them for visiting your site and liking your article.
11. The WordPress Reader
Since Eric Schlehlein wrote the post this article is based on, it seemed fitting to ask Eric where he got his 3,052 (by the end of the post) followers. Â According to Eric,
The WordPress âReaderâ allows you to save as many categories and tags as you wish. I have several specific tags I go to that generate a lot of interest for me⊠such as âHistorical Fiction,â âManuscript,â âQuery Letter,â âLiterary Agent,â and âShort Story.â I also peruse through tags that I have found a lot of bloggers use, such as âwriting,â âpoetry,â âlife,â âlove,â âpeople,â and âphotography.â I also peruse through âconferences,â âEMS,â âFirefighting,â âAmerican History,â âSarcasm,â âHumor,â âInspiration,â âRejection,â and âGratitude.â
12. Poets
Eric explained, âPoetry is a great category to search through, mainly because most postings in this category are short and easy to read in a short amount of time.â
13. PhotographersÂ
The same reasons as number 12 apply. Â Since photographs donât take long to look at, bloggers who are photographers are great people to network with. Â Since looking at their photo takes less time than reading a post, you save time by networking with photographers.
Conclusion
In my introduction, I cited Jason Cushman who criticized blogging articles that didnât offer an explanation of how or where to network. Â Hopefully, these ideas explained where to network. Â As far as how to network, in addition to introducing yourself, respond to their post. Â People like to know theyâve been understood. Â Let them know you read what they had to say in an analytical response.
In closing, consider a comment from a reader,
âŠI started reading random blogs in WP readersâ files. When I find an interesting blogger, I write in their comments section, âfollow themâ, and send a link of one of my posts, and ask for their views on it.Â
In conclusion, networking is valuable if you want new blog followers, but as my reader Charles observed, networking is fun as well. Â A two-for-one proposition, who can beat that?
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