The Benefits of Having Followers and Being a Fan of Other Writers on Associated Content

I'm writing this from the position of someone who's been writing consistently for the last five or six weeks on Associated Content. I signed up over a year ago but didn't actually "start" this journey until August of 2009. In mid-September I decided to get more active in the community portion of Associated Content because I genuinely wanted to see who else and what else was out here and what I could read and learn from other great writers .

In my browsing through the threads I came across a thread that deals with subscribers. In my efforts to get more involved I decided to check out this thread and created a post. Through this note I've found the majority of my fan base so far. I've recognized people that have added me through that topic alone and are reading my articles and telling me they enjoy them. Imagine my surprise and elation! Not only am I able to write about things I enjoy and love, but people are actually getting something from it... what a great concept. As a result I've become a follower of other great writers outside of that thread just from my own research of other topics and writings. I can also tell that from my commentary of other writers people have followed me.

So what has having followers and becoming a fan of other writers done for me so far? Well...

Being a fan of other writers has opened a door to new information. What I do is search out articles that match my interests and as I see people who write about a matter consistently I am inclined to subscribe to their work.

Having followers has helped increase my page views significantly. It's amazing what a following can do! I'm not big on the term "fan" but that's more semantic than anything I think. Anyway, it's good to know people want to help other people on AC and I in turn want to do the same for others.

Being a fan of other writers helps me gauge writing styles. I learn other ways to write from other writers. I'm very familiar with my own style, but it's great for me to see how others write... whether it's through passion or through research or both.

Having followers makes me feel like my writing is important. I really do read people's comments and am glad that people are getting something from what I write.

Being a fan of other writers gives me ideas on things to write about. I can think of a number of articles that I've written based on other's articles. As I read and research articles I find that I can write a tangent article from what someone else has written, or if I have a different opinion or angle I can write about that as well. Being a fan of others provides me inspiration.

Having followers encourages me to continue to stay involved in the forums. Not to say that I'll continue going back to that specific thread on a weekly basis, but the interaction is great and very informative if you take the time to wade through the posts.

For those of you who are new (like I am to some extent) but don't know how to become a follower of someone's work... you can do it one of two ways. If you read an article you like, next to the author's name near the top there is an arrow. If you wait until the page loads you can hover over that arrow and a small dark popup appears. One of the blue links in that popup says, "Follow." Click Follow, and then you'll get another dialogue window where you can click to Subscribe to that's person's articles. The other way is to go to that author's Contributor Profile. There you'll see the author's name in big black letters... not too far underneath you'll see five buttons. The first button is Follow. Click that button and go through the similar process as I mentioned earlier. If for some reason you click Follow on an author accidentally and don't want to subscribe... just click "close this box" when the dialogue window opens.

If you're trying to figure out how to get fans then here's what you do... and this is purely based on my experience... are you ready? Write good articles and let the rest take care of itself. Stay active in the forums. Make comments on other people's work. Follow those three steps and you should see your fan base increase. Remember, the goal isn't to get fans but to draw people to your work. You're not drawing them to you to get page views as good writing is more important than a few mouse clicks. You're drawing them so that you can get information to them. Respect other writers and hopefully they'll respect you.

I'm looking forward to meeting more people here and continuing to provide great articles for people to enjoy on Associated Content.