The Blog Squad - Part 13

We are a group of three book bloggers situated on different continents but brought together by our love for books and a penchant for talking about them. We’ve joined our forces to create a collaborative series of posts about book blogging and we hope you’ll enjoy the discussions.

A MAGICAL WORLD OF WORDS - AmyNikita

BOOKS.BAGS.BURGERS - Uma K

BOOK REVIEWS BY DI - Di Hewlett

Commenting back - What do you do if you end up on a blog that has zero interest for you/ nothing in common with yours?

I think there’s always something that can be said on someone else’s blog - you don’t have to have the very same interests, but because I have a book blog the majority of my readers are also book lovers and that gives us something in common. We may not read the same genres but I can appreciate a good review and (normally) not every post is a book review so there’s always a discussion post or tag or meme that I can comment on.

If I happen across a blog full of cooking posts or crafts - well I like those too and while I’m not skilled or learned in these things, I can definitely leave a thoughtful comment appreciating the blogger’s work. In fact, some of my favourite posts lately have been about crafting and food! :)

I think the main thing is to never leave a ‘I was here’ kind of comment - commenting for the sake of it. I want someone to come and stop by and comment because they are truly interested, not just because they want a comment back on their blog.

I agree with Di. It’s highly unlikely the blog will have nothing I can relate to or appreciate, and even if it does, then it’s not really about that. Yes, you shouldn’t just have “I was here” comment, but at the same time I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a sort of “That isn’t my kind of read, but I hope you enjoy it”, etc, etc.

Be genuine, try find something you can relate to, and if the main point of the post isn’t something you particularly like, then go ahead, be truthful and mention that. But before you do that, do try to find a post that truly interests you. Even if the genre of books they’re mentioning in their post (or meme) is not a genre you enjoy, you can always mention the book you would have added to the list. This works as a book recommendation and I think that in itself shows thoughtfulness and sincerity. Anyone should appreciate you sharing your thoughts, as long as it’s done in a kind way.

What is your preferred 'follow' method?

I prefer to either follow blogs using GFC or Bloglovin’. Follow by email just results in waaay too many emails being received and I’d prefer to be able to keep up with other bloggers in an amalgamated platform so that I can deal with all the posts when I have the time and not necessarily when they’ve been published.

Definitely GFC. Scrolling through my blog roll is certainly the easiest for me. I try not to follow by email unless there's no other option and I really really really love the blog, because then my inbox gets too crowded.

Following by Bloglovin’ is more of a gesture. I rarely ever look at my Bloglovin’ feed, but I hope to remedy that soon. It takes time though and is less accessible (at least for me), so……#bloggingproblems

How do you keep up with the blogs you follow?

As I mentioned I use Bloglovin’ and I recently went through ALL the blogs that I follow on there and made groups so that I can easily ‘filter’ through what I’m looking at. There’s a couple of group for the people that I’ve become close to while blogging or for blogs that I adore and have a special interest in and I try to check out all of their posts, even if I don’t get around to commenting on every single one.

I also keep collections on Bloglovin which helps me to remember which posts I need to go back and comment on later.

Bloglovin has a mobile app so I will often read on my mobile and then go back to the posts later off my computer to comment because it’s just easier that way. I sometimes blog hop and comment off my phone for convenience but then I always get hit by autocorrect and end up with silly typos (so if you’ve had silly typos from me it could have been because I visited from my phone!)

Like I said in my previous answer, GFC works best for me. I never get to my Bloglovin’ feed, and scrolling through my blog roll is easy and accessible and simple. 

Hope to see you over at their collab posts too!:

❤ Book Reviews by Di
❤ A Magical World of Words

We hope you’ve enjoyed the thirteenth in our series of discussion posts! Please talk to us and let us know YOUR answers below. What do you think of our responses? If you have any specific questions you’d like us to address in the future, please let us know in the comments section below.

Stay tuned for next week’s questions!