esselleyAnonymous asked:
Hmmm… there’s a lot of different answers to this question, I’d say.
It depends on what you’re trying to accomplish with your blog/platform/etc, mostly. Are you a content creator? I’m thinking probably yes, if you’re asking me! I picked up most of my knowledge about how to reach a wider audience as I went along through paying attention to posting patterns and audience engagement, so if you’re serious about it, definitely examine these things for yourself. Most of this is basic “here’s how to increase your reach” stuff, but that’s how you expand your follower count!
Post regularly. This is a big one. When I first started out, I was posting a new chapter or new fic pretty much every weekend – sometimes multiple fics in one week. I have more lulls/longer stretches between posting now than I used to, but I still post pretty often. And you are probably not gonna see huge jumps in follower count/lots of people engaging with your stuff right away. That doesn’t mean you should just throw up your hands in defeat. I posted my first fics in March, and I didn’t really start to see a large increase in follower count until October – when I started doing Kinktober. That’s not a coincidence.
Tag properly. Tumblr in particular only tracks your post with the first five tags you enter. Double check your spelling. Make sure you are putting the most important, relevant tags first! This way your posts might still show up even for people who don’t follow you, and new people will find you. On AO3, try to keep your tags short and to the point. Don’t write all your thoughts in the tags – that’s what the notes section is for. I tend to skip fics that take up half a page with tags alone, because it’s uninformative and quite annoying!
Link to your platform. This is something I think is especially important on AO3 because otherwise it’s sort of a vacuum in terms of social media engagement – put your blog/twitter/etc in the notes. Bonus points for hyperlinking it (google basic HTML). On other social media sites, include links to other places people can find you, whether it’s in the notes, your description, your About Me, especially if it’s not your main hub. I link to my AO3 on all my social media.
Clear, concise, attractive posts. You don’t want your post to be too long and rambling, but you also don’t want it to be so short that people skip right over it. Link, title, summary, and maybe a brief excerpt are always good to include. Tags, sometimes, or warnings. AO3 will create a post for you with the “Share” function after you post. Keep it fairly short. If you’re posting a whole fic on Tumblr, use a Read More after a couple of paragraphs. This is like the overly long tags thing – I just skip past most fics if I have to scroll a lot, because it feels inconsiderate to me when people don’t use a cut. Also, it’s likely that less people will reblog your shit if it’s too long, because nobody wants a giant wall of text on their blog. Also likely that people might be reluctant to follow you if you have a lot of endless text posts.
Post at peak times. It’s surprising to me how often people overlook this, or just don’t care. I see a lot of newer creators say stuff like “I finished this fic/art, get it out of my sight” and post at like 3 AM EST when most people are asleep. Then people don’t see it while it’s new, and it gets pushed further and further down on the timeline or feed or whatever, and most people aren’t gonna scroll forever to catch up on what they missed. And then you are sad that this thing you worked so hard on didn’t get seen by anyone. AO3/Tumblr skews to a heavily U.S. userbase, so keep that in mind when considering times when the most people are going to be online. If you’re getting seen by more people, you’re likelier to get more views/shares, and more people interested in your work.
Last thought… I often see people wanting fandom to do a lot for them – they want to get attention or be recognized – without being willing to put in much effort in return. Because this is a hobby, because it’s for fun, because it’s for free, etc.
While fandom definitely is all of those things, you’re also not going to get very far if you don’t bust your ass, unless you are very very lucky/get in at exactly the right time. I count myself really lucky to have the readership I do, but it’s not something I expected when I started out. It didn’t happen overnight, or because I did any specific things.
There’s no handful of tips that will get you more followers or attract an audience. You just have to be out there, stay positive, and put forth your best effort.
Good luck!
cacchieressa
cath-sith
oofurishipweeks
tiffycat
mortz-shorts
falling-in-aforest
thefandomsaretakingover
lily-cowles
mientus-andrew
isokura
ukiyosen
