The Fanaticism Of Followers and Fans

I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned about followers with this insightful and educational discussion about the nature of followers and fans, along with other tidbits that might help you as a fellow Hubber.

Having reached 300 followers after 17 months on HubPages, I wrote a tribute to my 300 followers at that time. That tribute Hub did well for a few weeks but since then it had no traffic.

Due to the lack of traffic, it’s score dropped to the 60’s. I have discovered, although no proof that I’m right, that eliminating the low scored Hubs helps my overall Hubber Score. So sadly to say, I deleted that Hub.

I don’t take it lightly that the number of followers I have has doubled in six months since reaching 300. I know that I have a responsibility to continue to give you more of what you want.

It’s not easy to satisfy everyone, especially when I write about several different subjects. When you focus on one topic, readers may follow you specifically for that content. But what about authors who write about a broad ranch of topics, like me?

Some of you might have decided to follow me because of the inspirational articles I write. Others might have been intrigued by my discussions on personal achievement. Then there are those philosophical Hubs I write when my mind gets energized and I dream up those things.

I write some of my Hubs for the purpose of helping other writers. When I master something new, I have a desire to pass on the knowledge.

But I also like to think philosophically and write about my thoughts. Only a few of my friends have an interest to converse on that level. So I appreciate the ability to share my philosophical thoughts in written form. I find that my followers are educated readers who can understand and appreciate those topics.

I see that a lot of my followers have chosen to keep up with my general human interest Hubs. Most of that comes from my own life experiences and there is a lot to share with that too.

I keep my readers in mind while I write and I like to show attention to detail, especially in technical Hubs. I feel that my readers appreciate that since it helps them understand the subject material better.

But when I write about philosophical ideas, I may sometimes leave a lot of opportunity for my readers to run with their own thoughts. I introduce enough of an idea to carry out further thought. I sometimes go off on tangents if I extend the thought process too far. So in that case I take that whole other concept and use it for writing another Hub.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When I first started writing on HubPages I had written a number of Hubs as progress reports. My reason for that was to share with newbies what I've learned as I progressed. Those Hubs were losing traffic over time and I know why. The titles were simply "My First Progress Report" and so on.

I had changed the titles on a few to reflect the actual topic. That worked since each was focused on a specific item that I had learned that month. What I came to realize was that nobody is interested in someone else's progress unless it had value for them. Of course. That makes sense. So I also deleted some reports that really didn't teach anything important.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As for any writer, there has to be some driving force, something to get you going at the keyboard and spilling your guts into the digital circuitry of the computer.

I have to admit that I write about things that are meaningful to me, things that have an overpowering force in my life that I find myself reacting to. Those are the things that motivate me the most to write about.

The most driving force comes from seeing the comments that my readers make. Many of your comments are very insightful. Some comments give me reason to go back and add important items to elaborate on sections that were vague or short on information. With the constant back and forth communication, Hubs become better and better.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I continue to monitor the stats, both the HubPages stats and my Google Analytics reports. These things tell me what needs improvement.

Yes, many times I go back to old Hubs and update them as needed. The new Google Panda rules made me make major changes to the way I do things, mainly deleting or fixing low scoring Hubs.

This actually gives life to the other Hubs. The reason why is based on the Panda algorithm... that any low quality anywhere on a site will negatively affect the rest of the site. That's why HubPages split us up into separate subdomains.

I also review my groups on a routine bases. If I see any particular Hub is not getting as much traffic as it used to, then I go to my group list and review that to see if I have a problem there.

The group list is where you control the links to two other Hubs at the bottom of all your Hubs. Many times I move the order of Hubs around, either within a group or sometimes even moving one to another group if it makes more sense. I try to organize all my Hubs within groups of similar topics.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's an ongoing effort to determine what subjects to write about. I always keep my followers in mind, as I know they came along for the ride based on prior things I wrote about. So some consistency is required, even thought I do cover several unrelated categories of subjects.

In order to understand the process best, I think about how I react when I get those emails listing new Hubs just published by people I follow. Of course there was a reason why I followed each one of them. Usually due to a Hub I had read, but sometimes because of a blurb in their profile stating what they write about.

Either way, many times I will not be interested to click to their newest Hub. It may not be on the same subject that originally caught my interest, or the title may be poorly written and I end up missing the point of their new Hub.

Taking all that into account, I never take it personally when one of my followers doesn't stick around. But the tendency to add one more is always onward and upward as I continue to work at keeping everyone interested.

Copyright © 2011 Glenn Stok

★★★ Get to know the author... See Glenn Stok's profile ★★★