Direct Versus Passive Followers

Making the distinction between direct and passive followers on Medium’s writing platform.

The Medium writing platform offers a lot of money-making potential for writers who are looking for gradual income. With any money-making opportunity, it is imperative one does their research beforehand, always looking for ways of increasing their payout.

I recently wrote the Medium article, “So You Received 100 Followers. What’s Next?” as a guide for writers new to the platform. I wanted to take this opportunity to dive a little deeper into the two types of followers I coined the term for in the previous article: direct and passive followers.

By knowing the difference between the two types, my article will aid newcomers in identifying their strategies for increasing their potential income and support.

You’ve just established your Medium account and you have probably already posted your first article. Congratulations! Now you are ready to make some money from your published content but you don’t have any followers.

How are you going to increase your income with no followers? Let’s first distinguish the two types of followers you will encounter on Medium.

Direct Followers

You proceed to read a few articles on Medium’s Home Page and some stand out about 100 Followers, the 100 Followers Challenge, or Getting to 100 Followers. The beautiful thing about Medium is the support the platform gives to all newcomers, pushing each and every one of them to start following their peers. The “follow me, I’ll follow you” philosophy (follow for follow) instantly comes into play, and this is when you start interacting with your direct followers.

Direct followers are the writers on Medium who directly respond by following you after you have followed them.

The process is very similar to Direct Response Marketing, which is a type of marketing designed to evoke an instant response by encouraging prospects to take a specific action. By simply following another writer, that writer will follow you in return. Definitely the “if you scratch my back then I’ll scratch yours” doctrine.

The strategy, which is to your advantage, is to pinpoint new Medium writers for the platform. Their eagerness for a following will make it possible for you to increase your direct followers rather quickly. The disadvantage of having direct followers is one runs the risk of a stagnant following if newcomers desert the Medium platform for one reason or another.

Passive Followers

Passive followers are the writers and readers who interact with you indirectly and choose to follow you because they have read one of your articles in a publication, from the listing on their Medium Home Page, or upon doing some type of internet search that brought them to your Medium content.

The advantage of having passive followers is they have a higher rate of referring your content to other readers, possibly giving you a shout-out in a future article. Passive followers tend to discover a writer once one joins a Medium publication, when one posts a comment on a writer’s article, and when one uses tags when publishing their article.

Passive followers add a greater potential for one to make an increased payout because passive followers tend to be active readers of Medium content. It doesn’t mean these readers are long-term followers, but these followers tend to be more loyal than direct followers.

Please understand that passive followers are a little more difficult to acquire if the writer doesn’t join a publication, doesn’t comment on other writers’ content, isn’t consistent with publishing content on a regular basis, and doesn’t publish noteworthy content. Noteworthy content is the subject and material that captivates an audience, making readers eager to see more of your writing portfolio.

As a Medium writer, make your presence known by putting out writing content on a regular basis. My recommendation for all newcomers is to find recent articles that have been published within two weeks and start following writers in order to build your direct follower base.

Building your passive followers will take time, but it is achievable. Make it a goal to publish five articles a week in a publication. Some Medium publications have over one thousand followers, so joining a publication is key.

This also allows you some good exposure. Comment on at least fifteen recently published articles from different writers. This also aids in your positive exposure on the platform.

I wish you all the best in your writing adventures and we will achieve this together!