Medium ABC & the Right Way to Get to 100 Followers on Medium
Plus, five tips on getting your first century of followers fast.
I don’t think follow-for-follow works anywhere. On Medium. On Twitter. Or on Instagram.
It will only bloat the numbers that appear on the screen. It’s a vanity metric. There are many more actionable metrics that you can chase instead of this. We will talk about them later in this article.
For now, I want to spill it out straight: the number of followers is not as important as you think. Though it feels good to have more, you must also question its purpose. I am saying this after having 2,800+ followers in a year. *brag, brag, lol*
Anyway, Medium has made it compulsory to have at least 100 followers before you can participate in the Partner Program. That’s a good move. This will help in keeping bots and other spooky stuff out of the system.
So we will have to chase followers no matter what. Right? If that’s the case, let’s dive deep into this whole discussion of 100 followers in this post of the Medium Basics series.
If you have just started writing on Medium or are planning to write here soon, this list will be super-helpful to you. Take a look. You can also join theMUSINGS, our small publication, by applying here.
Should you not write on Medium?
This is one of the biggest questions that comes to mind when you’re planning to write on Medium.
Some people claim that Medium is dead already; its reach has declined, it’s not as good as it once used to be, etc. Some of them are true.
For example, its reach did decline. And yes, it has a horrendous bounce rate. Look at the pictures below.
Bounce rate is also one big factor that Medium needs to take into consideration. Its bounce rate stands like a giant in front of Twitter, which stands at 31%, for example. More than 2X!
That might lead you to think writing on Medium is the worst decision you could ever make. Reality can’t be any further from that.
Medium is still one of the best places to write on the whole Internet. But here comes the caveat.
You should not write solely on Medium.
Many people say that. Here’s why: everything is a little too volatile over here. You will have no clue what happens behind the scenes. You only have control over your writing. Good distribution is still in the making.
That’s why you need to complement Medium by writing on a couple more platforms. It will help both in better distribution and in gaining new ideas and perspectives. Twitter is apparently the best place. (I don’t know why the f*$k I cannot be consistent over there. This time, I am trying really hard.)
Medium is the best place to start and nurture your writing spirit. It has some of the best editorial standards of any other writing platform. This gives Medium an edge compared to other platforms.
Start writing on Medium. Trust me, it’s worth it.
Are followers important?
It’s both a yes and a no. Why?
- You need at least 100 followers to monetize it.
- Your profile looks cool when a significant number appears on it.
- It establishes you as a credible or knowledgeable person.
Here’s why it doesn’t matter:
- It is a vanity metric. It’s just some pixels flashing on the screen with no intrinsic meaning.
- The number of followers is not equal to the number of people who will actually read your work.
So, what to conclude from the above comparison? It may be worth chasing follower count up to a point. But don’t indulge yourself too much in it.
One point to keep in mind: don’t use follow for follow. It is going to be blacklisted soon. Medium's CEO is going to clarify that shortly. He commented on one of my articles :)Five tips for doing Medium right
Foremost, turn on some Lofi music or a playlist curated by Spotify for writers or programmers.
Then focus on writing articles that add value to someone’s life. Build connections and enjoy the process. It’s so much fun.
If you are a beginner, here are some must-keep-in-mind points for you.
1. Learn the basics of formatting on Medium
I run a publication and see many writers making small formatting mistakes now and then.
Bigger publications might reject your articles if you’re committing a lot of formatting mistakes. They want you to know the best practices and have the knowledge of proper formatting.
Good formatting doesn’t just provide you with an entry pass into bigger publications, it has many more benefits. It makes your articles easy to read for your readers, for example.
I don’t know if it helps in getting curated. But if it matters, then your chances of getting curated are only going to increase.
2. Submit to publications
Publications are still a vital part of Medium. We discover some of the best stories through publications.
That’s why it’s worth the effort to submit to a publication. It gives your articles exposure beyond your follower count.
Sometimes publications will also reject your articles. Don’t take it personally. Take this as feedback and a sign and opportunity to improve your writing skills at large.
Eight out of my ten most viewed articles are published under some publications. It ranges from publications with a couple of hundred followers to hundreds of thousands.
The follower count doesn’t matter. What matters, though, is an engaged audience.
3. Who loves an article filled with typos?
We all make mistakes, be it slight grammatical errors or spelling mistakes. That should be excusable.
But a lot of it creates resistance while someone is reading our articles.
You can install Chrome extensions of Grammarly or ProWritingAid to avoid most of them. For free.
4. If you’re a sucker for stats, pay special attention to average reading time
How much time your readers spend on your articles is one of the most important metrics to track, if not the most important.
It is also the most actionable metric out there. You can’t do much about the number of views or claps you’re getting.
But you can definitely take clues from the average reading time of your articles.
If it’s too low (compared to your article length), you need to make it more engaging or information dense.
You can actually make improvements based on this piece of statistics. Unlike many others that only give you dopamine hits.
5. Write and engage
Write short paragraphs and in a conversational tone. No one is here to read an article from the constitution.
Engaging with the community is also important. Don’t force it on yourself. You don’t need to comment on 20 articles every day. Keep it natural. Comment on articles you loved reading. It will be fun this way. Work will feel like play to you.
That’s it. Work on the basics instead of trying to figure out a shortcut or gaming the system.
And as our English teacher once said: “There’s never a shortcut, but always a smart way.” Chase that smart way.
