5 Mistakes You Should Avoid On Medium To 10x Your Growth
The most dangerous mistakes you should avoid
Medium isn’t dying.
Don’t let your gurus tell you “You can’t grow on Medium” Because it’s dying, Certainly not.
The opposite is true — Medium is growing fast and its paid users are increasing day by day. I read somewhere on the internet it has more than 700k paid subscribers. That’s a lot!
It was much lower back in 2020 and before.
And this is why every writer should build their audience on Medium.
But growing on Medium can be pretty challenging, especially when things are changing faster than ever. But with the help of some tactics and strategies you can grow pretty fast.
When I started writing on this platform — call it luck or whatever but in less than 90 days I had 1000 followers, and in less than 6 months I had more than 4,000 followers.
It wasn’t because I was writing about some broad or big topics. But it was because I knew that if I could make my writing better — it would definitely give me more followers, which happened.
However, I took some breaks from Medium and I didn’t write anything here for more than 6 months or so.
But I do know what to do and what to NOT DO on Medium.
Here are the five mistakes you should avoid if you want to grow fast on Medium:
Mistake 1: Don’t Write Crappy Content
Content is what gives you the growth you want.
I have said it so many times and I’m gonna said it again: if you write crappy content, nothing gonna work. You won’t get any followers, you won’t get any views, you won’t get any reads.
So you must write good( if not great) content. Content is what makes or breaks your growth.
Just think about it for a second, why would I follow you if I haven’t seen or read any content from you? I’m not gonna follow you just because I came across your account.
In order for me to follow you, I must like or read some of your content and I must engage with them. And then I’ll think about following you.
Does that make sense?
Make your content worth following you.
Mistake 2: Don’t Stop Engaging
There is a human nature called “Reciprocity Bias.”
Let me explain how it works and what it is: We humans are givers and takers. If someone gives us something, we are likely to give them back something in return. I hope you know about this.
Take birthday gifts, for example. If your friends, siblings, or parents gift you something, you are likely to give them back something when their birthday comes. True?
The same goes for engaging. Now I’m not saying you should spend 8 hours engaging on Medium. Nope. But what you have to do is: You need to engage with your fellow creators and writers. And they’ll engage back to you.
They are your initial support, this becomes so important if you’re a brand new account or just started growing.
You’re not Elon Musk who’ll get thousands and millions of likes regardless of how much you engage.
To build some momentum, you need to engage with other writers.
Once you have got enough followers this won’t be your priority though.
Mistake 3: Don’t Take People For Granted
This can be a huge mistake.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made this mistake. Now first, let me explain what I mean by this:
If someone does something for you, whether it’s sharing your stories, buying your stuff, giving you some information, or sharing something. Don’t be cheap in this case, build a relationship with them, talk to them, and tell them how fortunate you’re about “what they just did for you”
Don’t ignore these people. You don’t know when and where you’ll need them in the future.
I used to be that guy who would first follow people and if I didn’t get any response from them I’d unfollow them. Don’t do this. This is not how you build relationships.
You should make good relationships with other writers and creators.
Mistake 4: Don’t Take Formating For Granted
This is subjective though.
I’ve been observing a lot of great writers lately. And I find that most of those great writers use formatting in their writing.
When I say formatting, I mean: Using short paragraphs, using bullet points, and optimizing for readability.
Don’t just write crap. Optimize your content. Make it aesthetic, not for just the sake of look but for skimability and readability.
Because on the internet, people first skim and then read.
Mistake 5: Don’t publish “Once In A While”
You can’t beat a man who keeps showing up.
That’s a powerful sentence, right? And how true is that? Absolutely true. Isn’t it?
Yes, you can create good content, you make connections here and there, and you use formatting. But guess what? You do this once in 6 months.
This is your volume. Now the good news is: if this is you, there is no such thing for you as “Fast growth.”
Because you aren’t doing the thing that requires frequency.
Growth comes when you combine skill and volume.
You absolutely need volume to grow fast, you can’t just publish once in 3 or 6 months and expect massive growth.
That’s not going to happen.
You need more frequency. You have to publish more.
In the beginning, you should write once per day and as you grow you can switch to 2 times or 3 times a week then once a week.
But in the beginning, you absolutely need volume.
Write on Medium smart, not hard.
