I Gained 2.4K Followers On Medium In A Month — Here’s What I Did

It didn’t involve publishing everyday or “follow for follow”

If you want to earn money writing on Medium, you must fulfill a few requirements. The most important and talked-about one is that you need to have at least 100 followers.

Once you have reached a follower count of 100, you need to publish a minimum of 1 article in 6 months.

When I returned to writing on Medium in August 2021, it seemed that “getting 100 followers quickly” was a hot topic. And it still seems to be.

However, getting 100 followers or more in one month isn’t difficult.

In fact, I have gained more than 100 followers every month since August 2021.

In February 2022, I even gained 2.4K new followers.

Here’s what I did.

I wrote from the heart

When I decided to take my Medium journey seriously again, I decided against checking my statistics regularly.

Instead, I wanted to focus on creation and learning to trust the process. I made peace with the thought that it might take a while to gain traction.

I believe it is a mistake to focus on stats early in your Medium writing journey. I don’t check them, and I delete Medium’s weekly stats email before reading it.

Stats steal joy.

And without joy, what you create will be less than you are capable of.

I wrote about various topics

I decided to write on Medium because I am interested in many different topics and formats. Medium is the perfect place to explore various topics and writings styles, such as short-form and poetry.

While I keep the content of my running blog focused on my ultrarunning adventures and coaching, I love that I can reach such a diverse audience on Medium.

I am still debating if I should “niche down” eventually. Still, for now, I decided to keep writing about all the topics that interest me — running, general fitness and health, mental health, solopreneurship, relationships, and personal growth.

I wrote high-quality content

Quality versus quantity. Who wins? I don’t know. And honestly, I believe this discussion is futile.

I always want to create high-quality content — and the more, the better.

My massive imposter constantly screams that I am not good enough, that my English is terrible, and my content is dull…. But the objective reality shows something different.

When I gained 2.4K followers in February, I had written 17 articles, 15 long-form, and 2 short-form articles.

10 articles were chosen “for further distribution.”

I published articles in Medium’s most prominent publications — The Startup and Illumination.

17 articles is hardly an insane amount, especially considering that 2 were short-form articles of 140 words or less.

To those writers who crank out 2 articles per day and still struggling to gain followers, I’d say take a step back and look at your content.

Ask yourself why you are really writing. Do you love it? Do you care for your readers?

What are you trying to accomplish beyond just getting 100 followers and hoping that you’ll be able to earn money on Medium?

If the quality of your articles is so low that you can’t gain 100 followers with one article per day, your chances of earning money on Medium are beyond slim.

I engaged with my readers

I am genuinely grateful for every comment I receive on my articles. Through interacting with readers and fellow writers, I have gained new insights, perspectives, ideas for articles and made new friends.

I care for my readers and constantly learn how to serve my audience better. How to write better. How to share what I know so that others can benefit from my successes and failures.

My art teacher used to tell us, “learning to paint is learning to see.” I think that learning to write is learning to listen.

Listen to your readers. They will tell you what they want to read. They will tell you where you need to improve to serve them better.

And that is our job as writers if we’re going to be successful — to do our best to serve our readers.

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Plus you can read every story I publish by joining Medium: With only $5 per month, you can support me and other writers. By signing up with this link, I’ll get a small commission but it won’t cost you any extra. I would be very grateful.