©2022 Michael Raven
O-ho! Aspiring blog writers looking for readers! This is for you.
Engagement is such hard work, innit?
A little suggestion, you might want to read some of what I post on this site and at least cast out a few little stars here and there before you graciously invite me to follow you. Bare minimum kinds of things — it’s called reciprocal engagement. I probably won’t follow you if you appear to be doing the absolute bare minimum, but I might; whereas, an invite sans engagement of any type will be automatically shit-canned and personally (unfortunately, not officially) treated as spam.
I don’t accept unsolicited follow/friend invites from people I’ve never heard of, here or on any other platform. Nor do I do solicited promotions for my stuff or anyone else’s.
Period.
Don’t waste your time or mine by sending me an invite to follow you. Chances are I won’t even look at the source of the invite.
This post is in response to a significant uptick in bots or real people inviting me to follow them with zero indication that have done anything to deserve being interested in them (either in subject matter on their blogs, quality or quantity of blog posts, or in reciprocal engagement). They need to go someplace else to get their ego cookies in terms of follower numbers. I heard Facebook puts a premium on such things.
sceadugenga 
Invitations to follow? I’ve been absent from WP for a while, is that a thing now? I’ve noticed that the sites a bit clunkier to use than before but I didn’t know about invitations. Thanks for the heads up.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I used to only occasionally receive “invites”, one or two a year.
Lately, I’ve been getting several a week, including invites to be a contributor with zero other engagement, which sounds fishy at best.
Sending out invites is a hidden feature, but it’s been there for a while, maybe since WordPress began in 2003. My memory is not that great when it comes to twenty years.
The sites behavior is something to adjust to, especially as WP migrates to their new Gutenberg “block” setup. Once you get comfortable with the changes, though, it ends up being powerful to use. I know a lot of people miss the classic editor, but I’m a convert.
Thanks for the comments! 😊
LikeLiked by 1 person
I remember. Around the time WP began offering the new editor was around the time I drifted. And I must confess, my initial frustration with Gutenberg vanished when I actually tried to learn to use it. Humbled again by my own impatience. But in the last few days of feeling my way back in, I’m rapidly becoming a convert too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m always willing to help out if you need someone to point you in the right direction.
Good luck and thanks again.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, I fully appreciate this post. Reciprocation is absolutely important with art—and you might learn something from reading the talented people her on WP. I don’t even look at those anymore.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Playing whack-a-mole yourself? I think it has something to do with my increased use of tagging, as the uptick happened around the same time. I appreciate it, but when the invites don’t even remotely involve writing or poetry, I assume someone has found a bot to do their dirty work.
That said, there are some awesome writers on WP. I just have other ways of finding them then relying on worn-out social media tactics.
LikeLiked by 1 person