Epic Journey to 500: My Medium Success Saga

How Did I Make 500 Followers in Medium in Less Than a Month

# Discover the Dynamic Mix of Strategy, Creativity, and Community that Boosted My Medium Profile in Just 30 Days

As I am feeling super hyped now as I just reached 500 followers, please bear with me if my tone gets too excited in this article. This post will show you the ways and tips that let me get 500 followers on Medium in under a month.

When I see the awesome writers on Medium, I feel like I’m a beginner in all this. Nevertheless, I really want to be transparent about what I have been doing and share tips for those who may need them. I strongly believe that this article will help those who are aiming for your first 100 followers ASAP to start your journey with Medium’s Partnership Program.

Before we start, here’s a bit of background:

I talk about reaching 500 followers in less than a month, but my Medium story actually began in January 2023. Back then, I set up my account intending to write about AI stuff. My very first piece was about Optical Flow. But, juggling work and a part-time Master’s in AI at NUS, I couldn’t keep up with writing.

However, after wrapping up my Master’s and a lovely honeymoon in the US with my wife, I got back into it, focusing more seriously on Medium. I started writing consistently again around mid-December 2023. So, the jump in my followers happened less than a month from when I began to regularly put out content again.

So let’s get started! I’ll be sharing tips that really worked for me, so stay tuned!

1. Learn How to Use Your Story Editor Tool: Medium Story Editor

How many of you can confidently say that you know all the formatting options available for writing in the medium? If you are not so confident about this question, start by looking at Medium’s story editor guide.

• Using the story editor — Medium Help Center

Just my observation, when I read through many writers’ articles, I seldom see people using Kicker, so my assumption is not many people are aware that this feature exists.

Essentially, a kicker helps to reinforce your message and leaves the reader with something memorable, thereby increasing the overall impact of your writing on Medium.

There are many other formatting tools available and shared in the above link so if you are not familiar with them, please take some time to go through them as it will increase the readability of your article by hips.

2. Pay Attention to and Get Curious about Other Writers on Medium

Try to Picture This:

Imagine you get the chance to be with someone very knowledgeable about some specific area of your interest. He is the best in the world on that topic. How fortunate of you to have a chance to be with him right?

Although he is super talented with his knowledge, his EQ was near zero so he wouldn’t listen to you at all, he would just talk about himself and his knowledge, never react to your words, and you feel like he is totally ignoring your presence and using you as an emotional trash can for 3 continuous hours! Every sentence he says will start with “I did Blablabla~~~” and ends with “I am Blablabla~~~”. What a torture right?

Would this man drive you crazy? He surely is beneficial to you and your knowledge, but will he be someone with whom you would want to have a long-term relationship?

No, not for me. I wouldn’t even want to spend a single second with people like that, despite all the knowledge I would gain. I believe the same scenario goes for your writing.

Being a fantastic writer is great, but if you’re new to Medium and don’t engage with other writers and readers, you risk becoming like the expert in the story — knowledgeable but isolated.

So, my first piece of advice is:

“Listen as much as you seek to be heard. Engage with others’ stories.”

How to do this on an online platform like Medium? You can do any one of the following actions to interact with the author.

• Highlight some of the well-written portions of articles that you agree/disagree with.
• Write comments showing your ideas and giving feedback.
• Clap as much as you like. You can clap up to 50 times for the same article.
• Follow the author.
• Subscribe to get email whenever the author publishes.

If you want your work to be appreciated, you should appreciate other’s work as well! It’s the same as the biblical concept spoken by Jesus in Luke 6:31, and Matthew 7:12;

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

By doing this, you can interact with many people, enhance your view about the topic, and even build your own community this way.

For me, I have been following below two rules closely.

1. Follow-for-follow: I always follow back for someone who follows me.
2. 50 claps for articles that I really enjoyed and really read.

If you are curious about the reasons for me to do this, you can read through this article.

3. Be Consistent in Your Writing

I believe most new writers have either school or a job to attend to and spend most of their time with. However, if you want to build your followers fast, you need to be consistent with your writing.

Choose the days you will update your articles, and stories and try your best to stick to those schedules. The more you write and increase your exposure and article, the higher the chance that people will like you and your article, increasing the chance for them to follow you.

There is indeed research supporting the idea that seeing someone more often can increase the likelihood of liking them. This is called the “Mere exposure effect” in psychology. This increased familiarity often leads to a greater liking of that person or thing. Essentially, our repeated interactions or encounters with a stimulus can positively influence our feelings towards it.¹

Possibly Your Worst Mistake as a Writer: ‘Don’t Try to be Perfect, Because No One is Perfect.’

Also, to be consistent, the key thing to note is that you have to abandon your perfectionism. Don’t try to be perfect from Day 1. Whatever you have written, just start posting and get some feedback from people. Don’t try to post a perfect post that will get you 50 claps and 1000 followers from a single post. Instead, continuously write and get feedback.

Note: This doesn’t mean that you can just use AI to write your article and post it without even looking if there are any grammatical mistakes in it.

• At least use the free version of “Grammarly” to fix any grammar mistakes before you post.
• Just to let you know Medium also deprioritizes stories that could have been easily written by an AI. You can check the details on this link. It is clearly highlighted below:

“Medium is not a place for fully AI-generated stories, and 100% AI-generated stories will not be eligible for distribution beyond the writer’s personal network.”

Your Attitude Matters: How You Should Take Criticism From Readers To Go a Long Way

Always take criticism easy and do not be afraid of it, as this is a special tool that helps to develop and improve ourselves. Being accepting of feedback, no matter whether it is positive or negative can help you get new insights into the areas where your skills need further development and ideas require more refinement while hassling with improving overall performance. Remember, feedback is not just criticism, but an opportunity for learning and personal development.

Also, don’t be disheartened by no comments or feedback on your post. Sometimes, “no feedback is also feedback” as it shows that it was not some topic of people’s interest.

But you just have to be consistent in your writing. Set up an alarm clock for you to start writing on specific days and submit it as if it were your school report due at that time. Your audience will share your grade soon enough and you will get better and better, day by day!

4. Choose the Topic That You Love and Be Original

Imagine this:

Let’s imagine you are a pet lover, and you really hate gardening. Logically, you should write about a pet that you love. You will have tons of things for you to write and share with others. Since you will be sharing your experience, your story will add more value to your audience and the audience will be able to feel it. They’ll stick around because your content has real value, unlike someone who writes without passion just to fill space.

On the contrary, if you choose to write about gardening, just because you saw someone has 10K followers on gardening and it looked easy, you won’t go a long way. It’s simply because it’s not your pure interest to write about those stories and you will have to spend a lot of time researching it as you would not have background and experiences.

If you have successfully filled spaces with some writing you have done for the sake of filling, don’t worry about the reader’s wasted time as they won’t even scroll through those stories; they will just press the back button to save 30 seconds of their reading time. So, everyone is losing here, you as the author and the reader.

Don’t waste time torturing yourself by choosing the way that looks easier. Choose what you love and what you can genuinely share with people to bring a positive impact to the world of Medium.

When you write about things you love, it will become your hobby and thing you do to distress, not the other way around.

“The way to stay inspired and motivated is by doing what you like, doing what you love.” — Raphael Saadiq

For me, I am writing about the below topics as they genuinely interest me.

1. Self-Improvement
2. Growth Mindset
3. Relationships
4. Lifestyle
5. Life Lessons
6. Mindfulness
7. Mental Health

Also, I am thinking with the mindset that I want my future children to read and learn from it so that they can benefit from it as well. This makes me more mindful of the story I create is beneficial for the reader.

5. Write a Better Title and Introduction

Although people like to say that they see more of people’s minds than looks, people do look at the ‘looks’ first. Only God looks at people’s minds purely.

Similarly, in the world of writing, particularly blogs, titles and introductions play the role of ‘looks’. They’re the first things your readers see and can give you a significant head start. Think of a great title and introduction like a captivating face — they grab attention.

Research shows that the importance of a strong start is critical. According to a study cited on HubSpot, most readers only read about 60% of an article seems that many people simply drop off if the title and intro are not interesting. In fact, 10% of people don’t scroll through articles at all — it could be due to dull introductions or too much clutter designed above the fold.²

The importance of a great blog intro is also emphasized by Writesonic as well. Creating an interesting opening is crucial to creating a reader turnout because blog readers have notoriously short attention spans.³

Well-written blog introductions have a great hook to capture attention, make a promise that tells the reader what they’ll get out of it, and end with something that can spark an instant desire so strong the user is compelled to scroll on. Given that 73% of people will tell you they skim blog posts, it is essential to grab them at the start.³

You can also use relevant images to further enhance the impact of your blog post beginning. Pictures grab attention and can also work as supplements to your title and intro, which makes a great hook for the beginning of your blog. I use Pexels heavily for images in my story. Also, Unsplash is a good source for high-quality & free images.

6. Analyze You, Your Story, and Your Audience with Numbers!

There are many ways to analyze things, but I like numbers for one reason.

Numbers never lie.

On top of the stats function in Medium which many other authors have covered, I would like to share a free Google add-on that can add value to you for your analysis.

1. Medium Enhanced Stats: This add-on usually offers a more comprehensive view of your Medium stats. It might include total reach summaries, detailed analytics of article performances, and visual enhancements to the original Medium stats page.

2. Better Medium Stats: Similar to Medium Enhanced Stats, this add-on would provide improved analytics and statistics about your Medium articles, possibly with more user-friendly interfaces and in-depth data.

3. Medium Next Generation Stats: This is a more advanced version of the stats add-ons, possibly offering predictive analytics, trend analysis, and deeper insights into reader behaviors and article performance.

4. Medium Earnings Info: This add-on focuses on the financial aspect of your Medium contributions, providing detailed information about earnings, payment trends, and possibly projections based on current performance.

5. Fractions — Medium Partner Dashboard: This is a specialized dashboard for Medium Partners, offering detailed breakdowns of earnings, reader engagement metrics, and other relevant statistics.

6. MediumLytics — Awesome Medium Stats: This add-on offers enhanced analytics capabilities, including reader demographics, engagement time, and comparative stats over different time frames or against other articles.

7. Medium Any Author Stats: This tool allows you to view and analyze statistics for any author on Medium including yours!

Use these free Google add-on tools, study your audience and their demographics, and learn which story was really liked and reached out to many users, and even potential earnings.

Note: If you know the better tools out there in the market (of course, it will be better if it is free), let everyone know by sharing in the comments!

7. Write on publications

The benefits of listing your article on publication have been written so many times by other authors already. So, I won’t write so much of details about it, and I will just share key benefits I noticed:

7.1. Wide Audience Reach

• When you post in Medium publications, it’s like tapping into their fanbase. It’s not just your usual followers seeing your work, but a whole bunch of new eyes!
• This means way more people get to check out what you write, making it super likely your articles will be read by a diverse crowd.

7.2. Credibility and Influence

• Being in a big-name Medium publication? That’s a big deal. It’s like a form of approval that says “This writer is good!”
• These publications are like the cool clubs of content — if you’re in, it means your work is top-notch, and people will take notice.

7.3. Engagement Metrics

• The audience in these publications is pretty active. We’re talking more likes, comments, and shares.
• All that interaction really gets your work out there, boosting its visibility on Medium.

7.4. Potential for Initial Traffic Boost

• Imagine your article gets the spotlight in one of the top publications. Boom! Instant traffic boost.
• This is a huge help, especially if you’re just starting out or aren’t widely known yet.

7.5. Connection with Like-minded Writers

• It’s also about connecting with writers who are into the same stuff as you with a similar mindset.
• Joining a publication that fits your vibe can lead to awesome collaborations and being part of a community.

7.6. Ease of Use and Support

• Medium publications are pretty user-friendly. They’ve got all these tools and features that make submitting your work a breeze.
• Plus, some offer extra help and advice, which is gold for anyone just starting to dip their toes in the writing world.

7.7. Experimentation and Flexibility

• Here’s the cool part: you can play around with both publishing in publications and doing your own thing on your profile.
• This flexibility is great for figuring out what writing style or approach suits you best.

7.8. Editorial Review and Feedback

• When you send an article, it gets reviewed by its editors. This means they check if it’s up to snuff for their themes and standards.
• Getting their feedback is a big plus. They help you to polish your writing skills and grow as a writer.

Also, one more benefit of publication I can highlight is that they always share what good writing is, what are the good topics for their publication, and what’s a good standard of writing by sharing some good examples as well.

Please refer to the below links if you are curious about the submission requirements of some of the well-known publications:

• Submission Requirements | The Writing Cooperative

Below is the list of publications that accept new writers now. (Apologies, I only know a few publications.)

1. New Writers Welcome
2. Illumination
3. Practice in Public
4. Better marketing
5. Entrepreneur’s Handbook
6. Mind Cafe
7. Mission.org
8. The Writing Cooperative
9. The Startup

There are so many publications that you will find along the way.

Note: Once again, if you are aware of good publications that accept new writers, please feel free to share or leave links in the comments.

This is to benefit many writers who may be unaware of good publications to start with.

8. Increase the Lifespan of Your Story

Lastly, you need to increase the lifespan of your article. Just like humans, articles and stories have a lifespan as well. Your story will be blooming one day but there will be days people will no longer look for it. My trick here is to use the “Friend Link” feature in Medium. You can find this in your “Story settings”.

If you have similar articles that you want to highlight or feature, you can copy the link and put it on your post together. The other way is to put it at the end of your article so that people who enjoyed your story can also read your other stories that were posted earlier.

This will not only benefit your users but also revive & rejuvenate your old stories, making them young again to gain more views!

Wrapping it up

My Journey on Medium has been an incredible experience. It was all about connecting with other writers and readers, staying consistent, being truthful to what I love, and putting in effort using smart strategies.

I would like to thank all followers and subscribers. Every clap and comment you shared has not only boosted my visibility but also fueled my passion for writing. It’s your engagement that turned these strategies into a reality, helping me reach here.

Let’s not forget that it’s much more than just numbers. It’s more about building a community, growing as a writer, and sharing your unique voice. To all those aspiring writers out there, don’t stop writing. Your unique perspective makes Medium such a diverse and vibrant platform. Here’s to many more milestones together on Medium!

References:

[1]: Amie M. (2023) | The Role of Familiarity in Attraction | Psychology Today

[2]: Pamela V. (2017) | Reality Check: 40% of Your Article Goes Right Down the Drain (hubspot.com)

[3]: Pragati G. (2022) | Blog Introductions: How to Grab Attention From the Get-Go (writesonic.com)

🌟 Special Notes for Readers! 🌟

Let’s Help Each Other, Shall We?

For those people who have already reached more than 100 followers, share your tips in the comments! You can share the story that you have written for making your first N number of followers and your tips as well to contribute! Share your experience and pro tips!

Also, if you are keen to make the first 100 followers, do write in the comments. Don’t be shy. I will be the first one to help you to reach one step closer to your 100 followers milestone and, people who read this article may be able to help you as well!

“Loved this piece? 👏 Show some love, it means a lot! Comment ‘I made it this far’ to share your thoughts. Don’t forget to hit follow for more! 🌟”

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Enjoyed this post? Try these next on the following topics:

[1] Self-Improvement & Mindset

[2] Relationships

[3] Writing

[4] Social Issues & Reflection