Do You Honor Vital Etiquette Rules for Medium Followers?
Congrats, you have a new follower! Now what?
We all want to have the best experience on Medium, and followers are a big part of it.
Today I propose some vital Etiquette Rules for Medium Followers. They address key questions regarding followers, both those you follow and the ones who follow you:
1. Whom do you choose to follow? ∘ The manual method ∘ The semi-automatic methods 2. What are your obligations after you follow an author? 3. What should you do when someone follows you? 4. What do you owe your followers? 5. What do you owe your super-followers AKA true fans?
DISCLAIMER: I’ve written other articles about writing on Medium. They are different from this one, but I build upon my earlier work with new learnings.
If you read to the end, I share my thoughts on what we learn from our true fans which makes them so valuable.
1. Whom do you choose to follow?
The short answer is you should follow anyone you want to actually read. But it’s not always so easy to get right, is it?
You have a manual method of finding followers and some semi-automatic methods.
The manual method
I always check out the work of anyone who follows me. I will also look into a writer who leaves a comment. A mere clap or two is not enough, mainly because I don’t always notice them.
For the commenters and followers, I apply these rules:
- I have a soft spot for people who are just getting started. But they must have published something for me to follow them, and I prefer if they have more than one story so I can tell what they’re about.
- I like regular contributors — no six-month gaps please unless you give an explanation.
- The longer I’m on Medium (and it’s only been a couple of months), the higher I am setting my topic bar. No crypto schemes or computer programming language. I’m not immediately captivated by long-form fiction or short-form poetry. You’ll have your own rules.
- I prefer popular, but non-famous writers, who have a healthy ratio of follows to followers. If you have 500-2K+ followers and follow a similar number of people, that suggests you both embrace and thrive in the Medium community. See Will You Follow a Writer Who Won’t Follow You?
The semi-automatic methods
Medium will recommend writers to you on the home page under “Who to follow.” I don’t know about you, but this has historically been the least useful feature for finding writers I’m actually interested in reading.
I’m keeping an open mind, though, because Medium has been tweaking and adding features in recent months aimed at showing us less of what we don’t want and more of what we do. Specifically:
- The Show Less Like This button now appears directly underneath each story in your feed. Don’t want to read more 15-minute articles on Figure Skating? Simply click the minus sign in the circle to see less.
- The Following feed shows in reverse chronological order (most recent first) the stories published by the people you follow. If you just want to see what people you follow have been up to, it’s easy.
You can also adjust your recommendations in one convenient place at Refine recommendations.
Of your options here, the Suggestions link is worth a look. This will show you several categories of potential new follows:
- People you already follow on Twitter who are also on Medium
- Algorithmic new writer recommendations
- Topic recommendations from Medium.
You should follow anyone you want to actually read
2. What are your obligations after you follow an author?
Legally speaking, you have no obligations after following an author. Morally, also none.
In the spirit of the Medium community, you should however consider doing the following:
- Read the author’s About page, if you haven’t already
- See if they have any social media links that might be of interest to you. You can conveniently build your LinkedIn or Twitter following at the same time as your Medium following.
- Tweet a short highlight in an article you like. You can do this directly while reading. The following screenshot shows what Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine recently said about what articles Medium will boost:
- If you really like the author, consider subscribing to their stories. If you follow even a few hundred writers, it is challenging to keep up with their work. Subscribing makes that much easier.
Legally speaking, you have no obligations after following an author. Morally, also none.
3. What should you do when someone follows you?
This one is easy. As noted above, it seems only polite to check them out.
You have no obligation to follow them back. Do so if their work meets your standards.
4. What do you owe your followers?
Legally speaking, you owe your followers nothing. Morally, also nothing.
In the spirit of the Medium community, you should however consider doing the following:
- Write on a reasonably regular basis. No, every day is not necessary, although a lot of writers do. But once a month isn’t going to help you establish a relationship either.
- Write with your readers in mind. You can benefit like crazy from your writing. If you want to keep your readers, make sure they benefit, too.
- Don’t make yours a one-way relationship. Check out what your followers are doing. It’s never been easier, thanks to the Following feed.
- If you’ve decided to leave Medium or take a long break, let your readers know. For why see Leonard Tillerman’s great post Where Did All My Friends Go?
Legally speaking, you owe your followers nothing. Morally, also nothing.
5. What do you owe your super-followers AKA true fans?
Your true fans are the reason you don’t need to answer the question “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”.
You write to be read. Your true fans are your regular readers. You should cherish them.
You probably have something in common with your true fans. If nothing else, they like reading and you like writing. But it’s probably more than that.
- This one has a great sense of humor and makes you laugh
- This one writes about the coolest topics, and you always learn something new
- This one shares useful know-how you can put into practice
- This one claps and comments on all your stories
- This one demonstrates wisdom and makes you want to be a better person
Your true fans help you become a better writer by helping you figure out what it is you’re here for. And that is reason enough to cherish them.
If you can, then, do what you can to help them figure out what they’re here for. Read their work and give feedback. Be supportive, but also be honest.
I know you’re expecting me to say you have no legal or moral obligation to do so. But when it comes to your true fans, I’m leaving that call up to you.
Be well.
About James Bellerjeau. Let’s connect on LinkedIn and Twitter!
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