
The WordPress Reader could be a fascinating place to poke round and have a look at different folks’s blog-ish habits. One of many issues that pursuits (and puzzles) me is the like-for-like phenomenon. I believe there are a good quantity of people that do that, and there are some bloggers that I discover liking so many posts that I’ve sturdy doubts as to whether or not they’re truly studying (and even opening) all of these posts that they’re liking.
The like-for-like phenomenon turns into notably apparent while you come throughout blogs with excessive engagement numbers however content material that doesn’t in any method warrant such numbers.
One instance is a web site that posts printer drivers. A publish with drivers for the HP Envy Professional 6455 bought 86 likes, as a result of actually, who wouldn’t wish to learn that, and who doesn’t have an HP Envy Professional 6455?
That pales compared, although, to the 252 likes for a font web site’s publish with obtain data for a font known as Not Dangerous. As a result of once more, who doesn’t wish to embody that of their day?
Otherwise you’ve bought the true property firm that does weblog posts in Spanish and will get >200 likes per publish from a number of non-Spanish-sounding bloggers.
In flip, if you wish to get a bunch of likes in your posts, you possibly can most likely have a look at the people who find themselves liking posts on the printer driver and font websites and go and like their posts to climb aboard the like-for-like specific.
Does anybody keep in mind Sebastian? He was round final yr and for a short while this yr liking a complete bunch of posts, typically inside seconds of individuals publishing them. There have been a number of reviews about him on the WordPress.com assist discussion board (together with right here, right here, right here, right here, and right here), and WP did take away his potential to love posts within the Reader, though it seems like he stored creating new accounts they usually needed to do some chasing to maintain up with him. And in the event you’re as fascinated by Sebastian as I’m, Google “relatocorto” (the oh-so-creative identify of his web site, which interprets to “quick story”), and also you’ll see that he’s managed to persuade Google that he’s a legit place of job.
Folks do this sort of factor as a result of it “works”, and other people will hold doing it so long as there are folks who will take part in like-for like. I keep in mind Sebastian used to get a shit ton of likes on his posts (which most likely resulted in him earning profits off the adverts he had on his web site). He has a Purchase Me A Espresso web page, and he’s had a number of coffees purchased for him, though I believe {that a} chunk of that’s him utilizing different accounts to purchase coffees for himself to make it appear to be he’s widespread.
Like-for-like could also be a fairly efficient approach to get a number of (fairly meaningless) likes, however the artificiality of it actually doesn’t do it for me. Is that this one thing you’ve seen or participated in?

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