How I skyrocketed my Medium followers 6 times in just 50 days?
Today is 20th May 2022, when I’m writing this.
And I have just touched the coveted 100 Medium follower mark.
Maybe you are thinking, what’s the big deal about it… Yeah, I agree.
Not a big deal for me either.
But then I checked the stats
I am on this platform since Apr 2021. I had 5 followers then. [See image below]
Till Feb 2022, I had 11 followers.
Then by the time March ended, I had crawled up to 17.
But something happened in April. And then something else happened that I had never seen in my Medium journey.
Let’s try to decode what it was and how it happened.
Shall we?
What happened on Apr 20th, 2022
I published an article.
This article precisely.
And it exploded for me.
See, this is an article that is an iteration of another article that I published on Feb 24th, 2022.
This article focuses primarily on content creators. And ideally, it should have skyrocketed too.
Why I’m saying that?
Because I thought that on Medium most of the audience are also creating content so they must be identifying themselves as content creators.
And in this article, I’m talking about 200+ tools for content creators.
This article gave me some push too but it had a rather teeny weeny effect on my follower numbers.
Now coming back to Apr 20th, when I published an iteration of this article where I only talked about 265+ FREE and Inexpensive Tools for Authors and Writers.
Initially, I didn't intend to publish this article because it already had similar tools mentioned in my other article about content creators, so why duplicate it.
But then I considered that this could be a niche article, only talking about writers and authors.
So, I added more tools that I already use, for example, book formatting tools, grammar checking tools, email marketing tools that are built mainly for authors, and so on.
In other words, I enhanced my older article.
In the real world, this tactic also has a name — The Skyscraper Technique.
What is this Skyscraper technique?
The Skyscraper Technique is a link-building tactic devised by Brian Dean of Backlinko as a way to create engaging content that will help writers to earn quality editorial links.
And the technique sits on the foundations of 3 core principles:
- Find popular content that has been linked to other sites.
- Create a better piece of content on the same topic and publish it on your own site.
- Promote your content to the right people and let them know it exists.
In simple terms using this technique, I took my own article and published a better-enhanced version of it with a niche audience in mind.
BUT
Only writing an article is not enough.
It's not like, readers are waiting for you and anytime you publish, they will pounce on it.
The second piece of the puzzle is distribution.
Now you may say that Medium is meant for both writing and distribution so what am I talking about.
Medium is built for writing — YES.
Medium is built for distribution — YES and NO.
Consider Medium as an ocean where there are a lot of writers and even more readers.
When you have this scenario where a reader has a lot of options to read, the outcome generally is that reader is going to do three things.
- Leave Medium and do something elsewhere he is not going to find himself confused about what to do.
- He will go back to the writers he follows and not try new writers.
- He is going to click on articles that have a better headline like listicles or how make money or how to get more followers and so on.
In other words,
Excessive choice can produce “choice paralysis,” but also that it can reduce people’s satisfaction with their decisions, even if they made good ones.
This paradox of choice keeps you scrolling through Netflix too.
Think about it.
So, Medium is also a distribution channel but it's not doing a very good job since it only shows you articles based on earlier reading history and dissuades you from finding and exploring new writers and their voices.
What is the solution, then? OR how I overcame this to reach more readers.
If your readers cant find you, you go to where your readers are.
Medium has publications.
What is a Medium publication — These are shared spaces for stories written around a common theme or topic, usually by multiple authors.
I went and found similar articles to mine and then searched which publications they belong to.
Then I applied to these publications using the form given on their Medium page. Sometimes, it only took a solitary comment on a post. In short, I did what I had to do. I filled the forms, those long forms that I hated at times but I did it anyway.
So, that took care of the distribution part.
Next Big thing I did.
I wrote a good article that help my readers. Well, you can publish your article in a Medium publication but it won't get traction until it satisfies the need of your readers.
Think of it this way.
If you are writing an article like this, your reader should be able to at least take one giveaway from your content and use it instantly and see results.
So,
- Write better.
- Write better with your audience in mind.
- And keep writing better.
BONUS HACK #1
At times, you can write something that is going against the grain. Like the article, I published recently.
Why You Should NOT Self Publish Your Book (plus 6 Myths Busted)
When the whole world os going gaga over self-publishing, I took a different route. And mind you, I’m an indie author who earns a good living from his books.
But that shouldn't deter you from talking about the cons of a vocation.
BONUS HACK #2
Your article’s title will make or break your chances to grab readers.
NAIL IT.
I use a tool called — Headline Analyzer for writing improved titles.
It's a free tool and you should give it a try if not tried it yet.
So, after telling you the FIVE hacks I used to grow my followers 6 times in just 50 days, now it's your turn to buy me a coffee.
I’m serious. Buy me a Coffee. ☕
About Chase Austin
I have spent 10+ years writing stories and marketing them. I’ve failed and succeeded over the years, and these are some of my tidbits on how I started my author business, perfected marketing, and more.
Here you’ll find resources to help you kick more ass with your words. No fluff, only actionable tips, and tricks if you are looking to make a living through writing, or just use it as a side hustle.
Things I like: Long walks, Reading about anything and everything, Telling stories and chess.
Visit me at www.thechaseaustin.com. Want to say hi, email me at contact@thechaseaustin.com.
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