Why the “Follow-for-Follow Method” Kills Medium Accounts

Why more followers leads to less money

Most people who have tried to build a following on Medium know about the follow-for-follow method (F4F, as the cool kids call it).

If you’re new, it’s a “growth hack” that is used on all social platforms that have a subscribe or follow function. On Medium, writers follow 100s or even 1000s of other writers in hopes of them following them back. At scale, many will.

I’m not positive of the actual numbers (let me know in the comments if you do) but I’d venture to guess maybe 1 in 10 of the people you follow blindly follow you back.

Once the creator gets a follow, they might unfollow the person who followed them back (real nice, by the way) or not, but show the world they’re doing it when their account has more writers they’re following than readers following them.

Comic built by the author. Yes, it took me way too long, but I do it for you guys 😘

Here’s an extreme example of what a F4F-built account looks like,