Don’t Be Fooled: Claps, Likes & Follower Counts Are Vanity Metrics
Chase these stats instead
100k+ followers will make you happy.
5k+ claps is definitely cause to celebrate.
But don’t let these metrics consume you — they’re 99% pointless. I learned this lesson the painful way.
Now that a few of my stories blew up, I thought I had it made. After months of rejections and sparse view counts, I had finally cracked through Medium, so it seemed.
Wrong.
My newfound popularity just proved two things:
- I wrote a few good stories
- I’m still a stranger to most, if not all of my followers
Connect With Your Followers
When I first read Kevin Kelly’s “1000 True Fans” snippet I thought he was just restating the obvious. Kelly says a true fan will buy anything you produce; they will buy the hardback and paperback and audible versions of your book; they’ll drive 200 miles to see you sing, and so on and so forth.
You don’t need one million followers to blow up. All you need is 1000 true fans. Seems simple enough.
But there’s one problem. Only writing on Medium will not get you any closer to your fans. They’ll see you as a stranger. In order to build real relationships with people, you have to become vulnerable to your fans. This takes real courage.
Do You Have Enough Courage?
Here’s a thought exercise: The next time you see something that looks easy, put yourself in that person’s shoes.
This is what I did when Tom Kuegler hosted a meet and greet with his fans on Zoom. Tom was a nice guy and gave some great tips for growing a following on LinkedIn.
What he did seemed easy, but it took a lot of courage.
Tom is a prolific writer on Medium, so he easily could have said he was too busy to interact with any of his fans. Instead, he treated us like family. Moreover, he was genuinely interested in improving each of our lives.
It was really cool, and I’ll never forget that.
Stop Saying, ‘You’re Too Busy’
I’m still learning this lesson the hard way.
Sometimes I’m too busy for my friends. Sometimes I’m too busy for my family. Sometimes I’m too busy for my followers.
Stop it. Make time for what you know to be important.
Likes, claps, followers mean nothing if you’re just another face in the sea of information. Establish yourself with your followers, become a friend to them; someone who is genuinely interested in their success.
Heck, if online gamers can get together at cons and tournaments, why can’t writers do the same? Is it because writers are more socially awkward than gamers?
Oh God, we are, aren’t we?
Facebook Got It Right
Facebook is a great example of a company that focused on the right metrics — even in its college-only days. Zuckerburg and company would talk about daily active users (the users who come back every day) and how fast it took them to take over a particular campus.
Zuckerburg played the long game for Facebook. He didn’t care about vanity metrics on his website. He wanted real fans.
One million views sound like a nice number until you realize 80% of that is bots or people who bounce after two minutes. Heck, you could even buy claps on Fiverr (much like how you can buy likes/views/followers on most platforms).
It’ll show you just how vain and useless the metric is when used like that.
Some Helpful Tools to Get Started
These are the things I’ve been too busy to start. That’s going to change in 2021. I want to be there for as many of my followers as I can:
- Start a Facebook Group: It doesn’t have to be writing-related. Real estate influencer Ryan Serhant once recommended for mom’s who like walking to start their own Facebook group. I’m no mom, but it sounds like fun!
- Video Production: Whether it’s a YouTube channel, weekly Zoom call with your fans, or an online course. Create something that establishes a face to face connection with people. Become more than just a thumbnail.
- Get Creative: Seriously. Think outside the box. Top marketing teams will sometimes send expensive packages to companies or influencers just for the off-chance they collab. I’m going to be sending 100 physical copies of my book to people I admire. If only one person gets back to me it’s a success.
Final Takeaway
What good is the internet if not to connect with more people?
Medium is connecting amazing writers at an unprecedented rate.
This is the time to make valuable lifelong connections with your writing/reading network. Saying “you’re too busy” is just another way of saying “you don’t care.”
Take some time to really think about what you want to accomplish on Medium. Do you want to be a splash in the pond or the tidal wave that changes the world? (but not in a violent destructive kind of way haha).
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