I’m following several authors who have been talking about the likes/reblogs ratio which is really stressing me out because they’re RIGHT. For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, let me explain it to you.
When writers and artists post, we expect to get lots of likes and roughly -2 reblogs. When writers and artists post, we expect to get lots of likes and virtually no comments. When we post, we expect that people will take our work, read or look at it, eat it up, and give not even a thank you in return. And there’s something very wrong with that.
Yes, we create content for you all to enjoy. Yes, we create content because we enjoy doing it. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t want to feel recognized or appreciated. Everyone likes to feel appreciated, and we are no different. I feel like a lot of time we’re taken for granted and taken advantage of, and viewed as mindless robots that do nothing but create content all day. You’re wrong. We are human beings with real thoughts and emotions, and we want you to respond to our work.
Just leaving a like doesn’t do that. On tumblr, a like is the equivalent of a bookmark - it’s something you do so that you can find it later. It doesn’t spread it to other people, it’s just something for you. Which is why reblogging is so very important - it takes ten seconds, tops, to reblog something so that other people can see it. But hardly anyone ever does that.
You think I’m being ridiculous? Let’s do some math here. My most popular fic, by far, is Never Her, which has an impressive 3,677 notes. That’s a lot, right? Yeah. But here’s the thing: it could be more, if not for the pitiful amount of reblogs. Because of those 3,677 notes, only 310 of them are reblogs. 310. That’s nothing. To give you some perspective, only 8.4% of all those notes are reblogs.
That’s really discouraging. I spend hours writing and revising content for you, and you can’t take ten seconds to reblog? It makes me feel like your work is just mediocre - enough to like, but not enough to share it with others. That sucks. And if you think I’m exaggerating, why don’t you go off, spend hours of hard work writing or drawing something, and post it. Wait until you get some notes, see how many of them end up being reblogs, then get back to me and tell me how you feel. Let me guess - not great, right? Exactly.
So, tl;dr: the best thing you can do for content creators is reblog. It seems like hardly anyone ever does. Notes are great, but reblogs are amazing. And reblogs with a comment, even if it’s just something short like ‘Great!’ or ‘Fantastic job!’, are even better. It makes us, as creators, feel awesome and we’re more likely to push out content faster. So in the end, a win-win situation. Just something to think about.
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