So You’ve Been on Medium for Two Weeks and That Suddenly Makes You an Expert on the Subject

I’m probably going to regret this.

People say the stupidest shit on Medium about how to do it right, make all sorts of assumptions about the people who do things differently, and basically crap on other writers at every opportunity. Especially when it comes to the Medium Partner Program. I’m sick to the back teeth of it.

Should I reply to them, write about it, or keep my trap shut? I ask for a friend. Actually, I asked on Twitter. They said I should write about it. So blame them. I also replied to one such post. Then I regretted it and wished I’d just written a post about it instead. So, you know, blame me.

The post that sent me over the edge was about how to get followers on Medium. It was written by a well-intentioned soul who had been on the platform for two weeks. This was long enough for them to figure out what’s what in the land of Medium and tell us all about it. Apparently.

The piece went to great lengths to explain in no uncertain terms why people who followed lots of people in the hopes of gaining followers had no dignity and were basically shits of the highest order. Ok, so I’m paraphrasing.

The reason it stuck in my craw so much is I’m the very monster that they’re describing and the motives they ascribe to people like me couldn’t be further from the truth. At least in my case. I don’t speak for other people or assume I know what makes them tick. I’m sort of whacky like that.

I’m deliberately not going to link to the original post or name the writer for several reasons. I don’t beat up on other writers. I’m not ragging on them or trying to call them out. And I’m not subtweeting about them like a passive aggressive douchebag. Or should that be sub-Medium-ing?

I’ve already interacted amicably with the writer on social media. I genuinely like them as one writer to another and will continue to read and follow their work with great interest. I also think that all writers on the Medium Partner Program have more in common with each other than we might care to admit.

It doesn’t matter who wrote it and, quite frankly, it doesn’t even matter what they said. These sort of articles are ten a penny. When I replied to their post I outlined off-the-cuff why I follow people and my motives for doing so. Instead I wished I’d written a post about it but I’m too lazy to write one from scratch.

What follows is basically that reply. Here’s why I follow people on Medium. This is my recipe for success. This is how I get followers like the money-grabbing sociopath people clearly think that I am.

How to get followers like a money-grabbing sociopath

So you’ve been on Medium for two weeks and that suddenly makes you an expert on the subject? That’s nice. Yay for you. Go team.

You say that you’re not here to bash fellow writers but only ascribe negative reasons to them doing things differently to the way that you do them. Because how could anyone possibly have perfectly good reasons for doing things the way that they do them if they’re doing it wrong, am I right?

A straw man argument is where you deliberately misrepresent the views and actions of other people just so that you can knock them down. It’s easier to do this than to engage with their arguments in real terms. I’m just putting that out there.

You make an awful lot of assumptions about why people follow people, why people should follow people, and what following people means on Medium as opposed to anywhere else.

At the time of writing this I’ve over 2,000 followers on Medium and I follow more than 15,000. I’m not in league with the Devil. I don’t eat babies for breakfast. And I don’t follow people out of some misplaced sense of vanity. My dignity is alive and well, thank you very much.

I don’t say any of this to diss you. Only to present an alternative perspective on why people might choose to follow lots of other people on Medium.

Once upon a time the number of followers you had on Medium was nothing but a vanity metric. It didn’t matter one jot because Medium showed your work to potential readers regardless of how many followers you had. In fact in the early days you could start off with a lot of followers just by importing them across from Twitter.

Nowadays Medium won’t show your writing to potential readers unless you’re curated or published in a publication — and even then the top spots are reserved exclusively for the Medium-owned publications like OneZero, Gen, Elemental, Forge and Modus. The ones that they have staffed in-house writers for — most of whom are former journalists based in New York.

You can of course still submit your work to these publications but good luck getting in to them. If you are published in them it is like winning a golden ticket to Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.

For the rest of us the only way to get your writing in front of potential readers, other than curation or publications, is if they’re part of your network. That means that who you follow and who follows you is incredibly important — if not individually at least in the aggregate.

The more followers you have that are paid members, ie. readers, the more people get to see your work. And you don’t have to stress about whether or not these people really want to see your work — the algorithm still only puts your work in front of a handful of these people. The ones that it determines are most likely to be interested in your work.

I follow people for many reasons — some are heartfelt, and some are strategic, but none are nefarious or just about ego and vanity. The goal is to expand my network of potential readers, first and foremost, and to expand my network of fellow writers.

If I cared about my following as a vanity metric I’d worry that I follow more people than follow me. This negative ratio matters in places like Twitter, as social proof, but not so much here. I don’t follow people just in the hopes that they’ll follow me back and I don’t unfollow people for not following me.

I follow the best and brightest writers on the platform. I follow writers who are in the same publications as I am. I follow the paid members of Medium who are most likely to be interested in my work.

You can follow 125 people per day. That’s not a lot of wiggle room but it’s still better than nothing. Any day that you don’t follow 125 people is a missed opportunity to grow your readership or otherwise expand your network.

You end up with two big buckets — of followers and people that you follow. The algorithm does a great job of sorting those buckets in to people you want to read (and shows you their work) and people who want to read your work (and shows them your work). It’s a win win.

Th-th-th-that’s all, folks

So there you have it. That’s why I do one of the things that I do. The observant among you will notice that, in a way, what I’ve written here is also a straw man argument. There’s no need to point this out to me. In addition to being vain, evil, selfish, nefarious, and a raging narcissist, I’m also incredibly lazy.

James Garside is an independent journalist, author, and travel writer. Join Chapter 23 for the inside track on all their creative projects and insights about life, work, and travel.