There’s been a lot of talk in writeblr recently (and for a while now) about the importance of interacting with other people’s posts beyond just dropping a like and keep scrolling, and while that is important for helping creators grow their reach, there are actually a few things you can do yourself that can also help.
*note: this is in no way meant to replace the conversation about interacting with others, nor is it meant to blame creators for not having reach because that sentiment is toxic and unproductive. Rather, it’s tips creators can choose to impliment or not in addition to the ask that people do more to interact.
Anyyywaayyy...
1) Tag your shit
Tumblr’s search algorithm works pretty much exclusively on tags (it’ll sometimes put things on your dash based on people you follow, but don’t rely on that). Basically, the more tags you put, the easier it is for people to stumble across.
The first five tags on your post will be the ones that will make your post show up in tags people follow (for example, if someone follows #writing advice and that tag is in your first five, it will show up in that person’s tracked tags). A general rule of thumb is to put popular tags in your first five. For writing, those might be (#writing, #writeblr, #spilled ink, #writing humor, #writing advice, etc). Which tags you choose will depend on the content of your post.
The first twenty tags (including the first five described above) will show up when you put something into the search bar. When it comes to these, do not hold back. The more tags you put, the more likely it is for someone to see it. Key think: make sure tags are relevant to your post. If you tag a post that’s an advice post about worldbuilding and tag it #writing memes, you’re not going to gain a lot of traction based off the tag because people will search that looking for -- you guessed it -- Writing memes!
All tags on your post will show up in the blog navigation search bar, so if you have specific tags for say, original posts or something, the place to put that is often after your original twenty tags if you have a lot.
Another important thing: tags on reblogs don’t show up EXCEPT within a specific person’s blog! This is to keep popular duplicates from showing up in the main search engine but it also means that if you don’t have any tags on your post, the only way it’s going to get passed around is through reblogs and we’ve all heard how that’s going.
(more tips below the break)
2) Reblog your own stuff
This is one that helped me a lot when I was getting started, though now I don’t do it as often. BUT it is seriously 100% okay to reblog your own stuff. Like with tagging, it helps with visibility, as it pulls it to the top of your dash, and it slaps it on all of your follower’s dashboards.
Similarly, if there’s a post you’re especially proud of, don’t be afraid to pin it (click on the three little dots in the top corner to get a dropdown with the option to pin your post). This won’t necessarily make it easier to stumble across, but it will be the first thing visitors to your blog will see.
3) Be consistant (depending on what style blog you run and its purpose, this one can be optional)
This is more aimed at increasing follower count than reblog count, but more followers usually means increased chance of reblogs, at least in some capacity.
People are frequently drawn to blogs because they are drawn to the content. People also frequently don’t reblog things they don’t like. Basically consistancy will help with visibility because people are more likely to engage in content they signed up for.
Personally, I have also found that having a regular posting schedule/clear hiaitus posts to be helpful as well so that people don’t assume you’re a dead blog. Your posting schedule, should you choose to impliment it, can be whatever you want (schedule post/queue makes it fairly easy to post on time), though I would recommend putting the schedule in your bio or somewhere where people can see that you have a posting schedule. With hiaitus, what I do that works for me is make a post saying I’m going on hiaitus for at least X time and that I will update on X date. I also put in the tags what date I posted it. This can help assure your audience that you’re not a dead blog, while still being able to take time away for yourself because PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOUR MENTAL HEALTH!
4) Interact with others and be a part of the community
Two reasons for this: a) you can’t expect others to interact with you if you don’t interact with them. b) the more you interact, the more likely it is for them to see you and possibly check out your blog.
Some ways to interact:
Comment
Reblog
Take part in tag games (no one’s going to get mad if you jump in without actually being tagged - go for it!)
Send people asks and take part in ask games
Ask to be put on taglists
If you’re posting content that involves taglists, let people know that they can join if they want - (they’ll get regular updates when you post, so they’re more likely to see your stuff)
5) Make your blog a nice place to be
I’m not talking about the aesthetic so much (though do what you think looks good), as I am talking about how you conduct yourself when you’re on your blog.
Some good things to do are:
Being friendly and respectful
Giving people the benifit of the doubt
Avoiding snarky responses or answers (sarcasm is okay, as long is it’s clear that it’s lighthearted and not intended to be hurtful or mean)
Avoiding posting or spreading offensive, harmful, or dehumanizing content
Avoiding pointless or toxic drama
Basically, once people associate you as not a nice person, or not someone they want to interact with, they won’t interact with you (except sometimes to antagonize), and you are probably never going to win them back. So if you have to take out your frustration, do it away from your blog, and preferably somewhere that isn’t public because a) no one likes that, and b) it will never make you look good.
But say you do mess up - you realize you’ve hurt somebody without meaning to, or you’ve done something that just wasn’t okay. Then what?
Apologize. If you’re realizing what you did on your own, make a post explaining
that you’re sorry for what you did
you understand why it’s hurtful (explain the why)
what your intentions were (if that’s relevant, sometimes it’s not)
that you recognize that your intentions and what happened did not match
if there is something to do to fix what was done beyond apologizing, explain what you will do.
If someone else called you out on it, do the same thing as you did above, and also remember not to get super defensive. If you believe you were not in the wrong, do a bit of research before responding - you may have crossed a line you didn’t know existed. If you do that research and you still believe that they’re wrong, do not attack them, and PLEASE be civil with your response. Otherwise you’re going to get swept up into petty drama with a lot of big feelings involved and that never ends well.
Remember - apologies are not meant to be ways to get attention, and you should not do the whole “wo is me” gig - it undermines the whole point. Instead, it’s about recognising that you messed up, and doing what you can to make repairs.
6) Celebrate your wins
Maybe one of your posts did really well, or you get to a certain follower count - don’t be afraid to celebrate!
This can be something like a post saying “I just reached x-milestone, I’m so excited!”
Or you can do something special. For example, when I got to a follower milestone, I did a bonus post every day for the week.
Remember that it’s not about “we have to get to x-milestone in order to do the thing,” but it’s “hey we did the think that’s awesome!”
I know this post got long, so I appreciate that you’ve stuck with me this far - I hope you have a wonderful day :)
Will Twitter Stop Counting Your Followers with the Dream Metric?
Since the beginning of Twitter, success has been measured by followers. Whether or not this was the most effective way to measure how popular people or brands were, it fell into place partly to reflect the way Facebook success was measured. However, the two platforms are vastly different, so this measurement might not be entirely correct. If your company has hundreds of followers, do you really know how many of them are actively reading your tweets? According to recent inquiries into the matter, not many of them.
There are half a billion accounts on Twitter. Ideally for your brand, this would mean that a half a billion people are signing into the site every day and reading their Twitter feed. Instead, there are only 140 million users signing in on a regular basis, and most of the half a billion users created an account and forgot about it.
So, is counting your followers really a logical way to measure your success on Twitter? Definitely not, and Twitter co-founder Ev Williams is trying to brainstorm ways to do it better. He suggested the dream metric, which is a measurement of how many people really see your Tweet. This is a great idea in theory, but how is that number even measured? Twitter doesn’t have the ability to measure the number of viewers for each Tweet, so other calculations will have to be used to arrive at this number.
Soon enough, the number of followers for your personal or your company’s Twitter won’t matter. Though no decision has been reached on what will matter, the following options are being tossed around at the Twitter headquarters:
Only Real Followers Counted
Though this is an obvious solution, it’s a tough one to swallow. Last year, Newt Gingrich was accused of getting fake followers in order to make himself seem more popular on Twitter. He battled these rumors successfully, and there was really no way to prove it either way. Followers are followers, and whether or not they were fake was not immediately obvious to fellow users. If Twitter suddenly changed up the game and only included active users in your followers, your numbers would drop significantly. Lady Gaga and Obama’s followers would drop by 70%.If you own a small company, you might have barely any followers left by the end of the switch.
This might be an easy way to see how many people really read your Tweets and are actively involved with your brand on the site, but it’s such a huge switch that many Twitter users would be devastated. And, since there is nothing to compare these new numbers to, popularity would suddenly be impossible to gauge. Twitter might lose hundreds of users this way, and their goal is certainly not to bring the company down in flames. This is an option, but will be avoided if possible.
Measure Success in Retweets
This option actually makes a little bit more sense. Instead of drastically altering the number of followers on each Twitter account, the founders could add a second metric, Williams’ “dream metric”, to display how many times a users’ posts were retweeted. So, if Lady Gaga tweets something and it is retweeted 100,000 times, that is an accurate way to see how many people read the original. If your company tweeted and it was retweeted 10 times, the popularity comparison is accurate. Sure, it’s sad, but 10,000 more people care about Lady Gaga than your company. Whether you like it or not, it’s an accurate measure of success and a good way to compare overall popularity.
Again, this metric of measurement is accurate, but there’s another problem with it. Already, people say things like “RT if you like this” in the tweets as a way of asking people to retweet their thoughts. This is annoying now, and it will only get worse with the dream metric. People will begin posting for retweets instead of fans, and Twitter could lose thousands of followers fed up with the new popularity contest. The Twitter feed could become downright unreadable with cries for attention and irrelevant promotions.
A Combination of the Two
Instead of moving to an entirely new system, Twitter does have the option to integrate these two new methods of measurement and combine it with the current follower count. Users and companies could keep their original follower count, which would include both active and inactive users, but could hide this number from the main page. That way, followers wouldn’t use it to determine the success of other users. In other words, hiding the followers would wean Twitter users off of their reliance on total followers as a measurement of success. They could also put it next to the number of active followers. However, it would be too easy to do the math, and it would be almost more embarrassing than only showing your active users.
In addition to being an embarrassment, combining all three measurement metrics on a person or company’s Twitter page would start to make it look like a math problem. There would be too many totals, and people would only need to do simple math to see the flaws in the measurements of popularity that people are using.
While no one can predict just what Twitter will do to make the measurement of success more accurate, one thing is for sure. Your total number of followers might become irrelevant soon enough. There are benefits to this though, as you can begin making more accurate goals and your Twitter follower count will be on a more fair and even playing ground. Though none of the above solutions completely solve the problem, Twitter will need to find an appropriate one soon, as people are starting to see through the number of followers. Depending on how popular your brand or company is in real life, the change will either help or hurt your overall success and popularity on Twitter.
