Reflections on Reaching 1,000 Followers in 4 Months
When I started writing on Medium at the end of 2018, I never expected that I would amass any sort of following. When one of my first articles went viral, I gained my first 100 followers. I figured that with hard work, I could gain another 100 or so, and with some luck, max out at around 250.
To my surprise, I just hit 1,000 followers. But that’s not the amazing part.
The amazing part is that I don’t write in any particular niche. Why would anyone follow me? I thought. They’ll just unfollow as soon as they realize that I’m not writing too much about their actual interests.
But guess what? They didn’t unfollow.
The people who read my sole article about relationships and followed me immediately thereafter ended up clapping for my articles about programming later on. The people who followed me after reading my articles about programming are the same people who clapped for my article about vaccines. People who followed me after reading my work in The Writing Cooperative have clapped for my articles about JavaScript and declaring unnecessary states of emergency with equal enthusiasm. (Nobody has clapped for my Baby Shark article, but it’s alright.)
Of course, people love to read a wide variety of articles, but I thought that they would only follow someone who writes consistently about the things they’re most passionate about. I thought that writing in random tags would be a turn off, and that I would never gain loyal readers, but I was wrong.
While some people believe that a follower count is a vanity number, I see it differently. From my perspective, a thousand people have decided not to unfollow me when I write things that have nothing to do with the reason they initially followed. A thousand people stuck around because, presumably, they like how I write just as much as they like what I write.
This is a place where someone who has never written a line of code (and has no interest in doing so) still chooses to sit through an entire article about programming. This is a place where you can write something that your followers might disagree with, but they still show their appreciation.
What can you take away from this?
People will read your work (and even look forward to your newest posts) because they like your voice. They like the authenticity that you bring to your writing.
Don’t be afraid to write outside of your usual tags. Worst-case scenario: your followers skip this one. More likely scenario: your followers are curious, and they look forward to learning something new.
