[LET’S CHAT] How Do You Find New Blogs to Follow?

A couple months ago, I suggested that the book blogging community might be more clique-y than we think it is.

Of course, I launched the Big Blogger, Little Blogger project, BUT, writing the post also made me realize that I’m terrible at finding new blogs to follow myself, especially since I follow such a low amount. So, I thought I’d go over the methods of how people might find new blogs to follow, and how I find new blogs myself!

So, there’s several ways to find blogs through Twitter! Twitter chats where people leave their links at the end of it, asking for links to blog-hop or to specifically find types of blogs, or even just scrolling through certain hashtags! I know there are lots of people who find blogs through Twitter, but I rarely do. But then again, Twitter just isn’t the place where I hang out often, so that might be why.

I have yet to participate in any Twitter chats (mainly because they look stressful as all hell) or asked for links to blog posts (which I do want to do sometime). I’ve definitely asked for help from other book bloggers via Twitter, and it’s been helpful so far, so I really want to branch out soon!

When I was Instagram, I rarely found new blogs to follow. Instagram is one of those places where I feel like it’s really hard to promote your websites or blogs if you’re not already established as a brand, but that might just be me! 

I know I did stumble across some blog links from time-to-time, but nine times out of ten, they wouldn’t really be updated consistently or seemed to be completely inactive, so it was really pretty much a lost cause for me! I know there are some people who find a lot of blogs this way, though, so power to you guys!

I do use Bloglovin’, and even though it felt pretty useless in the beginning, my account has grown recently over the months, so it is very useful! I know that a lot of blogs that are WordPress, but not necessarily on WordPress.com and Blogger blogs follow me on there, and I keep up with blogs on there, so it’s helpful!

I actually find it really hard to find new blogs on the site, despite it sort of being a place where I’m SUPPOSED to find new blogs. I think that’s mainly because Bloglovin’ tends to push the most popular book bloggers my way, whether it’s checking out the “Film, Music, and Books” category is trending (which is always filled with posts from bloggers with 800+ followers – even if their post only gets one save or one comment) or checking out the “More Blogs Like This” tab (which no matter what book blog you’re at, will always show you the bloggers with 1,000+ followers). So, I never really find new blogs to follow that way.

I will say, I always check out who follows my blog, and that can end up leading me to some lesser-know book blogs, so that’s nice!

I feel like I’ve talked a lot about Books Amino on here, but it’s basically an app where you can talk about books and such! I like to think of it as “blogging-lite” and I got started out posting on there before sort of ditching it to start blogging. I do know it’s great for promotion, though, and I’d highly recommend it!

There have been a lot of blogs that I’ve found on the app, and I know there are lots of bloggers who’ve found me on the app! Some of my closest blogging friends and I met through the app, so it’s definitely been a huge help. 

I know for sure that if a favorite blogger of mine makes a list of favorite bloggers, I’ll be there paying attention and making notes. Even if my favorite bloggers don’t really MAKE a post about it, some bloggers have blog rolls somewhere on their blog that show me who they follow or who their faves are.

It can definitely be a sort of hit or miss – just because that blogger is my favorite doesn’t mean I necessarily will love or be interested in all the blogs they love, and that’s totally fine! But I do know that I’m more likely to check out a blog if it’s recommended to me by someone I trust!

I can definitely say this is where I found most of the blogs I follow! I’m that one person who totally stalks the comment section of a post that can be years old and see how many people are still blogging to this day. I know, it’s weird.

There can definitely be pros and cons to this! As I mentioned in that post I linked to earlier, it’s really easy to see the same people to pop up in the same people’s comments sections and can get old quickly. Even I’ve noticed over the last couple of months that there are people I expect to comment on all of my posts and do so – which is great – but it’s so hard to stumble upon new commenters. There are some days where a new person comes along, and that always gets me excited because it shows that my blog is truly growing!

And those are all the ways you can find new book blogs to follow!

My main way of finding new blogs to follow is definitely the comments sections, though I know there are people who are more social media savvy than I am who find blogs that way! It really doesn’t matter how we find the blogs we follow as long as we’re part of the blogging community, right?

What’s your main way of finding new blogs to follow? Any ways I didn’t mention that you use?

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