100 Followers and Beyond
How I met my goal and other tips that will help all of you.
12/15/2021 — Hey, all!
I wanted to give a shout-out to anyone who is trying to build their followers list up to 100. I’m on the journey as well, so if you follow me, I’ll follow you back!
I’m Jessica, a former teacher and I write about career, relationships and mental health.
Good luck, everyone!
Update (December 18th, 2021)
I’m happy to report that as of 5 pm on 12/17/2021 I have reached 100 followers!
I would love to thank all the people who have helped me reach the goal of being able to (hopefully!) participate in the Partner Program. Thank you!
When I first started on Medium, I was looking everywhere for a plan or system that worked to gain followers. I would love to share a condensed version of the information I found that helped me put together a system that allowed me to gain 100+ followers in 48 hours.
Also, I would like to invite you to keep checking in on this post, because I will be updating it with more numbers as I continue to reach certain goals. This will help you to be able to see how things work in real-time with real growth. I will also keep this version of my article out of the paywall so that anyone can have access to it.
Here are the tips that I read online from other bloggers about collecting 100 followers:
- Search for “100 followers” or “1,000 followers”
- Click on each article, then click on the comments
- Leave 50 comments each time you log into the computer.
- Copy and paste the following format onto each commenter:
I’m following you! I’m Jessica, a former teacher and I write about career, relationships, and mental health. I’ve been on Medium for almost a week. I follow back everyone who follows me! @hertwigj001 (Link to one of your articles)
Half of the comments I left ended up getting followers. So if I applied to 100, my followers increased by about 50. It took about 4 hours for people to respond.
Here are some goals that I’ve set for myself to stay in the productivity mindset. I know that these will be beneficial to you if you are interested in pursuing writing as a career, not a hobby. I have broken them down into categories so that you can see the different areas.
These are all based on a large amount of reading and research I have done into successful blogs (success being defined, for these purposes, as high earnings, high followers). Unfortunately, I didn’t compile a list of websites that I researched, but I hope to add to this as I go and include links to helpful, successful bloggers along the way.
Number of followers:
Original Goal — Gain 100 followers in the first two weeks
Reality — I gained 106 followers in the first 48 hours
Future Milestones: 500 followers by February, 1,000 followers by March (it will increase as I join publications and grow my email list), then 10,000 followers by September 2022.
Note: In the beginning, I didn’t care about the quality of the followers that I collected because my goal was to reach 100. Now, I’m going to change my strategy to start following and gaining followers from writers who create awesome content in my niche.
Writing:
Goals — Publish 400 words daily
Reality — I am able to write every other day,.so I’ll have to cut the goal in half.
Future Milestones:
- Write at least 1,000 words weekly
- Make most articles around 7-minute reads
- By the end of 2023 have at least 50,000 words published.
Note: Most of the articles I have read say that 7-minute reads are the most popular, or between 1500–2000+ words.
Publications:
Goal: Accepted to 1 publication a month, apply to 1 each week
- Email small publications (around 500–2,000 followers) and ask for submission guidelines since I can’t read any within the paywall
Reality — Accepted into my first publication within 48 hours
Future Milestones:
- By the end of 2022 be accepted into at least 12 publications.
- After I’ve applied to a bunch of small publications, search for “submission guidelines” in Medium for more publication options, including larger ones.
- Create my own publication and advertise on new writing groups
Note: I believe that I was accepted into a publication because I put several articles of 1000+ words onto Medium that had good content and I put work into making the headlines/title graphics. I cited all of my sources and formatted the articles for easy readability.
Email List:
Goal — 10 subscribers by the end of December.
Reality — I haven’t set out any email signups forms yet so I have no subscribers yet.
Future Milestones — 25% growth each month
Note: I signed up for the free version of ConvertKit, which supports you until you reach 1,000 emails monthly. You could also do the email list option that Medium provides.
Bold: Read my update below about how things went with building my email list the first month!
Pinterest:
Goal— Create a pretty Pinterest photo for each article
Reality — Five were created so far, but it was slow going because I was putting too much time into the design. I’m changing my strategy so that I don’t spend more than 5 minutes per pin.
Future Milestones:
- Create 3 title photos for each article
- Create a title photo for each freebie and email sign-up
- Create a Pinterest business account and make at least 10 boards
- Join at least 10 group boards and Tailwind Tribes
- Pin 10 of my new Pin photos to group boards daily + pin 20 of other people’s photos from Group boards daily
Facebook: Market research focus
Goal — Join at least 10 groups, some in my niche and some new bloggers
Reality — Success! They’re pretty easy to apply for. Follow the rules!
Future Milestones:
- Post one of my pretty pin pictures on every Pinterest group promo day
- Ask audiences to give feedback about their problems or needs in my niche
- Testing: Take two different pin images and ask group members which they prefer. Do the same for articles, etc.
- Create a FB group for aspiring writers or bloggers who can’t afford editing services yet. Anyone who signs up can edit each other’s work based on rubrics.
Here are some other sample goals that I found in my research. These other goals will help you to grow your following and add income.
Affiliates:
Sample Goals —
- Begin making money within 4 months of signing up for Affiliates
- Write 1 affiliate article each week
- Read up on all the legal information (disclosures, privacy policies, etc.)
Bluehost Website:
Sample Goals —
- Create a website after you have earned $100 (to make sure that your writing income is somewhat sustainable, which is hard to predict on Medium)
- Use Bluehost and get a new pretty email address to put into ConvertKit that says the name of your new website
Note: All of the successful bloggers that I studied say that you need your own website if you want to be a successful writer. It will give you the ability to have complete control over your own content, make money through ads or affiliates and create your own domain/email address.
Freelance Writing Profiles:
Sample Goals —
- Have profiles on at least 5 different websites with portfolios, writing samples, and email sign-up forms to your newsletter
- Build up your writing portfolio, do a few jobs, and get hired by higher-paying clients
Note: You may want to have more of a diverse online presence in order to become more well-known, especially if you are wanting to publish books or get published by magazines. This is also a good idea for freelance work.
Ebooks:
Sample Goals —
- Write at least 1,000 words per month
- By the end of 2022 have a 10,000-word ebook published on Kindle
- Create a pretty ConvertKit landing page for your ebook
Note: You can gain even more readers by compiling your most successful articles into ebooks. You can have short reads (closer to 3,000 words) or have a longer read (10,000+ words). Advertise in your email list and create a separate landing page for your ebook.
Digital Products:
Sample Goals —
- Make freebies for email sign-up incentives
- Create quality digital products to sell online
Note: This is a great way to get some sales if you don’t want to write an entire ebook. You can create printables, calendars, binders, e-courses, spreadsheets, and more.
As you can see, I have high aspirations for my work. I’ll have a busy couple of months ahead as I apply to publications, build up my number of articles, and post on social media, but I know that the payoff will be worth it! Follow me so that you can check in every once in a while to see how Goals meet Reality on Medium.
Please comment below! I want to start a conversation about this so that new Medium writers can have accurate information (myself included!). Are there any goals that we need to add that would help people? Any other topics to research? Any other experiments that I should run and post about?
Real people, real progress.