My Race to 100 Followers on Medium

 15 Months on Medium

A laptop computer, a notebook with a pen, and a hot drink, on a table.
Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

Why I Started Writing On Medium

I opened an account on Medium in September 2020, after searching for a better place to post my longer articles. With a clean appearance and no adverts, there was a lot to like.

I didn’t know what to expect and planned to let things develop naturally.

Instead of automatically following people back, I would check out their work, and only follow them if I wanted to. I was selective.

After all, if everyone followed everyone, it would seem a bit pointless; the act of following would no longer indicate genuine interest.

Initially, I republished about nine articles that I’d previously posted on my Facebook page, or here on my Blogspot site. Then, I added one or two new articles every month, with a few gaps here and there.

The Partner Program

In the past, anyone could choose to become a member of the Medium Partner Program, which pays the author according to how many people read their work. There didn’t seem to be any real downside, so I signed up for it immediately.
Even though I didn’t have many articles, and they were largely unnoticed, I started to receive a few dollars every so often. I was surprised and delighted!
It even jumped up to about six dollars on one occasion! It wasn’t going to pay my electricity bill, but it was still very welcome.

What’s All This Talk About 100 Followers?

A few months ago, I kept hearing about the need to get 100 followers, to be eligible to join the Partner Program. At the time, I didn’t pay very close attention, because I thought it would only be relevant to new members.

Towards the end of November, I was seeing more and more articles about the need for 100 followers. So I searched my old emails and found one that I’d received from Medium in August 2021. That’s when I realised that the new ‘100 follower’ rule would apply to me after the end of the year.

I didn’t want to get kicked out of the program. But given that it’d taken me a year to get 55 followers, I realised that I needed to take some action.

Social Media

I’m not the sort of person who finds it easy to ask for help, perhaps because it can be upsetting if such a request is ignored or declined, but this felt like it was becoming urgent. So I did something that I rarely do: I asked for help on social media.

I found it quite moving when one of my tweets got retweeted several times. It gave me a much-needed boost, to know that there were people who cared.

Social media certainly helped, but it wasn’t the only thing that helped me to cross the 100-follower barrier.

Spending Time On Medium

During my first year on Medium, I didn’t really interact with people very much. I just posted my articles, shared them on social media, and left it at that.

Until a few weeks ago, I wasn’t even a paying Medium member, so I could only read a few articles each month.

I decided that I needed to take Medium more seriously, so I paid for a 12-month membership.

Since subscribing, I’ve spent more time on Medium — after all, I like to make use of the things that I’ve paid for! I wish I’d done it sooner because I’ve read a number of interesting and useful articles. And I’ve responded to them.

Being more active seems to have made me a little bit more visible.

I think that the combination of social media, and becoming less invisible on Medium, is what pushed my follower count over 100.

Follow For Follow

With so many people rushing to reach 100 followers, I had to abandon my personal rule, of only following people back after checking out their articles.

I should point out that I do still choose to follow people when I like their work. It’s just that there is now a rapidly growing number who I haven’t had time to look at, and who only followed me to help reach their target.
In some ways, I don’t feel very good about drifting into follow-back territory. But I can’t turn my back on others who still need help.
I like to think that, one day, we can all move back towards following people because we like their work — rather than doing it as an artificial way to reach some arbitrary threshold.

* * * * *

Thank You

I hope you enjoyed reading this article. Please consider supporting me by:

  • Visiting my ko-fi.com page ☕️😊
  • Responding to this article, or sharing it online
  • Reading my articles on Medium

It really helps, and means a lot to me.

* * * * *

The author first published this article on Medium. It was added here on 3 January 2022.

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