Pretend we are in a classroom, one with a big white board and the squiggly border on the holiday-themed bulletin board. You can choose if your desk is the kind with the pull up lid or the little cubby underneath it.
Now pretend that it’s story time. but I’m not telling you a story.
Instead, I am Teacher Stephanie gathering around my little non-blogging ducklings to teach them.
Grab your juice box and goldfish crackers because I want to teach y’all a little something about ways to subscribe/follow blogs.
First let’s sort these systems into two categories: blogger and blog. There are some platforms for blog-following that connect a reader with the BLOGGER more than the blog. These platforms include:
- Newsletters
- Snapchat
Most bloggers will link to their blogs from these various platforms, but will also use them as ways to share and promote other things they are interested in.
If you’re specifically interested in following just the blog posts, these are the best ways to do that:
- Bloglovin
Bloglovin is one of the most popular ways to follow blogs. Let’s say you love my blog and you also (naturally) love Susannah, Robyn, and Julie’s blogs. You can create an account on Bloglovin and follow all of our blogs. When you sign in, you can easily scroll through the feed of blogs you follow and catch up on blogs. You just have to get in the habit of remembering to check Bloglovin! - Facebook
Many bloggers have Facebook pages for our blogs where we share our blog posts. Here’s the thing. Facebook’s algorithms often work against Facebook pages (because they’re primarily used for businesses). After you “like” a Facebook page, take a minute to make sure you do this:
See where it says “All Off”? Switch that to “All On.” That means that when that blogger has posted something on Facebook, it will show up at the top of your feed. If you’re not doing that, Facebook is hiding the crap out of that blogger’s page. They have this algorithm that is set up to force pages into paying for ads so that people who already like their page can actually see their posts. Fight the system. Request the notifications. ps that super cute blogger is one of my good friends, Susannah.
- Subscribe by e-mail
Many bloggers have a “never miss a post” option where you can submit your e-mail address and receive a notification in your inbox when a new post goes live. - RSS feeds
According to Justen Martian, somehow you can follow blogs with RSS. I don’t really understand it and it seems really dumb to me, but if you want to know how this works give him a holler on Twitter.
If your friend has a blog and they’ve told you about it… they want you to follow them. They want you to be a part of their support team, their movement and their creative dreams. Take a minute and figure out the best way for you to do that – it will make more of a difference than you know.
Does this help at all? If you’re a blogger, feel free to share this with your friends so they have less of a reason to not follow you. and let me know if I forgot anything!
hey what a good group of bloggers you used as an example!!! 😉
This is fantastic! Also, thanks for the shoutout! <3
Great info, Steph! Bloglovin is my favorite way to keep up but I always wondered how non-bloggers followed along!