A lot of people comment on my articles, asking me to read their articles.

I’ve also seen similar comments on other articles on Medium.

Guys, please, don’t do this. 

“Follow for follow,” “subscribe for subscribe,” “read for read” — this isn’t the right way to grow on any platform. These techniques are harmful to your account and are just spammy and irritating to others.

Recently, I got a comment on my YouTube channel that said:

“I see all your videos on YouTube, but why don’t you read my articles on Medium?”

I replied:

“I’ll create a video and write an article on this — why you should not request someone to read your articles.

If you don’t find the videos helpful, don’t watch them.

Watch my videos only if you find them helpful; I’m not forcing you to watch.

The same goes for articles and social media posts.”

The Main Reason You Shouldn’t Beg for Followers

The main issue is engagement.

Even if you force someone to become your subscriber or follower, if your content doesn’t align with their interests, they won’t engage. They won’t read your article or watch your videos.

They’ll become ‘dead followers.’

And if you have too many dead followers on any platform, your account essentially dies because the algorithm assumes that the majority of people don’t like your content.

For example, if you have 10 subscribers on your YouTube channel, only three you got organically because they enjoy your content.

The other 7 are your family members and friends, and people you literally begged to subscribe and watch your content. 

Some of them will open YouTube just to watch your content. That’s a red flag, too — the algorithm recognizes fake behavior. YouTube or any other platform wants people to stay on the platform, and if someone just comes and watches only one video before closing the app, that’s an obvious red flag.

The other people stay as dead subscribers. The algorithm assumes that the majority of your audience doesn’t like the content, which is why your content isn’t getting engagement.

It then stops recommending your content to new audiences.

That’s how your YouTube channel or Medium account eventually becomes “dead.”

It’s Not Possible To Grow on Any Platform by Begging for Followers

How many people can you ask?

Look at famous people like MrBeast, who has over 332 million subscribers on YouTube, or Tim Denning, with 327,219 followers on Medium.

Is it possible to ask millions of people to regularly engage with your content?

I’ve never asked anyone to subscribe to my channel, not even once. I’ve never asked anyone to follow me on Medium.

People follow because I add value.

The real way to grow on any platform is simple: just keep creating high-quality content.

How to Grow?

Just focus on posting quality content consistently.

Whether it’s Medium, YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram, any platform will recommend your content to a small audience.

If they like it, the platform will recommend it to more people.

That’s how organic growth happens.

Influencers with millions of followers or writers with thousands of followers on Medium — everyone grows this way.

You can add a CTA at the end of your content asking people to follow you. If they like your content, they will follow you.

You can also focus on SEO to get organic traffic from Google. If you upload videos on YouTube, you must optimize them with a proper title, thumbnail, description, and tags for SEO to rank higher on YouTube and get the maximum number of views organically.

You can share your content on social media, and I highly recommend Pinterest if you write articles on your blog or on Medium.

Begging people to follow only gets you dead followers, not real success.

Thanks for reading this article. 💚

If you loved what you read, would you be able to buy me a cup of coffee? It’s okay if you can’t right now.

If you have any questions or if you wanna work with me, feel free to contact me. I’m always available to help young hustlers like you @InuEtc on Instagram.

Keep hustling!

Love, love!