Writing | Statistics | A flawed attempt at taking it with humor

Is It Just Me? Or Is the Medium Statistic Flawed?

Let me walk you through the results of my investigation

Do you count followers?

Nobody does it, right? Because…

I know it is a terrible habit to check the stats every few hours. But at the end of the day, it is the only metric that tells writers whether they are heading in the right direction or producing nothing of value.

Followers, Claps, Comments, and cash received are the key success metrics on Medium.

That's why I check back with the development of the metrics every month. Well, more a few times per week. But, hey, we are all humans trapped in the social media rabbit hole.

So, instead of reducing anxiety, creators go back to check the stats — frequently — for a bit of Dopamine.

The Medium Stats Page

The medium Stats Page is a very comprehensive overview of the most important key metrics:

• Followers
• Subscribers to the newsletter and
• referred members

Of course, nobody is here for the money or maximizing followers, but many writers like the Dopamine kick of having new followers, email subs, or making more money.

As I checked yesterday, I counted four more followers, making my count 1,136.

I need 307,000 more to beat the writer with the most followers on Medium.

No, I am not talking about Tim Denning. He writes a lot but has just 294,000 followers.

I am talking about Gary Vaynerchuk. He doesn't write on Medium anymore. Since he is almost everywhere on Social Media, I guess his accounts keep growing organically.

Anyhow. Gary has 308,000 followers — that's why he is my target. Always aim for the Big Bang when you want to reach the moon, or so they say.

1,269 Followers on my Profile Page

For somehow reason, I checked my profile page today. It is also an activity I usually don't do. Rarely. Maximum 3–4 times per week.

But today, I did it. First, I didn't suspect anything suspicious. Below my name, usually, there was the 1,1k follower number.

But today, the count said 1,2k.

"Well, maybe Medium is just rounding up instead of rounding down," was my first thought.

Out of curiosity, I clicked on the number. Yes, it is clickable. Once you do that, a window shows all your followers — in one place.

And the exact follower count right on top of them.

What a pleasant surprise for my drug delivery system — Dopamine out of its production — my follower number went up from yesterday to today, almost 130 subs.

I knew I had it in me.

But wait. Usually, I don't get more than 30–40 per month who seem to like what I write.

Why suddenly does the number increase?

Wait? What!

Wait a minute. I must be on something. Either I did something right and need to understand what it was to replicate it. Or…

Can it be that the Medium statistics are flawed?

So back to the audience stats page, and here it was:

1,136 followers — not a single soul more than yesterday

Confused, I clicked back and forth. I even opened up tabs in my chrome browser.

Hectically, I clicked back and forth between the tabs.

After 30 minutes, I had to stop it before it became a bad habit.

The difference was obvious:

1,136 vs. 1,269

One writer has two truths…

A lot of work to do for the new CEO

Medium got a new CEO — Tony Stubblebine.

It doesn't make a huge difference that my follower count has an almost 10% deviation on two different statistic pages.

But, some writers, definitely not me, might start questioning other calculations too.

What if, also, the calculation on the read count is flawed? Or the view count?

Some writers might get confused and get stuck in the little "check the difference" habit, which keeps them from writing, which is bad for the Medium. Less content…

The big question is:

How did the Universe conspire that it created two different statistics for Medium writers?

I hope some conspiracy theorists will unravel the truth in the coming months.

I think we are onto something here…

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