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Why A Large Following Doesn’t Guarantee Success
I’ve seen writers who have a far greater number of followers than I do but have far less engagement (and earnings). For a while, I wondered why this was. I have a theory I’d like to share.
On social media platforms (Medium included), a popular strategy to grow your following is “follow for follow.” The idea behind it is if you follow lots of people, chances are at least some of them will follow you back.
I’m not sure exactly what the percentage is, but let’s say every time you follow someone, you have a 10% chance that they’ll follow back. (Just to be nice.)
In theory, this can help you get to 100 followers quickly, which is a necessity to join the Partner Program. And it can definitely help you keep growing your follower count.
Plenty of writers do this. If you want to know whether a writer truly has a certain number of loyal fans, check their follower ratio. If they have 100 followers but are following 1,000 people — they’ve likely made an attempt at follow for follow.
