I gained 4 followers from the forums, some from agreement with my posts, others from being helped. I was only this active starting April this year.

But, as you can see from my join date, I had 3 years of project experience (I've now retired to the forums). I only gained 1 follower, that was actually a real classmate.

Why? Is the forum a place where more people would follow you?

The forums are for many different purposes including suggesting ideas, getting help, and even advertising your projects!

Makes sense. It's easier to get known in the forums. In the entire scratch community, your projects are just a small fish in a big pond.

People knows you when you answer their questions. If they appreciate your answers, they follows you.
That's why you get more followers here.

For me, it's the latter 25% followers.

The forums are a lot more chill than the main site - you have a far higher chance of getting a mild to moderate following off helping people and being an active person on the forums. The main site, due to it's far higher usage could possibly give you a super spicy ghost pepper following, but more than likely you'll just be left with water

-InsanityPlays- wrote:

The forums are for many different purposes including suggesting ideas, getting help, and even advertising your projects!

FloatingMuffins wrote:

Makes sense. It's easier to get known in the forums. In the entire scratch community, your projects are just a small fish in a big pond.

Byron_Inc wrote:

People knows you when you answer their questions. If they appreciate your answers, they follows you.
That's why you get more followers here.

For me, it's the latter 25% followers.

CatsUnited wrote:

The forums are a lot more chill than the main site - you have a far higher chance of getting a mild to moderate following off helping people and being an active person on the forums. The main site, due to it's far higher usage could possibly give you a super spicy ghost pepper following, but more than likely you'll just be left with water

Thanks so much for the replies, everyone!
I do agree that the forums are a lot more lax than the regular website (for one thing, you can post images and posts up to 200000 chars).
In terms of advertising, I'm not a big fan of it and I only do it on my profile. I know what you mean when you say that projects are just fish in a pond, and because everyone sees your posts but not everyone sees your projects, it makes sense.

I've found that the best way to get more well-known is to leave helpful and constructive comments everywhere, whether it's in the forums, on projects, or in studios. Making projects and doing nothing else to engage with the community likely wouldn't get you a large following.

In my opinion, the Forums are one of the most effective ways to gain attention.

If you continuously make constructive posts and help people out, people will take notice. For some, if someone is helpful to you, you follow them. Help enough people, and you almost have a fan-base, just because you answered their questions. That's really how I have any followers at all.