Since I dropped my luggage on medium.
I could read many strategies to grow an account.
The number 100 seems to be the holy grail and many are willing to try anything to reach it.
Looking for the most effective strategy to achieve it.
I went looking for the best ideas.
One of the most effective strategies, if the number is what you care about, is the follow for follow.
I follow you, you follow me, we all follow each other, we reach our 100 followers but nobody reads each other.
We unlocked the monetization: yay but … we have no readers.
Paradox when the first goal of reaching 100 follows was monetization.
When I read about the follow for follow, I immediately knew it was a bad idea. I come from twitter and it already existed a few years ago.
They called it follow trains, someone would make a post and everyone would follow everyone else who commented. Tchou Tchou. Everyone leaves but few arrive at the station.
Cool except that :
– You have followers who have no emotional connection with you
– You have followers who don’t read your niche
– In short, you have a follower who doesn’t follow you
You’re going to post your content…
No reading. No engagement, no interaction.
Of course there will always be a very small proportion of people who will interact with you.
But the majority won’t.
Because whoever follows hundreds of people has a feed that looks like a battle in a big war. Chaos and eyes that cry blood when they see some clickbait coming directly from one of the circles of hell.
It’s always been a bad idea to do it on twitter, on instagram.
Also on Youtube (because I created also on this platform).
And if it’s bad on all those platforms, I’m pretty sure it’s bad on medium too.
Why you shouldn’t do it?
Because we don’t care about being monetized if nobody reads us.
Because getting to 100 followers in a legit way is the proof of concept that you can do it.
That people want to read you.
And that you like to write.
Your first 100 followers is your learning curve.
“Yes, but nobody reads me.”
It’s true, there’s a twist.
For the first two months, I posted a few stories.
In fact, to tell you the truth, I copied and pasted content from my twitter content.
In the Richter scale of bad ideas (this scale should have a name!), copying and pasting is at one of the highest ranks.
Each platform has its own codes and ways of publishing.
I had in all and for all …
32 followers, from December to February.
I was demotivated to see that I was not getting anywhere on medium.
Everything changed when I got serious about creating content on Medium.
After all, it was crazy to attempt to succeed without even trying to work for it.I rethought my strategy.
About what I could say, how to say it and who to say it to.
I polished my profile (which was really bad) and went on a quest to connect with other writers. I commented on their stories, averaging between 5 and 10 comments a day in the niches I liked.
Some followed me, cool, some didn’t.
Some came to comment on my posts.
The number of followers increased little by little.
Below the growth.
In addition to commenting,
I decided to post a story a day until … I don’t know ?
Maybe until success.
This is the kind of obsession I can have.
If you want to get something, you have to give something.
The law of equivalent exchange I learned from the great Nicolas Flam… in the Full Metal Alchemist anime.
And here i am at just over 100 followers in ten days.
That was effort.
About 1 to 2 hours a day.
But it was worth it.
I made friends. I learned a lot by reading too.
And it also inspired me for future content.
Conclusion, if you want to do the same
– Make a cool profile
– leave cool comments that make people want to go to your profile
– write stories that you like and that you are passionate about
You will have your 100 follows in two weeks to one month and as a bonus, new friends and readers.
If you write cool stories, you can comment, I’ll come visit you.
And if you think that follow for follow is a good strategy, don’t throw a rock at me, just explain me why I’m wrong.
