Why Buy the Course When You Can Get the Milk for Free?

Humblebrag alert! I'm about to hit 1,600 followers on Medium and now have 1,275 on Twitter. I did not reach these milestones because I’m a marketing whiz. It’s because I know how to use Google, and I can read. The only other mad skill I possess is how to avoid getting ripped off. Oh, yeah, and I can type.

The followers I have on Medium I worked hard to earn. The followers on Twitter not so much. Protip: Use the tag #writingcommunity on Twitter and start following everyone else who uses it. There are thousands of writers out there willing to support you in return and promote your work.

Ironically, about a day or so ago, I got an email from a hotshot blogger offering me $200 off his course on how to get 1,000 followers on Medium. That’s a $200 discount. He says he usually charges over $400 for this 5-day email course telling me everything I’ve already found out for free. As Mr. T used to say, “I pity the fool.”

A little less than 11 months ago, I published a story about how my five-year-old Twitter account boasted only 25 followers.

In the story, I say I don’t care, but it turns out that I do. I decided to see if I could run up that number. The efforts I was making weren’t working out, so I researched and learned what I needed to know.

Today, I have 1,275 Twitter followers, and I added 1,066 in less than two months. It took a little effort, but once I got to a certain point, it snowballed without much help from me.

To grow your followers on any platform is work. Vocal+ has been the most difficult for me, but they all take effort. There’s no way around it. Taking a course on how to do it isn’t going to help you avoid that part, no matter how much you pay for it.

That’s not to say that taking a course isn’t helpful. It cuts way down on the trial and error aspect of figuring out how to do something.

But here’s what the people selling their courses for big bucks don’t want you to know: there are people equally savvy who are willing to teach you how to build your list of followers for free.

Just Google “How to get 1,000 followers on Medium.” Your search will bring up a bunch of articles about how to do this. If the piece turns out to be a clickbait and switch come-on for a sales pitch, stop reading and find another article. There are also free YouTube videos and podcasts that can help you.

Other free resources for writing on Medium and building a following:

Linda Caroll’s booklet of 25 Top Medium Tips is a terrific resource. You can get it free by signing up for her free Friday newsletter. It’s packed with useful information about tagging, topics, curation, and more.

August Birch has an excellent free course calledTribe 1K Email Masterclass for Creators on building a mailing list that I found very useful. He does charge for some of the other courses he teaches, but this course is free and beneficial.

So, if you want to learn how to grow your list of followers, whether it be on Twitter, Medium, Vocal+, or elsewhere, the answers you seek are just a Google search away, and most of it won’t cost you a nickel.

Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that free advice is only free because it’s worthless. The people selling how-to courses for hundreds of dollars want you to think so, but they’re pulling the wool over your eyes.

They’ll say that the free courses are “free for a reason.” You know what? They are, but it’s not the reason the knowledge brokers want you to think.

There are many writers out there who honestly want to help you do well and aren’t willing to commit armed robbery to do it. They provide valuable information on how to succeed on Medium because they want to pay it forward. They benefit by building relationships, not by picking pockets. Seek them out. They’re wise, wonderful people, and they will make your journey a lot easier.