This One’s For You
Not a member? No problem, read the story here.
On March 15, I wrote about 5 lessons that I learned when I reached 100 followers. Never did I think that I would gain 100 followers when starting my journey here. Let alone reaching 250 today.
But here we are barely over 1 month later since that article, at 250.
This article is for all of you who have continued interacting and reading with me.
You are all amazing!
Seriously, I couldn’t have reached this milestone without you. But how I went about it goes against some of the most common advice thrown around Medium.
I was never consistent.
I wrote about whatever caught my fancy. It ranges from music to motivation to marketing to musings here and there. In fact, against the advice of niche seekers, I wrote about my dog, and it turned into one of my best-performing stories!
I was never engaging in follow-for-follow.
Follow-for-follow turns the follow count into a vanity number. It doesn’t create truly engaged readers if you’re following everyone without any thought.
I was never writing daily.
Usually, I write 3–5 stories per week. However, sometimes I’m busy with things outside of Medium. Sometimes, it’s just nice to just take a break. I recently took a 5-day hiatus from writing. There’s a story that goes into what happened during that break somewhere around here…
So, Here’s How I Reached 250
Engaged.
In every story I read, I try to at least clap and highlight. I want people to know that their work is appreciated. However, more often than not, I am commenting on people’s work. They took the time to write something. I can take the time to respond. The same goes for people who comment on my work.
Published.
This is my 68th story. I think I can count on one hand the amount of articles I have that are not posted to any publication. As many of us know, they provide a huge potential audience to tap into.
Wrote.
I’d like to think I write well, but it’s hard to be your own judge in that matter. What it came down to was writing stories that I believed people wanted to read. At the same time, I mixed in some topics that I just wanted to write about without any worry about whether it would get a response or not. Then it became a matter of balancing out those two things.
Maybe I could have reached the 250 mark sooner (there are plenty of people who exceed this in a month), but I can’t commit to what that takes. Life is busy and any progress made is a step forward.
However, this story isn’t about me
This is about you.
Thank you for tagging along on this journey.
Everyone here deserves some love. They’ve been interacting more and more with my work and me with theirs.
Johnson | M. Cole Grady | Tabitha | Brenna Clark | Sompa Mensah | CorgiChargerRN | Lisa Smart | Bin Jiang | Rashida Beal | ChyAmakamike. | Sammy Naicker
There are many followers I haven’t had a chance to truly engage with. If you haven’t seen me drop by your stories (or even if you have), tag me in your next one. Or tell me off in the comments. Whatever works.
I’m also going to do a bit of self-promotion here. Ride The Wave is a publication created on the belief that storytelling has the power to transform and is dedicated to stories of joy, optimism, and inspiration.
Some great stories have been added that deserve more love than they have received.
Here’s to continuing to grow together.
Cheers 🍻
