Why I’m Not A Follow For Follow Writer

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with supporting your fellow writers and followers. But, to me, I don’t get the overall point outside of quickly reaching a bunch of followers.

Eventually, I’m going to be more active on Medium. However, with a full-time writing job already, sometimes I just don’t feel like writing for a hobby to, even if I’d love to turn Medium and a few other platforms into a full-time gig. For now, I just post something occasionally and interact with other articles.

I Don’t Interact For Followers (Though It’s a Nice Perk)

While some might see my growth as pathetic, I’ve written a handful of articles, posted them on Pinterest and Twitter, and that’s it. I have a full-time job as a writer, so that writing has to come first. I don’t interact with other writers to get them to follow me. I do it because I genuinely like what I’ve just read or I want to share my opinion.

If someone visits my profile and likes my writing as a result, great! If not, no problem.

I Want My Followers To Interact With My Writing

I’ve read numerous stories on Medium where people complain about their stats. They have thousands of followers and follow at least 2–3 times that many people. Yet, every post only gets a handful of views and a smattering of comments.

Is it a Medium problem? Is it possible that 99% of their followers aren’t seeing new posts in their feeds?

Or, is it more likely that a bunch of people followed in the hopes of being followed? Sure, everyone’s follower count went up and quickly. But, that’s it.

I’ll admit that for the rare few, this strategy has worked…very well. However, relying on this for any kind of real income is like writing one great story on Medium and expecting that to skyrocket you to success in 24 hours. It’s a unicorn moment that has happened, but it probably won’t happen to you or me.

While I’d love to get thousands of followers with just a few articles/posts/stories, that takes work. People will find my work and when they do, I hope they follow me. But, I only want them to follow me if they actually like what I’m writing and want to see more.

Getting genuine followers is the key to getting more reads, which leads to more engagement. More engagement (claps, read time, comments) means Medium sees my content as more worthy of sharing on more feeds.

Of course, if you’re doing this for money, it leads to more money as well.

Don’t Get Insulted If I Don’t Follow Back

I get excited when I see my notifications and I’ve got a new follower. I don’t always have time immediately to check out my followers’ profiles. However, I do make a point of doing this within 2–3 days in most cases.

If you follow me and I don’t follow back, don’t get insulted. I have checked out your content. Usually, I try to leave a comment or at least some claps to provide engagement back as a thank you for being so wonderful for following me.

But, if your content isn’t something I’d engage with at least semi-regularly, I probably won’t follow you back. For instance, I had a follower (who unfollowed me a week later because I didn’t follow them) who wrote about crytocurrency investing strategies. The few stories I read were well written and informative. While I stay up to date on general crypto trends as a tech writer, I have zero interest in investing. Which means, I wouldn’t be reading any more of their content.

So, I appreciate the follow. I really do. I wouldn’t expect anyone to follow me if they weren’t interested in my content.

I Want A Feed Of Interesting Content To Me

Finally, I don’t do follow for follow because I want to dive into my Medium feed every few days and engage in content that’s genuinely useful and interesting to me. I pay a yearly fee to access everything on Medium, but that doesn’t mean I want to read everything.

It’s like having 50,000 Facebook friends. At no point is anyone that interested in what 50,000 “friends” are doing. You just have a massive feed of content that you scroll past trying to find posts you’re actually interested in seeing.

I also see it like reading books. While my best friend loves reading autobiographies, true crime, and real history stories, I couldn’t care less about any of that. I prefer fantasy and paranormal fiction to escape the real world. It’s just the kind of content that gets my imagination all hot and bothered. Plus, it’s what I’d love to eventually write myself.

I try to fill my Medium feed with writers that write things I truly enjoy. I have some humor, writing tips, Medium advice, a little fiction/poetry, and inspiration/motivation.

I’m still expanding the content I follow, but as I said, I’m not that active right now. But, I look forward to it and growing the number of creators I follow. I’d also like to say that at no point do I expect those creators to follow me back, but thanks so much if you do.

Love what you see and want to see more of it? Get full access to every story on Medium and support me and other writers at the same time by becoming a Medium member. It’s just $5/month or $50/year. I get a small portion of your membership fee and it costs you nothing extra.

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