The Follow-for-Follow Strategy on Medium Needs to Stop

Medium is the most popular publishing platform for writers online. With over 100 million readers, Medium is the place to go for writers. The follow-for-follow strategy on Medium is an ineffective strategy for growing your audience. Yet it is a popular strategy used by many new writers.

Check out a few stories that have responses to them. You'll find at least one person commenting with a claim that they will follow anyone who follows them.

Many people use the follow-for-follow strategy to grow their audience. But it doesn’t help them. It can actually be detrimental to them. It hurts their audience development.

This story will help you realize why the follow-for-follow strategy is ineffective. And you will learn about the ugliness of it, too.

Don’t fear.

This story will provide you with an effective strategy that you can use instead of the follow-for-follow strategy. You’ll learn how to build an audience the right way.

Why do people use the follow-for-follow strategy?

New writers want to grow their audience as fast as possible. It makes sense.

A larger audience brings more views, claps, responses, and engagement to their stories. This ultimately leads to more money for the writer.

This is quite the incentive to build an audience quickly.

So, new writers will respond to other writers’ posts with something like, “Follow me and I’ll follow you back.”

Most often, these new writers didn’t even read the post they responded to. They just copied and pasted a response that only begs for new followers.

It’s not a good look for these new writers.

The follow-for-follow strategy has more drawbacks than benefits.

Let's dig into these drawbacks.

The follow-for-follow strategy is shallow

Begging for followers doesn’t build your audience. Sure, it increases your follower count. But this does not mean that you’ll have more viewers and engagement for your stories.

The increased number of followers is just a padded stat.

The follower-for-follower beggar does not get value out of this inflated stat. And it’s because of one simple idea they overlook.

You want your audience to be interested in your content.

This key idea is overlooked by many new writers because they don’t even think about it. They’re carried away with the idea of making money online. And they think something along the lines of, “More followers, more money.”

This isn’t the worst idea for a new writer to have about building their audience. Having more followers can indeed lead to you making more money.

But only if they are the right followers… the people who actually want to read what you wrote.

The new writer collects followers from other new writers who are doing the follow-for-follow strategy. But they aren’t gaining the right followers. They are only increasing the number on one statistic.

And this results in the new writer not getting views and engagement on their stories.

There’s an even bigger problem that’s caused by this shallow strategy.

Some new writers will try and cheese a free follow from another new writer. They do this by following and then unfollowing them. This strategy is deceptive. It’s rude to the other writer.

And this can hurt the new writer's reputation if the other follower realizes what happened.

This could seriously hamper the new writer’s chances of gaining new followers.

The follow-for-follow strategy reeks of desperation

In addition to this strategy being shallow, it makes the new writer come across as desperate. It’s a thinly veiled attempt to beg for followers while appearing to help out other writers.

In reality, this strategy is only the new writer’s desperate attempt to gain as many followers as quickly as possible while putting in minimal effort.

The follow-for-follow strategy is the new writer hip-firing at anyone who feels enough pity for them to throw them a follow.

The new follower isn’t going to actually read any of the new writer’s stories in this instance.

Another potential problem is what the author could do in response to the new writer's follow-for-follow response to their story.

They can (and should) remove these responses from their stories. The author may even report the new writer, which can lead to some problems with the Medium staff.

Don’t go looking for pity follows. That isn’t going to help your audience grow. It hurts your reputation, putting you in the category of a “follower-for-follower” writer. People aren’t going to go to your response, click on your profile, and check out your stories. They’re going to steer clear of you.

What should you do instead?

Remember that your audience will read your content if they are interested in what you have to say. This can be the topic, the story, the experiences, the knowledge, and so on, that you share with them.

You need to provide value to your followers and potential followers. Your content needs to give something to the reader. Provide them with valuable information, give them new ideas, share your experiences, make them laugh, etc.

To gain new followers, you also need to provide value to other writers’ stories.

Find stories that you're interested in. Medium will give you plenty of stories to read on your home page.

Go to the story. Give it a read… And read the entire story. Think about what you read. And then respond to it.

Your response needs to provide value to the writer. Put some serious thought into your response.

Add an additional point that the author may not have included in the story. You can also disagree with their story and state what you believe (But don’t make ANY personal attacks). Or you can elaborate on a point the author made. Give them a book or podcast recommendation. And so on.

You can also provide positive feedback or praise for their story. Authors want to feel appreciated for their work. So, let the author know that you enjoyed their story or found it helpful.

The key takeaway here is to contribute to the discussion started by the author’s story.

Providing value to the author’s story builds your reputation. It positions you as someone knowledgeable in the topic of the stories that you responded to. It also builds your reputation as a generous writer because you took the time to read someone else’s story. And then you provided more information about it. You’re adding to the conversation, which helps build the author’s community. And yours.

Wrapping up

The follow-for-follow strategy needs to end.

In the long run, this strategy doesn’t help either participant. It actually does more harm than good.

If your responses don’t interest a reader, why would they go and read any of your stories?

You’re pushing potential followers away when you use the follow-for-follow strategy. It’s a big red flag that says, “I don’t have any value to provide to you. I just want more followers to make more money.”

Fortunately, there is a better approach that is a win-win solution. Providing value to other writers’ stories gives them engagement. It gives them potential information they didn’t know or forgot about. It can make them laugh. Or it can provide them with another perspective.

In return, you connect with other writers in your niche. And you may gain followers from readers who found your responses interesting. These potential followers include the author of the stories you responded to.

Keep in mind that the author and other readers are under NO obligation to give you a follow after reading your response. Even if it was a great response.

And DO NOT be cheeky by writing a valuable response and then adding, “I’ll follow you for a follow back” into the response. This ruins your response. And your reputation.

Build your audience the right way, and soon you’ll have an audience that’s interested in you. Read your content. Engage with it. And helps you build your writing career.

References:

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