Reality Check
Here’s Why New Writers Should Stop Wasting Time for Gaining Followers on Medium.
A large number of them are fake and not functional. However, new member under 100 needs to meet follower requirement.
Purpose of the Article
This post provides my perspectives on followers. After a review of my stats, I came to the conclusion that followers don’t matter on Medium. However, loyal readers do. You might check the attached stories for detail.
Here Are 8 Proven Tips to Build a Rock-Solid Reading Audience on Medium.
Here’s Why Subscribers Can Produce 50 Times Better Results Than Followers for Freelance Writers.
However, Medium created a requisite for a partnership program. For new writers, I provided guidance in a separate article attached.
Reality Check for Writers
I told my audience before, “Followers Don’t Mean Anything On Medium Anymore.” It is a false metric to measure success.
Today, I have a piece of new evidence for my assertion.
Losing Thousands of Followers in aDay Brings Mixed Feelings to Writers.
If you are a writer on Medium, possibly you noticed a dramatic decrease in followers since yesterday.
I was alerted by some of the contributors to my publications. They asked me what had happened to their followers. They lost a substantial number of followers. I quickly checked my followers and noticed that about 1,000 followers had disappeared.
First, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought it must be a system glitch. Then one of our editors found a post from Medium.
Before seeing the post, I sent a request to the Medium Helpdesk, thinking that it was a system glitch. The support agent confirmed that it was on purpose, as explained in this blog post.
The email from the support team includes the following key points:
As part of our ongoing work to provide the best possible user experience, we’ve begun removing accounts previously unfollowed, deleted or suspended for spam from your follower and following counts across Medium.
From your FOLLOWERS list, this is ONLY accounts that have PREVIOUSLY been suspended or deleted, or have unfollowed you in the past. These accounts were not active followers.
From your FOLLOWING list, this is accounts that have previously been suspended or deleted, or you have unfollowed in the past. (Your following count includes both the authors and publications you follow)
According to Medium: What Does This Mean For Writers and Publications?
You may see a change in your follower and following counts. However, you’ll gain a more accurate sense of your audience size now that follower counts only contain authentic, quality users. Rest assured — this change will not affect your distribution or earnings.
I am glad the support agent added this plan for Medium: What Is Medium Doing About Follow Counts Going Forward?
We will continue removing unfollowed, spam, and other disingenuous accounts from Medium on a daily basis, and accurately updating your following/follower counts. So you won’t see significant shifts in your follower or following counts going forward, and you can trust that your followers are authentic and engaged. You can always flag an account you suspect of spam or other rules violations using our reporting tools for us to take a look at.
This statement hits the nail. With this new initiative, we can trust that our followers are authentic and engaged. It is an excellent piece of news.
However, I am disappointed I was followed by a thousand fake accounts giving me false hope for over a year. The implications are disturbing.
With this opportunity, let me share my honest concerns about followers on Medium.
Ironically, the more followers I gained, the lower views and reading times my stories received. This was not exclusive to me. I observed the same pattern in the stats of many writers contributing to my publications.
After experiencing this decline and that many well-followed writers raised similar concerns in multiple stories, I am convinced that followers do not matter as much as some writers would highlight.
My concern is: that not even 1% of my followers see my stories on Medium. The more followers I gained, the fewer views and reading times I experienced.
When I had 100 followers, the earnings of my stories were higher than what I have now, after Medium removed the fake accounts. There is a dichotomy between these numbers. The situation is ironic.
I don’t use earnings as a metric for myself as it is not my primary goal. However, it is an indication that followers do not matter. Not making money does not bother me much, but the lack of visibility to my stories does. Creators want their products to be seen by their potential customers.
Even though I am glad Medium does this required cleaning to improve the quality of readers, the fundamental problem of distribution has been hitting many writers since last November.
Here is the reality that substantiates my concerns.
For example, out of the so-called thousands of clean followers, only eight readers had a chance to see this important story within the last 24 hours. Possibly they found them on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Quora, where I post a link to these stories as they receive good impressions and reactions. Last month, my social media posts received over three million impressions.
The Medium algorithm does not seem to make this particular story visible to my followers. It received a 0.1% success rate.
This is a story with a piece of content affecting millions of people globally.
Here is a screen capture from the stats page when I am penning this post.
You may argue that the topic is not attractive to many. I agree, but out of 6,500 clean followers, the story got only eight views and four reads. At least it has 50% reading times. But my concern is viewed in this context, not reading times.
Imagine 6,400 followers seeing this story. It could have 3,200 readers. But it ended up with four reads.
Do you see my problem with Medium’s broken distribution system?
So my conclusive point is followers do not make much difference on Medium until the distribution issue is resolved. Until the distribution system is fixed, writers will continue suffering from the lack of visibility.
My fervent wish is for Medium to address this elephant in the room.
I hope Medium fixes the algorithm to distribute stories evenly to the followers of writers. It can be Medium’s next critical mission to make this platform more sustainable.
Fixing the distribution issue is as important as removing fake accounts from the ecosystem.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
I focus on my loyal readers.
Here Are 8 Proven Tips to Build a Rock-Solid Reading Audience on Medium.
Here’s Why Subscribers Can Produce 50 Times Better Results Than Followers for Freelance Writers.
How to Write Content Guaranteed to Get Views and Reads
Here’s What I Learned by Reviewing 100+ Viral Articles in 2021
As a new reader, you might check my holistic health and well-being stories reflecting on my reviews, observations, and decades of sensible experiments.
Sample Health Improvement Articles for New Readers
Defeat Metabolic Syndrome and Slim Down Waistline with Three Tips
Why 442 Million People Live Diabetic and What We Can Do About it
Six Tips to Prevent Brain Atrophy and Lower the Risks of Mental Disorders
What Can We Do About NCDs Killing 41 Million People Yearly?.
Reduce the Risks of Neonatal Disorders to Prevent Infant Mortality.
Reduce the Risks of Major Diseases with Healthy Lifestyle Habits
I also write about valuable nutrients. Here are the links for easy access:
Boron, Urolithin, taurine, citrulline malate, biotin, lithium orotate, alpha-lipoic acid, n-acetyl-cysteine, acetyl-l-carnitine, CoQ10, PQQ, NADH, TMG, creatine, choline, digestive enzymes, magnesium, hydrolyzed collagen, nootropics, pure nicotine, activated charcoal, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B1, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, and other nutrients that might help to improve metabolism and mental health.
About The Author
I am a technologist, published author, editor, blogger, digital marketing strategist, and content developer with four decades of industry experience.
I write articles for Medium, NewsBreak, and Vocal Media. On Medium, I established ILLUMINATION, ILLUMINATION-Curated, ILLUMINATION’ S MIRROR, ILLUMINATION Book Chapter, Technology Hits, and SYNERGY publications, supporting 15,500+ writers on Medium.
You can Join my publications requesting access here.
Leadership collection — Technology collection
I publish my lifestyle, health, and well-being stories on EUPHORIA. I wrote several articles on major diseases and valuable nutrients for health. My focus is on metabolic, cellular, mitochondrial, and mental health. Here is my collection of Insightful Life Lessons from Personal Stories.
You might join my seven publications on Medium as a writer by sending a request via this link. You might find more information about my professional background. I write about health as it matters. I believe health is all about homeostasis.
