Reaching 2,500 followers milestone & little freewrite on getting new followers

Hi there my Hivean friends and followers!

It´s been a while since I celebrated some milestone with you here on my blog but here I am coming with one today :) And that´s actually a big one that I am really proud of as my follower base just broke the 2,500 mark!

But how much of an achievement it actually is? Well, that depends. To some, it´s a just a little fraction of their massive fan base while others might actually never even get to this number. May sound a bit rough but in fact, this thing (getting new followers here on the chain) is a bit more complicated than it seems so let me elaborate a bit further.

I have been on this platform since late 2017 (it was actually not Hive but Steem back then but that´s a different story and you have probably heard it anyway so let´s ignore it now...) and from what I have observed, I can tell you that the number of followers that people have here is (among other things of course) greatly influenced by the age of their accounts.

For some reason, it was much easier to get new followers in the very early days of the blockchain back then in 2016 and 2017 than it is now. If you created your account, let´s say, at least 3 years ago and if you were active (posting, commenting, curating) enough, you could easily gain dozens of new followers every week. Sure, some of them could have been bots but still, your follower base was growing really fast back then.

Today, after almost 3.5 years of daily posting and engaging with the community, I am at 2,500 followers but in fact, I am pretty sure that I got most of it (or least the first thousand for sure) during my first year on the chain, even though I was just a tiny minnow with very little respect and influence in the community back then. Obviously, for some reason, getting new followers has become increasingly harder here and now, even with my current position, I usually get no more than just a few new followers per week.

So the point is if you guys are relatively new here (meaning your account is, let´s say, just one or two years old) and you have been struggling to create a decent follower base, don´t blame yourself. The situation has changed dramatically and gaining new followers is now much harder for everyone.

The good news is that it´s still possible though. I think the best and most natural way to start building your follower base is by engaging with people and communities that you share something with. If you are a keen traveler, engage with the Hivean travel community. If you are a photographer, hang with other fellow photography fans here on the chain.

However, don´t try to be all over the place with those short spammy annoying comments like "cool post bro" etc. This behavior is frowned upon by the community and probably gets you more downvotes than followers, which is something you certainly don´t want.

The "follow for follow" policy might work in terms of the numbers but it doesn´t get you many active followers who would really engage with you and each other in your comment sections. Nevertheless if your only goal is to have that follower number as high as possible and don´t mind your blog looking like a ghost town, you can try that of course.

Hosting contests, challenges or giveaways can be a much more efficient way to increase your follower base as people usually don´t want to miss out on these so they better give you a follow (my own experience) but this is definitely more suitable and workable for users who have already been around for a while and who have some resources for the rewards at least.

With that being said, I have been lately thinking about updating the list of the people that I follow myself so if you think you should be there, let me know in the comment section below and I will check out you blog to see if I think that too ;) I always try to keep my feed clear and unoverwhelming, which is why I only follow between 60 and 70 people but I can add some more if you convince me I should.

Thanks for your attention everyone. I hope some of you found this little freewrite on getting new followers helpful.

This post was created by me for the Hive blockchain exclusively. All rights reserved.