I got 500 views and 100 fans on this single story! these what I’ve learned!

4 min readJan 28, 2023

Sometimes, you just need one story to open the flood

When I wrote my experience

On Medium, I didn’t expect the story would get a lot of views. After all, I was just telling my experience getting 1000 views for the first time on all of my stories (yes, all the stories) at that time.

Yeah I know. It was a peanut number. Nonetheless, I was so estatic. That was my first 1000 on the internet. It wasn’t about money. But it was about my attempt of creating something online, that actually kinda worked.

Fast forward 4 months later after posting the story, that story now reached:

more than 500 views;
more than 100 fans;
And surpass 100 reads!

It is officially the most popular story I wrote so far. With the most reads. The most views. And the most fans.

Even after posting several new stories after that — it hasn’t been able to compete with it. So, here I am, scratching my hair, that hopefully is not receding yet, and trying to replicate the success. So, here’s what I found —

It’s all about simplicity

I still remembered when I wrote

Getting 1000 views on Medium for the first time

I was really in a hurry. I was expecting the number on my accumulated views accrued to 1000, so I had valid reason to start writing.

Shortly when that thing happened: I started typing and hit publish. Done!

No stalling. No overthinking. Just hit the ground and running.

I didn’t think much about grammar. I didn’t think a lot about using fancy terms. It was all about poring my experience of reaching 1000 on Medium milestone as fast as possible, and call it a day.

Needless to say, the writing process only took me a day to finish. At that time, it was a breaking record for me, since it usually took me more than that to finish a single story.

But it seemed like that actually worked better, since I didn’t bother to complicate things with complex language and unnecessary stuff, instead focusing solely in the sharing experience aspect.

Personal Story Matters

Who said that no one would read your story about reaching 100 views on Medium?

Well, many actually. It’s 100 views anyway. Why people bother?

But some will do though.

I found out that people would bother reading your story because that is your personal experience. Something unique. Something that no one can replicate. That’s you.

I can easily write content, A.K.A generic content about 5 things you should do to become rich and whatnot.

But again: million people are doing the same thing without adding their true experience — it makes it tasteless.

I wrote my experience in getting 1000 views, with the added value of being blind, born and raised in Bali, and to actually wanting to be a creator; that made my story stand out. Although you “the readers” will judge it eventually.

Adding Numbers work Wonder

Somehow, when I included numbers: metric, 1000 views, 10 million figures, whatever, it worked well with the views. Not saying that you have to be

clickbaity

to gain readership, but adding some sort of metric in your headline can work wonder.

Even though, when you think about it: 1000 views that I got was actually super small number. It took all my stories to reach that felocity. It took me nearly 3 months to reach 1000 views. All in all: it was very insignificant.

But adding those numbers made it more fascinating. More tangible. And Maybe, more relatable?

Keep it Short

The reason I believed that I acquired almost 100 fans, 500+ views, and more than 100+reads on that single story lies in the fact it was short.

yes. It was short and quick.

Just like a coffee break snack you pick up during long hour at work. Take it. Read it, and forget about it?

And Therefore, I think the sweet spot for medium article (at least in my experience) is around 3 mins. Definitely less than 5 mins.

Conclusion

Overall, there was nothing special recipe that I’ve done for getting viral on medium. That one story I wrote definitely did not reach the viral state (just yet). Maybe I’m just making a mountain out of a molehill — nevertheless I’m quite happy for what I’ve achieved. I believe that if we write from our real experience, with genuine, and put quality writing, people would like your story nonetheless.

Of course, there is more to it. But you know what they say:

Keep it simple stupid my friend.

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