Blogging success. Fake “Likes” on WordPress. We know who you are.
by pinkagendist
Have you noticed that sometimes you publish a post and the millisecond after you’ve clicked on publish there’s already a like? At first I thought this must be someone who’s trying to be nice, they know I’m new at this and they’re trying to boost my confidence. Naive? Certainly. As it happened again and again I began recognizing the names and the pictures, not just on my blog, but seemingly everywhere. In fact, odds are this post will be liked by them. They don’t read what anyone writes, they have no interest in what anyone writes. They’re the robo-calls of the blog world and they’re after your click! It must be exhausting and their index fingers must be sore from clicking like so many times. In the long run, it’s utterly pointless.
The trackbacks that are generated are useless once it’s clear that there’s no genuine exchange. Bloggers and readers will click on the gravatar, visit once and most probably never again. You will be relegated to the junk mail folder of our collective mind. So take a moment and think about that. You’re burning your brand and your blog. You’ve got your priorities wrong. Real success isn’t measured in hits, it’s measured in what you’ve been able to offer people once they’ve arrived at your page. Success is knowing you’ve made someone think about something and that they might come back because something you said mattered to them. So stop wasting your time with likes and consider spending it actually building, creating something of some worth.
Meanwhile, I give you a big
Not just ‘liking’ for the hell of it either – I actually read and liked your post! I have had instant likers before and it just seemed so unbelievable they could read my 400 + word post in under a nano second. Because thats how long it took for them to ‘like’ after I had hit the submit button. I think some people may do it so you get to click back to their blog…..who knows. It remains an eternal mystery
I’m pretty sure it’s just for the us to click and go visit them
Sometimes I “Like” posts so that they go on to my like list and I can go back and read them later, which I do 95% of the time. I have had quite a few instant likes myself and realized they are not real… Likes from people I recognize are always welcome and comments are great. However I think you make a very valid point that if you manage to make a few people think or question things, even if they don’t respond, it is worthwhile. Moreover I think blogging is a personal challenge, to express things well and clarify your own thoughts even if nobody else reads what you say.
And when it’s not to clarify things in our own minds, it’s hopefully to clarify things in everyone else’s minds
This hasn’t happened to me yet, but I do get some Followers whom I do not understand. All of these Jesus Freaks follow my blog. Are they waiting for me to rejoin the ranks? Do they think I’m going to support their conservative agendas? Do they want support as they prepare to come out? I just don’t get it. Getting onto Freshly Pressed has freed me from the desire to investigate all the Likes, though. There were just too many. Now there are eight or ten blogs that I like to read, and I just won’t remember to check any more. I’ve always preferred small parties anyway.
I’m always a bit shocked when I get an “I Love Jesus” follower… Never sure if they’re interested or if they’re just spying to know what the opposition is saying.
I edited my blog followings in the past couple of days and reduced my email alerts to a handful of people. It was too many before and my mental resources to absorb it all too limited.
I don’t even use the wordpress editor, and I get a like sometimes the instant my offline newsreader tells me it’s finished. Oh, and really weird referrals. I got those too.
You get whack-job Christianists on a regular basis
They must have put you on some “we must save this child” list!
And I’ve only published a couple or three of those. Usually they just disappear into my moderation bucket (or spam queue if they’re too awful!). Maybe I need saving though, from myself.
Yup. I didn’t notice it though until I started my second, not mature blog which show up in the reader.
I think that’s how they do it, they just scroll down the reader clicking like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like
Does that work to do it that way? I thought you had to be on the blog in order to register a “like”.
It does, they just go to the wordpress reader, put in a topic (or click on a popular topic) and go wild on the likes…
Ahhh. That shouldn’t be allowed. LOL
They should have to READ every word we write!
Absolutely!!! At gun point
Whatever it takes. LOL
It’s funny because I carefully give out my “likes” as if they were mini-prizes. LOL Like it matters.
I think it’s weird that people do that. I feel like I have no life because I spend so much time reading other people’s blogs. Imagine how lifeless I would feel if all I did was click like on everyone’s blog.
I like a lot of blogs. But I also read them. Also If a person likes my post, whether randomly or not I follow them in my reader so that I can like further posts. I’ve found that it starts a relationship. No one on WordPress knows each other. But if they liked something I wrote, whether they read it or not, they might become a follower eventually. Just my thought.
Loved the post.
That’s an optimistic and quite lovely view; But I’m European, we’re cynical, we smoke and talk down to people. I think it’s congenital.
I never hit “like” unless I like it. I may even comment on a post I didn’t like, but I refuse to hit “like.” LOL
Maybe they should do away with the “like” thing altogether, although I want bloggers to know I was there there, I read it, but had no comment.
I agree with Carolina above. Like and comment are two different things for me. With comments having more priority. It means people have engaged with the content and now agree/disagree over it. I make it a point to comment at least a ‘thumbs up’ over a post that I really like (includes this one too – it has become meta) and it really rattles my mind when I read a heartbreaking story and like doesn’t just cut it and I’m lost for words, yet the story has touched me.
Now onto your blog, I have never dealt with such people. I have become social on WordPress just recently and now I check my reader all the time!
As always, a great post. Thorough, thought provoking, and I had to read it twice. (Being the uneducated American Boob that I am.)
I have received instant likes, but never paid any attention to them, as of course, they could not have read my blog. I do reciprocate followers and follow them, but only if I find something of interest there.
As for my Christian followers, I imagine sooner or later I’ll piss them off royally and they will disappear. So far none of them has ever commented on anything I’ve written.
I think they’re like stalkers, peeping on us from outside the windows
I know the feeling! Sometimes I LIKE when I have nothing to add, or no time to make an intelligent comment. Sometimes I go back later and make the comment. Likes are nice, comments are better.
I have a regular LIKEr who clearly never reads my blog, and who I have seen in the LIKEs on many, many other blogs. I have posted and then refereshed my stats after less than a minute and sure enough, the stats never go up but the LIKE is there…. grrrr…. go away…..
Likes are a good way to track down other blogs that might be of interest to you but it is nice if they take the time to make the ocassional comment too!
Ha! For once, the Likes on this post do not include the blavatars I recognise from everywhere.
I have on occasion liked posts in a desperate attempt to get readers back. (Shocking.) It works now and then too. That is why people do it.
Maybe I’ve scared them away…
Funny and very true, I find myself seeing the same activity…
i’m not really think of this matter until you brought it up..but really..i’m lovin ur blog =)
Thanks
most welcome =)
Oh, I know the smiling little face you are speaking of. He used to like me all over the place. I felt very special. . . though, unread. lol It was always way too quick. Ah hem. . . that sounds bad. Well, there is him and a few others. I think the only quick likes I give are for the poets who post Haiku. That’s usually a quick read.
The basest form of criticism is anonymous whether or not the intention is sincere. I was taught evaluation by proxy wastes a writers time. I’m interested in knowing what path led to my door, and once there were you pleased you’d made the journey? My writing is an expression, like a wink or a smile or a laugh. Those that blithely click “like” obviously lack a modicum of discretion; their world lacks thought and empathy.
I have noticed this as well. At first, I was flattered that I was getting all these likes in just seconds after I post something but when I checked out my stats, I noticed none of these people actually visit my blog. They are just doing it so that they can be popular
Dang. They were fakes? No. Really. Thanks for this post. I’m a beginner with my own blog on WordPress. I’ve been a blogger on another site and this didn’t happen.
Alice
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