MEDIUM THINGS
It’s Time To Start Building Up Your Following On Medium
With the new changes that are happening, the case for genuine following is now bigger than ever
Recently, Medium announced that they were making some new changes to the way this platform works (again) and these changes will impact us in more ways than one. While some changes are seen as negative, there are quite a few that are positive too.
For this one particular change, I feel that it really depends on how you look at it.
Back when I first joined the MPP, it was stated that Medium doesn’t guarantee that your followers would know or be notified whenever you publish a new article and it was true. Although I had very little followers at that time, I always had ZERO views and reads whenever I self-publish an article. That was because I had less than a hundred followers and as Medium mentioned, my articles were not pushed out to them whenever I published a new one.
I confirmed this with some of my followers who became friends and actual friends who joined Medium and followed me.
Whenever I self-published a new article, I would always check with them to see if they got any notification or if it appeared in their main feed. And the answer was always the same — no.
Even until now, it’s the same. My followers don’t get notifications whenever I publish a new article nor I appear in their main feed. And the same can be said for them. Very rarely do I get informed about new articles being published from writers that I follow. If I’m lucky, I’d see them on my main feed but most of the time, I don’t.
That being said, all that is about to change now as Medium will now be making sure that whenever you do publish a new article, your followers will be informed of it and you will be appearing on their main feed/page which may not exactly guarantee you more views/reads, but it will at least guarantee you a higher chance of getting them.
Although having a large following has always been attributed to achieving success on Medium, that was really just to make sure that the odds of your articles being viewed and read were higher. Again, because it was never a sure thing, the bigger the number of your following, the bigger the chances of your articles being noticed.
But now that Medium themselves have confirmed that your followers will see your new articles whenever you publish, it is important to gain a large following — and a genuine one at that.
What do I mean by genuine?
Simple. A genuine following means people who are following you because they actually want to read your work.
There is a different kind of following which is what some writers do — follow for follow — and that is fine too. I know of many writers who did that and even though they started following people just so that they can get them to follow back, these people end up being genuine followers.
The main thing is, at the end of the day, your followers are people who genuinely like your work and want to continuously read what you want to put out there.
These are the people that you’ve needed to succeed on this platform and right now, even more so.
So, how do you build a genuine following? I can only put it in two steps.
Be genuine in your work as well
You can always tell when someone is lying or making things up. There’s just something about them — the way they talk, the words that they use, the things that they do — that make you go, “this person is just so full of it” and you don’t wanna have anything to do with them anymore.
On the other hand, you can also tell when someone is being truly genuine. Just like how you can tell when someone is fake, you can tell when someone is real by the way they talk, the things they do and the words that they use.
So when you’re writing, be genuine.
Write with a sincere heart and mind and just let all of yourself flow in your words. People relate to genuine writers because they can see themselves from the eyes of the writer. When people relate to another person, a connection is made. When your readers can relate to your articles, they feel connected and will want to read more of your work.
When I write articles, especially ones that are quite personal, I write them as genuinely as possible. I want my readers to feel the same emotions that I feel when they’re reading my work.
Write engaging articles
This goes without saying, really. What makes you go back for more — of just about anything?
It’s because you like it.
It’s because it made you feel good.
It’s because it helped you in one way or another.
That’s what good articles do for its readers. Good articles are likeable. Good articles make readers feel good after they read it. Good articles help readers in one way or another. And what makes an article a good one? An engaging one. An engaging article is a good article.
Write engaging articles. Articles that engage readers in ways that they never would expect.
As a reader, whenever I read an article that is really engaging, I would immediately follow the writer and look for more engaging articles that they’ve written and I would always look forward to their articles.
As a writer, you want your readers to feel that way about you as well. I know I do with my readers because then I’ll know that I’d have gotten genuine followers who are following me because they really want to.
Your followers are very important on this platform. Of course, you can’t expect to get a large following immediately after you join, unless you already have a large following outside of Medium.
I know some writers who are new to the platform but already have thousands of followers because these followers are also following them on other platforms.
But if you’re just starting out on Medium and don’t have a large following, it’s crucial that you start building up your followers now.
And just to recap, you should be able to do so with these two steps:
- Be genuine in your work as well
- Write engaging articles
Do the above two well enough and you will soon start to see people following you for your work and your personality.
It’s worked for me so far and that’s how I’ve gained over 1.6k genuine followers. I hope it works for you too.
