4 Key Lessons I learnt After Reaching 400 Followers on Medium

After writing on this platform for only a month or so, I’d never thought I say it. But guess what:

I reached 400 followers

Hooray!

But along the way, I learnt a few key lessons that made a huge difference to my performance and my earnings.

I believe that there are a few key lessons that you need to be aware of in order to properly succeed on Medium!

Once you have these lessons under your belt, you will be good to go.

I hope this article will help you and I hope you take something away from it.

Lesson #1: Building up an Audience Takes Time

As human beings, we are all impatient.

We all want things NOW! THIS INSTANT! PRONTO!

Well, as much as I’d like to tell you otherwise, this is not how Medium works.

Just like with all things in life, you’ve got to work hard and continue to do so. I can guarantee you that with the continued effort you WILL build up an audience but it will take some time.

How fast you build up an audience depends on a few factors:

• How often you publish
• Whether you submit to big publications or not
• How much you engage with other writers
• What topics you write about

But please try not to give up if you don’t get instant results. Medium is not a get-rich-quick scheme and it shouldn’t be treated as such.

People come to this website to read thought-out, valuable and substantial journalism and writing. If you try and deceive people to get some followers quick or to make some fast cash, they’ll spot you a mile away.

Try and write daily and when you do, please make a concerted effort to connect with your readers. Building up relationships with your readers is what matters and this is how you build up a loyal readership.

From my personal experience, engaging with readers can make a huge difference. You are more likely to get loyal fans and by communicating with them you are more likely to find out what they are struggling with. You can then use this information to write some Medium stories and this will make you a more trustworthy writer in the eyes of your fans.

Action Point: Try and clap, comment and highlight a few stories every day. Try and interact with these writers. By doing this, you will slowly build up a community of fans who trust you and want to read more of your content.

In order to do this, you will also have to work consistently too…

Lesson #2: You need to work hard consistently

Not only do you need to put the effort in but this effort must be continued consistently.

On Medium this is done by writing a new article every few days or at least weekly. What I learned is that if I leave it more than about 3 days after publishing an article my stats start to quickly drop.

This is why it is important to write on a regular basis. Firstly, the Medium algorithm sees this as being trustworthy and as such, you reach will grow. Secondly, your following will grow, and here’s why.

Each new story is a new chance to really connect with your readers or to go viral. It also instils a sense of routine with your articles. Readers will soon be able to figure out when to expect a new article from you and this consistency will build up your credibility and reputation.

From what I have experienced as a new writer for this platform, publishing every few days at the very least will fare you well in the long run.

I understand that you may have commitments and this may make it harder for you to follow a schedule.

But, if you can set aside some time every day or every few days to write, I would suggest you do that.

Action Point: Try and set some time aside to write a new article every 1–3 days for consistency. The article doesn’t have to be very long. Around 300–800 words are enough. The submit to a publication for maximum exposure!

Lesson #3: You don’t always have to submit to big publications

This one always seems to be a raging debate on Medium!

From my own experience, smaller niche publications can still get you decent views and getting curated on smaller publications is not uncommon.

The other thing you have to consider is that smaller, niche publications typically have more targeted audiences.

While a large publication like The Startup may cover a lot of generic topics like ‘entrepreneurship’ or ‘startup culture’, niche publications like Photo Dojo are a great place to get your work in front of a dedicated audience that is there solely to learn about one specialist topic (in the case of Photo Dojo, the audience is photography enthusiasts).

With smaller publications, you are more likely to get published and if you are one of the regular writers for a specific publication, your name will pop up a lot more on people’s screens.

This will also build up your brand, credibility and trust.

Smaller publications will also be more likely to publish your article quicker. This can make a big difference particularly if you are trying to stick to a schedule. Bigger publications can take from 36 hours to weeks to read through your article, only then to even reject it.

Action Point: Write your articles. Then, submit some to big publications and others to smaller ones. Test this out and see how well each publication performs.

Lesson #4: Creating Engaging Articles is the key to earning money

In case you didn’t already know, Medium pays its writers by reading time.

Reading time is determined by how long you people are reading your posts.

In order to improve this, you need to write engaging articles that keep people on your story longer.

To do this you need to relate with the reader and help them to address their pain points. Try and be personable, relateable and offer them a good solution to a specific issue!

I do this by researching and asking what my audience need help with and then I write an article explaining this. This builds up my trust and it shows to people that I am listening and taking into account what my readers want from me.

Action point: Try and find some popular topics in your niche. Try and link this to your own experience and advice. Use this to then solve the pain points of your audience.

Thanks for reading this article. I hope it helped you out. Please consider following me if you liked this story as this will keep you updated whenever I release a new article. I write about tech, entrepreneurship and photography on my profile.

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