A couple of days ago, I went on a massive unfollow spree on Bloglovin. Bloglovin is my main way of following blogs, though I would probably say my main way of reading blogs is through link shares on Twitter. I have had Bloglovin for about two years now, and I’ve never really unfollowed anyone. I constantly have way too many new posts to read on my feed, and half the bloggers I don’t even recognise. This never used to bother me necessarily, but I often missed posts from bloggers I actually liked unless I followed them on Twitter.
I decided I needed a bit of a sort out, so I sat down and went through every single blog I followed. I think I unfollowed in excess of 200 blogs, an alarming number of which hadn’t posted at all this year. This didn’t surprise me, but got me thinking about how important it actually is to declutter your feed and make sure you’re only following people you actually want to follow. When I first started blogging I got really into the beauty side of things, and whilst it didn’t really represent who I was or what I wanted to blog about, I followed a ton of beauty bloggers in my first few months of blogging. I will read the occasional beauty post but to be honest it isn’t my thing, and having a feed full of beauty posts can be boring as I tend to just keep scrolling.
Before I integrated Twitter into my blog, following people on Bloglovin was my only way of keeping tabs on them (not in a creepy way). This meant that my feed was basically full of people who had left me nice comments or just seemed like nice people, but their content wasn’t necessarily content I enjoyed reading.
Personally, I would far rather people didn’t follow my blog if they don’t like my content. Having over 400 followers is amazing and somewhere I never thought I’d get to, but in reality only around a quarter of those people actually visit my blog, and far less than that on a regular basis. In a way, I think having a larger following on Twitter is actually better for my blog. If I promote one of my blog posts there is a chance that over 800 people will see my tweet, rather than my post appearing midway down 400 Bloglovin feeds in amongst everyone else’s posts. I am definitely guilty of following people because I like them rather than their blog but I think it’s strange that I’ve just accepted that for so long. If I like you, I’m more than happy to follow you on Twitter, Instagram and like you on Facebook, but is it really necessary for me to follow your blog if I’m not interested in your content?
I felt guilty unfollowing people at first, thinking ‘what if they notice?’ or ‘what if they hate me?’. Chances are, nobody I’ve unfollowed will notice, and I hope the ones that do understand my reasoning. I want to start updating my Bloglovin feed more regularly, and try and get it down to about 150 blogs that I actually read often and enjoy. I’ve currently organised my feed into four groups of blogs that I read regularly, and then there’s quite a few that I haven’t categorised yet. My current plan is to keep my feed like this for a week or two, and then either give the rest of the blogs a category, or unfollow them altogether.
If I’ve unfollowed you, I really hope you don’t take it personally. I’ve recently found myself commenting on loads more blogs too, because I’m genuinely discovering content that I’m engaging with and enjoying reading. Never feel bad about unfollowing someone if their content isn’t up your street, and don’t feel guilty for not following people back for the same reason! It’s just not worth it.
I really this post inspires you to have your own little de-clutter!
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