Do This Now — Once You Get 1,000 Followers

Don’t make the same mistakes I did

Once you reach 1,000 followers you have a real chance at making it big on Medium.

I know — you’ve heard it before, but hear me out. When I first got to 1,000 I never expected that number to quadruple in the next few months. It happened because I wrote the right articles at the right time. It could happen to anyone.

1K is a good benchmark for a few other reasons,

• Even the most-followed people on Medium aren’t at unreachable numbers yet (they sit around a few hundred thousand in case you were wondering)
• Medium is still in its infancy; it hasn’t even started to peak. One day this will be the YouTube of blogging and you’re at the start of it.
• Once you reach 1K you have a better chance at getting contacted by Medium itself, or by other top writers. Both happened to me.

So, let’s talk about what you should do next once you hit this milestone.

Shop around Fiverr

Fiverr is the best-kept secret on the internet.

Fiverr is a freelance hub where you can hire professionals from around the world — for dirt cheap — to complete a multitude of different jobs. This includes everything from designing your own website to rapidly growing your social media accounts (I’ve used it for both).

Other services I’ve used are marketing my eBook to millions of people, SEO optimization; heck, I even had a guy build me an automated crypto news aggregate site that I don’t think anyone knows about except me.

What Fiverr does is help you from spreading yourself too thin. Besides, you’re guaranteed to find something on Fiverr that will help grow your brand.

Create your own publication

Bringing my blogging website, “Yard Couch” to Medium was genius.

Besides boosting traffic and helping the off-page SEO, it also gave me a place to publish articles immediately on Medium.

Let’s face it, submitting to publications sucks. You have to wait hours, and sometimes days to hear a response. And 90% of the time it’s a “Sorry we really liked your article, but it’s just not a fit for us at the time.”

Bummer.

I’m not putting all the blame on the editors though. They have lives and can’t immediately get to every single draft the second you submit it. I get it.

So this is why you have to make your own publication. Take out the middleman and always have an opportunity to get an article out quickly without worrying about someone else’s criticism all the time.

Additionally, you get the added bonus of having followers of your publication and your personal account.

Build a community because the number of followers are useless vanity metrics

Claps, likes, number of followers — it’s all vanity metrics. They don’t matter all that much. Thomas Oppong has over 200,000 followers and still will only receive a few eyeballs on some of his work.

You don’t want 1,000 followers who may or may not check out your work. You want them clamoring for more because they love everything you do.

There’s only one way to do this: create a community. I’m doing this by hosting Yard Couch on Medium. It gives me the opportunity to interact with so many great writers who’ve contributed.

Find a way to create an actual relationship with your followers and your life and there’s will be more enriched.

Spend less time writing

What I really mean to say is, go out and experience life.

Find meaning. You’re not going to find it in the glow of a computer screen.

I truly— 110% believe that the only reason I made it this far on Medium is because of the amazing experiences I had over the past five years. I don’t mean the vacations or day trips to the spa. I mean getting out of my comfort zone and having terrible moments that later became learning experiences; and things I can laugh about now.

“A writer is only as interesting as their life,” as Tim Denning once wrote.

Your words have no weight until you’ve lived them. I can tell; we can all tell when you’re bullshitting and have no clue what you’re saying. So, read more, adventure more, live more. Do it all before you think you’ll be an amazing writer.

The Red Queen from “Alice in Wonderland” once said, “In my kingdom, you have to run as fast as you can to stay in the same place.” It’s a metaphor for life, and every time I think about it, it terrifies me. Because it’s true.

So go get after it.

Thanks for reading. I hope we all blow up on Medium together and change the lives of everyone on the planet. That would be pretty cool. Anyway, check out my new book linked down below. It already has one five-star review, I don’t want to brag or anything.