Fast Forward to Earlier This Year

I decided it was time to dive into this exciting world of writing more seriously. I knew I needed to get followers if I were to expand my voice. But I wasn’t sure how to go about it. I knew two things needed to happen: 1) I needed to vigilantly remain consistent. 2) I needed to connect with followers somehow.

I started off reading as many articles as I could. For the pieces I liked, I would follow the writer. There are many good writers and articles of substance; I didn’t have any issues finding a source of motivation. Easy peasy.

Things changed pretty quickly. I realized if I added people from the clap list for the articles I liked, I could expose myself to people who were interested in the same things as me. That inevitably would lead to some engageable fans, right?

It did increase my exposure, and I even started to see a boost in my claps. All at once, Medium curators chose about seven or eight articles for curation. Everything was rolling the way I wanted, or so I thought.

The problem was I became hooked on getting more followers and increasing stats, instead of earning the trust of these followers. I began to add anyone and everyone who clapped for an article I enjoyed. I perfected blindly checking off every unchecked box on the clap list.