So, You Want To Grow Your Readership?
By: Jon Peters
Tags: Life Lessons, Social Media, Advice, Writing, Writing Tips

So, You Want To Grow Your Readership?

That’s fine — just don’t do it for vanity’s sake.

Photo by Fares Hamouche on Unsplash

There’s nothing quite like the ping of a notification, telling you that somebody out there in the ether of the Internet has followed you, am I right?

It feels good.

After all, the people that follow you must want to see your content. And the more followers you have, the more people will see your content, right? It doesn’t matter whether you tweet non-stop, or post photographs of your most recent avocado-based culinary exploits. Hell, you can even try writing articles explaining what a bad influence Peppa Pig is on your children if you like.

On most platforms, if nobody follows you, you may as well address your content to a fire hydrant, because the engagement you’ll receive will be roughly the same. But in a world where everybody is trying to have their voices heard, how do you go about getting people to listen?

It’s easy.

Just Say Goodbye To Your Dignity.

Let me explain.

A few days ago I stumbled across a writer who’d responded to a piece about gaining success on Medium, and in their response, they’d mentioned how well they were doing having only been a member for two weeks. I clicked onto their profile and saw they had more than twice the number of followers that I had at the time. In two weeks.

I sensed a disturbance in the Force.

Now I’m only human, so my thought process went from zero to ‘I’m an awful writer, what am I doing wrong?’ in less than half a second. But then I shifted my gaze two inches to the left, and I noticed that in their two weeks on Medium, they themselves had followed over 1.3k people, almost 100 per day.

Phew. False alarm.

Now, on Instagram and Twitter, you’re not going to get anywhere without followers. People know this, which is why the concept of ‘follow for follow’ has become common practice. I follow you, you follow me back and I sleep a little easier at night knowing that at least one person on the planet will see the picture I tweeted of a dancing cat. We both win.

www.boredpanda.com

You’re welcome.

But does this technique work on Medium? No.

Let me tell you why.

Firstly, what counts for engagement on Twitter and Instagram is nowhere NEAR the same as on Medium. If you laughed at the dancing cat meme I tweeted you might retweet it. Easy. One-click and we’re done.

On Medium, to get other creators to engage with your work, you have to dedicate time and effort. If I’m asking readers to give up 4–8 minutes of their lives to read my work, then you can be damn sure I’ve tried to make those minutes worthwhile. After all, I’m pretty sure Tolkien didn’t write Lord Of The Rings in hope that one day somebody would reach the last page and think ‘Well, that was a bloody waste of time, wasn’t it?’

But what truly sets Medium apart is that having followers isn’t a prerequisite to having your work seen. My first ever article was curated in ‘Environment’, and published in P.S. I Love You. As a brand new writer, I couldn’t have asked for a better start in terms of reader engagement. I know that other writers have found curation rates to be inconsistent, but stick at it, focus on the quality of your work, and the readers will come, and if they like your work then they will more than likely follow you, enabling them to read more.

I know for a fact that if I had spent the last three months following as many writers as I could, I would have double or triple the number of followers that I have now. Easily. Statistically speaking, a significant percentage of those would have followed me back. But I wouldn’t have written nearly as much as I have done. And the trade-off for that is that I would have 1.3k people whose content I’m supposed to read and engage with? Ain’t NOBODY got time for that.

One Rule To Follow By

I’m not here to bash other writers. If you want to gain followers by following others mindlessly, in hopes they’ll follow, be my guest. But speaking as someone who is still relatively new to Medium, someone who has busted his ass, and is grateful for every single follower I have, take my advice. The next time you’re considering following someone, whichever platform you’re on, ask yourself one question:

Did I enjoy their content, their style, and their perspective, and do I want to read/hear/see more of what they have to offer?

If you answered yes, then follow away, and look forward to whatever content that person publishes next.

But if you answered no, then steer clear. If you’re not going to enjoy their content then the act of following them serves as nothing more than a brief ego boost, which will fade in time when they see that their ‘followers’ aren’t actually engaging with their work. I would rather have ten followers who read, enjoy and engage with my work, than one thousand followers who don’t.

Don’t follow for follow. Don’t let a measure of your vanity and ego let you lose sight of the reason you started writing in the first place.

I started writing with the aim to move people with my words. I don’t know about you, but the movement I had in mind? I wanted it to be a damn sight further than the movement of a stranger’s computer cursor, onto that little white ‘Follow’ box on my profile page.