Posted in Writing

Followers and Fakes

Posted on by Penny Wilson Writes

I just went through my list of followers and deleted a bunch of them.  GASP!!  Why?  Because they’re fake!!

Has anyone else noticed this?  I did a post sometime back about how bad Internet dating is.  Oh boy, you should see some of the racey followers I got from that!  I got followers from exotic girl dating sites, all different countries and I got followers from Hookup sites.

My recent posts about me buying my house has resulted in followers from several Real Estate companies.

These, of course, are spam.

It’s disheartening!

Do you remember when you reached your first significant benchmark of followers? Maybe it was 100 or 500.  For me, the first time I got really blown away was when I reached 300 followers!  I was thrilled!!

I still feel that thrill when I see the numbers grow.  But now, I question it.

It would be nice to have an accurate number.

*What’s your take on this?  You get spammy followers?  Is your follower count accurate?  

 

Author:

Penny Wilson is a freelance writer who writes in several genres. She has written articles for WOW Women on Writing. Her poetry has been published in online journals, such as Ariel Chart, Spill Words Press and the Poppy Road Review. Penny is a member of the Austin Poetry Society. Her poetry has been featured in the publication America's Emerging Poets 2018 & 2019 by Z Publishing and Poets Quarterly and Dual Coast Magazine published by Prolific Press. Penny is an advocate for Mental Health Awareness and has the page "Mental Health Help" on her blog. She writes about the struggles of mental illnesses and Depression. She is passionate about spreading awareness for Suicide Prevention and Domestic Abuse. She expresses her passion through her writings of poetry and life experiences. You can find more of her writings on her blog at https://pennywilsonwrites.com/ and follow her on Twitter @pennywilson123.

27 thoughts on “Followers and Fakes”

    1. Well, I guess it’s a matter of opinion. But why would a Dating site, that is advertising women for hookups want to follow my blog? I kinda think they are fake. I get followers like that. 🙂

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  3. It’s frustrating and disheartening for sure, but worth it to find those few you end up truly connectng with. At least for me. 🙂

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  4. Penny, I would like to sell you some home maintenance products for your new home. Ok ok, I can’t even pretend to be a spammer… I clean out my spammy followers when they first follow. I check each new follower as they come in and just delete the ones trying to sell me something. Doing it that way, the process doesn’t take long and it’s not so devastating to the numbers.

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  5. I have fair few followers… a huge proportion of them are as fake as the spam comments. I don’t worry about the numbers these days… only he peopel who to come, read, like or comment… and am glad if others read via email without leaving a trace. Blogging should not be about the numbers, exciting though those milestones are at first. It is aways the people who matter.

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  6. I agree Penny, there are so many false followers, I used to wonder if people said they were following just so they could say they follow so many people. But the reality is there are only a handful I see regularly and they are folk who comment regularly on what I might have to post. Most of the spammers get caught in the spam section and occasionally for fun I go and have a look. Most of them are nonsense. Good post by the way, something to think about.

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      1. I’ve gotten lazy with that lately. I used to ck it often. This was the longest time I’d gone it took me quite awhile to clear my spam box. I won’t let that go so long again. 🌺

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  10. I don’t get spammy followers much, I don’t think. However, it’s painfully clear to me that I have about 35 or so followers who check out my site on any kind of regular basis. I keep hoping I’ll reel in some of the others with a special post someday. But then, 35 true follower is more than I had before I started blogging, so there’s that!

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  11. Wow, is the ability to remove followers new? I just looked and see that little trash can, but I don’t remember seeing it before. I can see how it could be useful, but for now I’ll just let all of those pretend people follow me…

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