Want 100 Followers? — Don’t trick them | Writing on Medium

We say “followers” but what we really mean is “readers”.

And when we say “‘readers” we mean “engaged readers”.

And when we say “engaged readers” we also mean “readers who not only read but also comment and pay a Medium subscription”.

So, your “100 Followers to get me into the Medium Partner Program” goal becomes “100 readers who not only read my stories but also pay for a Medium membership”.

Why you need to rephrase your goals like this?

Because you need a way to know exactly where you’re headed — what is your target —, be able to measure your progress and verify when you’ve reached the destination.

That’s how optimized goal-setting works.

Note: I created a short online course on this topic, just because I consider it a key component of goal achievement. A free access link is available at the end of this article, in case you are interested in the method.

Anyway, back to the 100 Followers goal.

You’re probably wondering how to reach the magic number.

This is likely why you clicked on this story.

I already covered what I consider The Fastest Way To 100 Followers in a previous post, but there’s more to that.

Here’s my advice to you: Whatever you write in the attempt to convince 100 people to follow your account, make sure you are authentic and honest at all times!

Don’t trick your audience in order to make them see you as someone you’re not.

• Don’t claim expertise in fields where you are not trained and where you cannot provide an informed opinion or recommendation. Write about what you know, state your connection to a subject, share your discoveries of information from reliable sources, and credit those sources.
• Don’t go the “fake it til you make it” way. Don’t try to link irrelevant social proof elements to your aspiring writer career. Your 10K+ followers Instagram account has nothing to do with your writing on Medium if on Instagram you post photos of your meals and pets, and on Medium you’re trying to write about business management.
• Don’t pull “advice” out of your… personal experiences only. Share your personal journeys if you are comfortable with that but don’t upgrade them to relevant-data level that should inform other people’s life decisions.
• Don’t steal other people’s work. Needless to say— I hope — but don’t “borrow” articles from other writers. You may think you’re smart — You find some cool article on another platform, change a few words, slap your name on the piece, and boom, tons of articles that you can monetize. You’ll get caught, especially if the articles gain traction. And even if you would manage to get away with it for a while, you’d still not be a content creator.
• Don’t steal other people’s success stories and turn them into your neverending resource for post ideas. I wrote about this phenomenon here:

• Use lazy content in moderation. We all have meh days when it comes to writing. We may go for an easy-to-write piece of content and call it a day. That’s OK and part of the game as long as you have strong pieces that can otherwise offer a lot of support to your writing activity. Don’t turn every day into Lazy Content Day.

The list could go on and on but I will wrap things up here since I think I’ve covered the main elements of living an authentic and honest writing life.

Aim for “trustworthy” as an adjective that describes you as a writer and people will appreciate and reward you with their time… and at times, money.

You’d be a good investment for their own journey of growth.

And that is a nice thing to have as a goal.

Best of luck to you.

See you at 100!

Thank you for reading.

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This article was originally published on an external platform on May 18, 2022.