I Got It All Wrong About Followers on Medium (And What I Learned Instead)
Followers count ≠ Engagement ≠ Writing Success
When I first joined this platform, I was just a beginner. I didn’t know the first thing about how things worked here
How do I publish? How do I share my articles? And how do people get so many followers? I was curious, and maybe a little intimidated, as I started to look around.
Scrolling through different articles, I noticed some pieces were overflowing with claps. Hundreds, even thousands. Wow, I thought, how do they get all this attention?
My first guess was that they were already popular. Maybe they had a huge following from day one, or maybe they were just lucky enough to catch people’s interest early on.
It felt like the more followers you had, the easier it was to get noticed.
This made me believe that followers were the answer. I thought that if I could build up my own audience, maybe I’d have the support I needed.
Followers, I figured, would show up for me, cheering on every new story. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?
Then, one day, it happened: I got my very first follower. I remember seeing an email notification that read, “Your audience is growing.” They lit me up inside. Here was a person who’d chosen to follow my work, someone who thought my voice was worth listening to.
In that moment, I felt more confident, like I was part of something bigger.
Fast forward three months, and my audience is growing steadily. I’m up to 175 followers now, with around 50 new people joining each month. For a beginner, it’s exciting. I’ve written over 20 articles, though I’ll admit the engagement hasn’t been as high as I’d imagined. But here’s the interesting part: most of the claps and responses I get aren’t even from my followers! In fact, I’d say around 80% of the people who engage with my work aren’t on my follower list.
At first, this surprised me, but soon it became a source of motivation. I realized that my words were reaching complete strangers — people who didn’t need to follow me to find value in what I was sharing.
Some even followed me after they’d read and engaged. It felt amazing, knowing that people who had no connection to me were touched by my words enough to respond.
This experience made me rethink what followers truly mean.
Out of all the followers you may have, maybe only a small percentage will regularly engage with your work. And even then, their support might be subtle — a simple clap, a small comment, just a quiet show of presence.
So, if you’re writing just to get more followers, it might be worth pausing and reflecting.
Building an audience can feel validating, but writing is about more than just numbers. Writing is about expressing yourself and connecting with others, even if you’re only reaching a few people.
Don’t measure your worth by follower count, and don’t let someone else’s numbers make you feel any less accomplished.
At the end of the day, remember why you started writing in the first place. Followers are great, but they’re not the whole story. Write because it matters to you, because you want to share your ideas and connect with people — even if those people are strangers who may never come back.
Sometimes, the quiet support of those who stumble upon your words is all you need to keep going.
That’s all.
Thank you.
