“Invites You To Follow…”

~ beetleypete

One feature available on WordPress is that a blogger can ‘Invite you to follow’ their blog. During the past ten years of blogging, I have received an ‘Invite to follow’ email on more than sixty occasions. The latest one appeared on Sunday evening.

To this date, I have NEVER followed a single blogger who sent me an invitation asking me to follow their blog.

I might be ‘old school’, (and occasionally grumpy) but to me that is somewhere between begging, and bad manners. The bloggers I follow work hard to create good content. Most of them also follow my own blog, but not all. They write about things I want to read, publish photos I want to look at, or just ooze the kind of personality and character that makes them irresistible to follow.

Not one of them, to my knowledge, has ever emailed a complete stranger asking them to follow their blog.

Blogging is a community exercise. We look after each other, care about each other, comment on posts, make suggestions, offer useful links. We share experiences, whatever our differences of age, location, politics, or beliefs.

A good blogger DOES NOT email someone out of the blue, and ask that person to follow their blog.

So if anyone else is thinking of asking me to follow their blog by sending me an unsolicited WordPress email, I have two words for you. (In bold type.)

DON’T BOTHER.

53 thoughts on ““Invites You To Follow…””

    1. The latest one was a ‘property consultant’ in Arizona. Maybe he wanted to sell me a patch of desert that he didn’t even own? They just churn these out without even bothering to notice where the blogger is based. Then there are the religious ones of course.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  5. I’ve started getting “follow my blog” (demands, not invitations). They now got straight into spam. It’s taken a few years, but I’ve finally gotten over the politeness my parents drilled into me when I was a child. Rudeness begets rudeness.

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  7. I think the fellow FR asked for a quote changed his strategy for he liked one of my posts and when I went to see what he was blogging about, which I o when someone likes a post of mine, I discovered he was simply selling blinds for windows in Australia. Warmest regards, Ed

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  17. Invites don’t work for me either, I wouldn’t send them, and I’m not moved to respond to them. I value real connection and genuine interest and diluting that can only devalue blogging. I suspect I am also old school and possibly (probably!) prone to a tough of grumpiness. But rightly so!

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  18. I can’t remember if I have gotten “invites” like these – certainly not over the last few years here. (which is fine). I DID get something similar on a different social media platform a few days ago, however – a website who has seen a lot of users migration from tiktok and twitter who don’t know that this platform (tumblr) works on an entirely different system. “Will you help me reblog my cat and then make her famous here?” Erm …. no.

    It’s so weird asking for this. Do your thing and your people will find you.

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  19. There is a blogger out there called “Sound Eagle” who usually includes some kind of invitation to read specific articles on their blog …” but in this case, the posts that are recommended turn out to be worthwhile and that blogger is very faithful to follow and to comment on my blog as well …but as to your point, I agree and I do not respond to such invitations either. It’s kind of like people who comment on our blogs leaving their link at the end of their comments.

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      1. I have always wondered if Sound Eagle might be a bot or an algorithm because he answers with such detail and his posts are terribly long .. who in the world has the time to do all that …and his blog is spectacular too …has to be a very special human being .. if he actually is a human being.

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  21. I agree, Pete..its bad enough getting the spam or comments with a link to their blog..nothing else so they get spammed…I always thank anyone who follows me if I can as many now don’t have a blog that’s up and running but I don’t do follow for following like you ..there has to be an interest in the blog not just because…I’ve rambled a bit here x

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