Don’t Play the Follow-for-Follow Game on Medium

I wish I hadn’t wasted my time on this

Earlier this year, when I started writing on Medium, I was like a curious rabbit, jumping around to find my position in the writer’s world. I read a lot of articles and tips from the top writers on how to be successful in Medium. One of them particularly caught my eyes — it’s the tactic on the follow-for-follow game.

That article was suggesting a newbie writer take this approach to gain a bigger audience for their writing:

1. Go the Popular List on Medium.
2. Pick the top listed articles or the one you like.
3. Go to the claps icon, and follow whoever you see on the list.

Without thinking much, I took the advice and started to follow people blindly. I did it whenever I was watching TV, eating, and right before sleep.

It did work somehow. For 100 random people I followed, I got 30 of them to follow me back. If we purely consider the ratio, it is actually a good deal and a fast track to building the network for our own brand. Within a week, I am following more than 1.5K people on Medium and I’ve got 400 followers as a result.

Then one day, when I woke up, I decided to quit the game forever. Exhausted. Puzzled. Empty. I found myself actually living in a void. I actually don’t know what was in my mind when I first started. And I hate myself madly following people just for attention.

My dear friends, if you are tempted to play this game, think thrice, not only twice. It would totally ruin your Medium profile and does more harm than good eventually.

People Who Follow Back Are Not Your Real Followers

The core concept of the follow-for-follow game is to get the reader’s attention to look into your profile. The mind game is like this — readers, not active writers, are hovering around on Medium. They read many articles and clap for others.

Suddenly one day, a stranger follows them. It gets them curious. They want to know who you are. So they click on your profile, probably read your top featured article. If it connects with them somehow, they will follow back.

It’s not like your work has inspired them to the point that they decide to subscribe. It’s more like a friendly interaction between readers/writers in the online world. Treat it like someone who receives your friend request on Facebook — it does no harm for them to accept as long as you are rational human beings. It comes too easy and too casual.

The definition of a follower in the dictionary tells it best.

Follower /ˈfɒləʊə/

A person who supports and admires a particular person or set of ideas.

Followers like this are way more precious. They come across your story. It catches their eyes, and they love what you write. They are willing to click the follow button because they sincerely admire your thinking and want to hear more from you. They support you not because you follow them, but because of the decent ideas that you have in mind. True followers make a writer a better person, whereas fake followers distract them.

The Number of Followers Is Not As Important as You Think

People desire more followers for different reasons. Some are chasing a sense of achievement; some may want to get more people to read their work and be famous. But I will say a lot of them are actually looking for success in the Medium Partner Program.

Regardless, Medium’s reward is never based on the number of your followers. The magic counts on the engagement level.

According to Medium guidelines, earnings are calculated based on two components:

• How long members spend reading your story.
• How much of their monthly reading time members spend on your story.

Neither of these says anything about your followers. Rather than having 10K followers, Medium motivates us to have loyal readers who actually spend time reading your work. So, why should we bother with the numbers game?

It Distracts From What You Should See on Medium

Medium has the algorithm to push relevant articles to you. You have five daily reads in your app, as well as the daily email recommendation and a whole bunch of new articles from your network on the homepage.

However, since you are following so many people, it makes it challenging for Medium to push the relevant content to you. I often find not-so-interesting articles pushed to my homepage or email because it is from my connection. It adds so much noise to our reading utopia and delays when we could come across the next great article. It’s just not worth it.

You Mess Up Your Audience List

Once you start the game, it’s difficult for you to go back. The day I followed the first random people, I diluted my audience list. The idea of a follower list is to have a group of passionate individuals. They support your work wholeheartedly and show their appreciation along the way.

Our audience list initially could be the most positive group of people who love us. But now it becomes a game between writers and readers, messing up the list with people who might not sincerely admire our work.

When you try to get random peoples’ attention by following them, you’re putting yourself down. And believe me, you don’t have to do it this way because everyone can be an amazing writer on Medium.

We Never Need to Beg

Imagine this with me. There are two authors in the town, Tom and Jerry. Both of them just published their first book. Tom was so eager to get people to read his own work, he took the book with him and knocked on everyone’s door, regardless of who is living there. He just kept knocking until someone showed him mercy and bought the book.

Spending weeks and weeks on the street, and finally, he managed to sell all of his stock. But when he went back home, his feet were already full of bleeding wounds. He had been walking way too far.

Jerry, however, took another approach. He found a corner in the market with a decent table where he could show his book. From time to time, people stopped by and asked about it. He gracefully told them the story of the book with confidence. Not everyone would eventually take his book, but whoever did, they showed honest admiration towards Jerry’s work.

Who do you want to be in this story? The hard-working Tom, who needs to beg for sales, or the patient Jerry, who waits for the right people to come?

Final Thought

I joined the follow-for-follow game because I was impatient, insecure, and not confident in myself. I thought no one was going to like my writing if I didn’t quickly build an extensive audience list.

I was stupid. Our world is big, and for sure, there would be some nice people who find our writing interesting. For people who don’t like it, we could nod, smile, and continue doing what are doing.

We need not worry or fear. Write. Write a lot. Your effort will definitely pay off when it’s time. Your writing is always beautiful. And none of us should ever beg for attention.

Cheers.