Followers Don’t Matter Anymore — How I Really Support My Writers at The Brain is a Noodle

and honestly, how I support all writers I love on Medium

Dr Mehmet Yildiz and many big-time writers on this platform have noted that a greater number of followers doesn’t necessarily mean more views. In fact, sometimes it means fewer views:

In a story, I pointed out that “Ironically, the more followers I gain, the lower views and reading times I receive. This is not exclusive to me. I observed the same pattern in the stats of many highly followed writers.”

I’ve been watching Youtube since the dawn of its time on the internet (i.e., 2005) and I think watching the original Youtubers decline in views in their vlogging journey gave me insight into this mystery.

On Youtube, more subscribers don’t mean that the algorithm pushes your videos to them. Rather, it’s only if your subscribers are giving you the attention by clicking and watching your videos in their entirety that pushes you to the top of that customized recommendation page.

This means that with a smaller following, you’re more likely to be engaging with others in a small community format. You’re commenting on their pieces, they’re interacting with yours. There’s a high community engagement piece to this. They don’t have many writers on their timeline so your pieces get boosted to the top.

As your following grows, it’s likely that a portion of those followers isn’t as engaged as that initial tight group of writers/ readers. As your following grows, you encounter more folks who follow anyone and everyone, so as a writer, you’re just one in the thousand.

This isn’t a jab at those who follow back. In fact, if you dig into my profile, you’ll see I actually follow more than I have followers. In the early days of Medium, I got a little too excited like a child at a dessert buffet.

It still messes with my algorithm and I battle this manually.

I also have private lists on Twitter where I actively engage with my favourite Medium writers. I’m there, secretly and quietly bookmarking pieces so that I make sure I’m reading new pieces from these writers.

At The Brain is a Noodle, I looked within and outside of Medium to support my writers with longevity. While I know many publication owners share pieces to social media at publication, only a subset of these publications tweet those pieces again at any later time.

When we only promote new pieces, it sets this treadmill of needing to publish newer, faster, more. In a way, it reminds me of Youtubers who initially vlogged at random, but due to algorithm boosts, started vlogging daily. Every single daily vlogger that has made it to the top has burned out. I’m seeing similar stories from writers here emerging.

Through their stories, I’ve learned to build a space where we don’t have to be on this treadmill in order to be noticed. Mental health and self-care aren’t just about what we individually do to take care of ourselves, but how we set up systems so that what we do is sustainable, rather than leading to burnout.

I’ve never officially announced it — but that’s why I’ve built my own database of my favourite articles, as well as a separate database of pieces from The Brain is a Noodle writers.

A lot of what’s written is evergreen. So why not continue to amplify these stories and lessons down the road?

Method 1 of support: Twitter

I choose to tweet The Brain is a Noodle pieces on my personal Twitter rather than a dedicated publication Twitter. On the surface, it seems less professional — the branding isn’t consistent with one thing.

I know a lot of publications go this route for professionality and I commend them. It takes a lot more to engage and gain followers for a dedicated publication than a personal account.

Why? Because followers know you’re promoting something to them. They have to be really engaged and dedicated to your publication to follow you on social media. Thus, most people who engage with a publication-dedicated Twitter are likely writers.

The downside to this is that in that scenario, most writers only interact with their own pieces and select few other pieces. You get much less engagement because there’s nothing to connect to. It’s less human when an account only tweets out links and the occasional “engagement” question — followers know it’s just so you get a bump in the algorithm.

On the other hand, tweeting TBIN pieces to my personal Twitter account means I’m tweeting to a composite of audiences. I’m human and as humans go, am complex.

I’m not only a writer but also an artist. As a graduate student, I also engage and interact with academic content. There are things I love like kpop and tv shows that I consistently tweet about. The people who follow me discover me through one avenue but genuinely become interested in other aspects.

There are other graduate students I know who discovered me via academic content but then started writing for Medium. There are writers who followed me and were connected by the artists I follow with open art commissions. Artists who follow me become interested in the pieces I write, and the pieces I share with the world.

In other words, by tweeting to a personal account run by someone with a few different but noticeable hobbies, these communities come together and interact.

For TBIN writers, this means I’m bringing new views and reads from people who have never heard of Medium before but were hooked by your title or quotes. It’s also space for these writers to discover resources (akhem, did I mention that many indie artists have open commissions that would be amazing for profile icons???).

When followers interact with my account, they know they’re interacting with me, a human being, rather than scheduled tweets manned by an unnamed social media manager. In a world where we have attention but crave connection, this matters a lot more than I thought.

Method 2 of support: amplifying links within Medium

When I write articles, I take my writer’s creations with me. If there’s something that touched my heart, I reference them so anyone reading my pieces in other places can also hop on to pieces from my favourite authors.

Also, in my author bio, I not only include my own links but links to other writers. That database of pieces I love comes in handy here because I’m able to quickly share a piece from the archives in that signature.

As an added bonus (and probably a topic for another day), my author bios are written new — every time. We are evolving human beings and having one author bio has always seemed really stiff to me.

In a way, I’m hoping those unique author bios, particularly written in conjunction with the theme of the article, encourage readers to actually read to the end of the piece and hop on to the recommended links.

Takeaway

I continue to think it’s a huge gamble to rely on the algorithm to boost pieces, so I’m learning what I can to build systems that support writers outside from this pressure to push out new content daily.

Resources:

• Here is the thread that I use to support The Brain is a Noodle Writers
• Here is the thread that I use to support my favourite writers in an evergreen writer’s lift that continues to boost old fave pieces from time to time.

How do you like to support your favourite writers?

Hi I’m Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) and this is totally the uniquely written author bio that I write about. Sometimes I get on my soapbox to talk about productivity in the context of anti-hustle culture and pro-self care and mental health culture. Sometimes I write dumb poems and encourage other people to join in (i.e., origin story of The Brain is a Noodle).

Hop down the rabbit hole? 🐰🕳

^ from Anju Sebastian