That My 400th Follower May Bring Good Luck For February!
How I more than doubled my followers in 30 days and my purposes for the incoming month
I still remember the day I got my first follower on Medium. I was trying to find out what would have happened if I had pushed the clap button more than once, and I left 50 ones to a profile I’ve never heard about anymore. Since I had no stories posted yet, the only way she had to reply was to hit the follow button. And apparently, that’s what she did.
Even if it looks like years ago, it was only a couple of months ago. What happened since then? What have been my strengths and weaknesses? Let’s check it out.
What I did correctly
1) Become a FOM
I actually became a Friend of Medium in December, but January has been the first full month with this qualification, and since then, I noticed a significant enhancement in my results.
Medium doesn’t leave much space for customization, and being a FOM is one of the few things you can do to convey a message to the other users.
It’s like saying: “Hey, I deeply believe in this project! I’m not just passing through, but I want to grow as a writer, and to do so, I’ve chosen to engage with other members”.
The $10 difference with normal membership has been repaid in just a couple of days. One minute to do it, everlasting advantages: this is the first action I’d recommend to those who want to build a community on Medium.
2) Refined my engagement
I’m writing an article dedicated to my idea of engagement on Medium, so I’m not spending too many words on this topic.
The most significant change compared to the past, is not regarding average time spent on other’s articles or comment's value.
It’s about the mindset I adopt when approaching new profiles.
Even if I don’t like admitting it, I was too focused on a 1:1 ratio. I comment on you, you comment on me. I found out very soon it doesn’t necessarily work this way. Someone could avoid replying for many reasons, but it doesn’t mean they’re ignoring you forever. On the contrary, if someone interacts once, it’s not guaranteed they’ll do it forever.
If you think about all the possible ways things can go, you just get crazy. It’s way better to shift your focus from the result to the process.
How? Easy! By engaging only with people I truly want to read. If you really like one piece of content, it’s way easier to spend more time reading it, combining business with pleasure, as well as giving frank appreciation. And people are not stupid: they can distinguish between a passionate comment and a scam.
3) See with reader’s eyes
If 95% of the articles on Medium require 5 minutes of reading or less, is worth posting a 15-minute one? I’m not a matter of quality, of course! It’s just that, if you want to be read, maybe you should learn how to put things in the right places.
Another thing is that no topic is as read as the ones related to Medium (income reports, followers, etc), so, even if it's not your niche, you can occasionally put one now and then to make your name more visible to other bloggers, so that they start memorizing it, and raising chances to be clicked when you talk about other topics, too.
What I aim to improve
1) No breaks!
This year I felt deserving of what I call the “high-schoolers vacation”. Basically, I didn’t move a finger between the 24th of December and the 7th of January.
Wrong!
If Google and YouTube’s algorithms reward consistency by CEO’s admission, Medium one could work the same way! Now that I don’t need any more half a day to write a decent article, I want to check if this hypothesis is correct.
2) Post every day
Except for the last week, I used to post three times per week, and I noticed an increase in follower number on the same days.
Last week, when I published more often, my ratio has increased.
Just to give some numbers: as you can see by the screen upward, I currently have 426 followers (+2 I gained while writing, 428). The 400th followers I refer to in the title came on Monday morning, two days ago.
So, I gained an average of 13/14 followers per day.
If I had had this pace all month long, my increase would be almost double that of 223.
That’s it for January! Nice February to everyone!
To the next time!
