Summary

The article advises new Medium writers to focus on writing quality content and improving their craft rather than obsessing over follower count to achieve success on the platform.

Abstract

The Medium writing platform is often misunderstood by new writers who chase after follower numbers, influenced by misleading advice from unsuccessful writers. The article emphasizes that successful Medium writers do not attribute their success to "How to succeed on Medium" posts, which rarely generate significant income or curation. Instead, the key to growth on Medium is through writing good stories, which naturally attracts followers, views, and engagement. The author suggests setting goals that enhance writing skills and serve readers, such as daily or weekly word counts, a consistent publishing schedule, and seeking feedback from experienced writers. The number of followers is not a reliable indicator of success; metrics like views, reads, and member reading time are more important for a writer's impact and earnings.

Opinions

Misconceptions about success on Medium, such as the importance of follower count, are prevalent among new writers.
"How to Medium" posts are not the reason successful writers are successful and do not typically make much money.
The most effective way to grow your readership on Medium is by writing good stories, not through follower exchange strategies.
The correlation between the number of followers and the actual views and engagement on articles is not as strong as many believe.
Exponential growth on Medium is more likely to come from curation and viral articles rather than a high follower count.
Writers should set specific, measurable, and attractive goals that focus on improving their work and serving their readers, rather than increasing their follower count.
Followers are a byproduct of quality content; if you write great articles, followers will naturally increase.
The ultimate goal for writers should be to write stories that people want to read, not to collect followers.

Please Stop Trying To Get More Followers On Medium

Set these goals instead.

If you’re new on Medium, you might believe a few things that aren’t true. There are lots of rumors but also misconceptions about how to succeed on Medium.

These wrong beliefs often emerge because people with no success on the platform give advice about what to do. So many people with no writing experience publish articles about how to write a great blog post or how to make money on Medium without having made more than a few bucks themselves.

And writers who’re even newer here listen to that advice and end up being frustrated because they don’t see results.

One of the many misconceptions among new writers is that successful Medium writers make lots of money because of the “How to succeed on Medium” posts. Based on that belief, new bloggers write articles about what they learned in their first month of writing on Medium.

The reality, however, is that nobody cares about what you did or experienced in your first (or tenth) month on Medium unless you have something exciting to share.

If you’re one of the few successful writers here, we’re not interested in your journey because you’re only sharing what everybody else has shared hundreds of times. And if you didn’t succeed, why should we even care?

Long story in short: Successful Medium writers aren’t successful because of their “How to Medium” posts. In fact, these posts barely make money because articles about Medium never get curated.

Instead of trying to copy successful creators by writing about what you learned in your first months on Medium, focus on delivering real value on topics you have something to say about.

Another huge misconception is the importance of followers.

I’m running a Facebook group with hundreds of new Medium writers and talking to many of them every week. And whenever I ask the group about their goals on Medium, many of them say that they aim to have a certain number of followers until the end of the month or year.

Of course, it’s cool to have 10,000 followers on Medium, but setting these types of goals isn’t effective.

While many people write “How to get more followers on Medium” type of posts, there’s only one way to grow your readership: Writing good stories.

Sure, you can follow people and expect them to follow back or apply other weird strategies, but they won’t be helpful in the long run. By using these wanna-be growth hacking strategies, you might attract followers but not readers or fans.

A writer with 1,000 followers will obviously get more views than one with 10 followers, but the difference is not as significant as you might think.

Even with 10,000 followers, you’ll have stories that flop and barely get 1,000 views.

Just like on any other platform, only a fraction of your followers will see your content and based on their engagement and the editor’s opinion, you might get more eyeballs on your work. Yet, more followers certainly don’t mean that you’ll always get more views or have higher earnings.

The only way to experience exponential growth on Medium is through curation and viral articles. Pieces with a massive reach will always lead to a lot of new followers, but not the other way around.

If you want proof, check the profiles of your favorite writers. Some of them might have more than 50,000 followers but barely get 1,000 claps on most of their pieces. Other articles, however, go viral, lead to massive earnings, and to thousands of new followers.

Instead of setting goals that are based on your follower count (e.g., “I want to have 500 followers by the end of the month.”), focus on your craft. Set goals that help to improve your work and serve your readers.

The online writing world is not as complicated as you might think. Particularly writing on Medium is a simple game. Once you know all the must-have strategies, all you need to do is consistently creating great content.

There are no hidden secrets or growth hacks that only marketing experts know, it’s just about playing to the rules and persevering for long enough.

Once you write good content, readers and followers will come automatically. There’s no way not to get more followers if you write great articles. So, instead of checking your follower count, come up with new goals that are specific, measurable, and attractive.

Here are a few goals you might want to set instead of aiming for more followers:

Set a minimum word count to write every day or week: Even if you have a full-time job, you can aim to write at least 500 or 1,000 words per day.
Aim for a specific amount of articles per week or month: If you can’t make time for writing every day (or just don’t want to track your word count), you can set the goal of writing a certain amount of articles per week or month. Given that you also take care of the quality of your work, aiming for a certain amount of articles is a great approach.
Choose courses or books that’ll help you to become an even better writer: By reading books or completing courses, you’ll learn how to improve your craft and be able to further enhance your work. That’s certainly a better strategy to gain followers than doing follow-for-follow campaigns.
Get into touch with writers who’re ahead of you and ask for feedback: Many experienced people are happy to support new writers given the pitch is kind and honest. Those who’re ahead of you will be able to give you profound advice on how to improve your work, which again will result in more followers.

Bottom Line

The number of followers of a Medium writer is one of the first metrics we see when looking at a new profile. And while it might seem like a good indicator for the writer’s success, it’s actually misleading.

Larry Kim, for instance, has 200,000 followers on Medium but barely gets 100 claps on the majority of his posts. It seems like he did some growth hacking in his early days on Medium, but right now, nobody reads his pieces even though he’s frequently publishing new articles.

Yet, you can see the same with a lot of other big profiles: Followers are a nice to have, but certainly not the most important metric to measure as a new writer on Medium.

Instead of hoping for more followers, focus on increasing your views and particularly your reads and the member reading time of your pieces.

I’m sure your ultimate goal isn’t collecting followers but writing stories that people want to read. So stop worrying about your followers and focus on improving your work.

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