Wattpad Guide: What We Talk About When We Talk About Wattpad (Tips & Strategy)

Identity - Following

TLDR: Keep your following count low in ratio

This applies if you wish to be a writer on Wattpad. Again this is something that you would have to consider right from the beginning of account creation. This is the third move in our Silent Combo Strategy.

It may sound controversial, but purely for the maximization and optimization of identity in our marketing discussion, you may want to keep your following count low in proportion to your followers. Following more people does not mean you will have more followers. (We will talk about how to gain followers later). It is not follow for follow, especially not with the more successful writers on Wattpad with whom you want to connect to. Through my journey on Wattpad I kept mental limits on my account subconsciously or very consciously. I tried to keep it like from 10-50% of my follower count. It started off as 50%. And then later like at 400 followers I kept my following count below 40. Unfortunately or fortunately, followers or reads do not come primarily from you following as many people as you can.

This does not mean you are not interacting or not being effective. Interaction and following are two potentially very different things. We will talk about interaction as most guides do later on, but yes, you still meaningfully comment on stories, add to effectively named reading lists, vote, participate in forums and critique circles and so on - we will talk more about that later and how these all add up to the Strategic Combos. But do not mass follow everybody and anybody - not even if they are all some kind of writer.

Follow very strategically. First rule as a writer on Wattpad is to treat your following list like a list of writers you would recommend to others. Take on the idea that you are a curator for a magazine. And truth is, if you are aspiring to greater heights of success as a writer when you do have a larger following your following list can act as an actual list of recommendations. Someone recently joined and went through my list looking for literary fiction people to follow. Uphold yourself with that kind of dignity right from the beginning.

This means the people you follow are the writers whose works you really enjoy. And writers who continually write works you will enjoy. There's no need to follow someone just for one work while the others were not of interest to you. Furthermore, the people who create work that you enjoy that is in a similar genre as you. Someone who you would like to connect and brush shoulders with. Someone who you would like to come over to read your work.

Other strategic follows maybe prominent community members, perhaps staff and ambassadors, event coordinators who are running magazines or critique circles or forum threads and so on. No guarantee that they will check your profile right away but it opens the door because you can participate and interact with whatever initiatives they are running freely and without guilt, and show them you are actually supporting them and believe in their cause or efforts.

You want to upgrade through the follows strategically. Try to follow and then interact and become friends with people who have more followers and influence than you, but not too much beyond. Then as you gain followers (through other various strategies and maybe luck) you can jump up and continue to make friends with people of higher tiers so to speak.

This strategy is present on YouTube as well and is recommended by Youtubers and experts. Collaborations for example will take place between and share between people in the same location and/or with similar amounts of following and/or with similar tastes and genres. This way, neither party feels taken advantage of - unless of course the more successful one is extremely passionate about the other's work and wishes to help promote them without any gain.

However you will not have much of a chance at all with people of great fame. For example trying to get David Choi to notice you or a closer example, someone with 70,000 followers on Wattpad. There would need to be a good number of many other ties in order to make that connection - usually through in real life contact. I had the privilege to meet various famous and very successful and friendly Wattpad writers - including Anna, Leah, Lily and others in real life. Or else it would be hard pressed for someone like me just starting off at the time to make any contact with them as a fellow writer, other than as a reader/fan. So don't put all your effort into connecting with the greatly famous unless there is a chance to. And sometimes there will be contests and giveaways and things which may be an opportunity but keep in mind that it is also highly competitive.

Now all that said, the point is, when someone follows me for example, I see that they are following 500 other people and have 10 followers. What does that say about them? 1) they aren't actually interested in my work or care about me as an author, I am just a small number, regardless of their true mindset 2) they aren't a writer or treat themselves seriously or with a certain pride or have anything of great value to prompt a visit. Those numbers are actually not rare - don't do that if you're a writer. At least try to keep the numbers even and balanced (which by the way may also communicate a subliminal message and first impression sort of like you're using Wattpad like facebook where you have friends and follow back). As a writer you are saying you are a writer and have joined the ranks of writers when you have the inverse proportion of that: a larger follower list and a smaller following list. It gives the hint that you've got something special that people enjoy, sort of like your first stab at credibility. It also shows that you have selective specific and knowledgeable preferences and tastes for literature, reading and even spending time on important friendships. This is the third move of the Silent Combo Strategy and part of building your effective identity.

However, as a word of warning, you don't want to be following an amount that may seem too overwhelmingly little. For example, if you are active on Wattpad, had 6000 followers and were only following 10, it might actually present a message on its own too - that you may not be interacting or engaged with as many people as you could be. Unless you are a well-established author who had a publishing partnership with Wattpad, there are probably more than 10 accounts that might interest you. The right amount may show others that you are an active participant of the community, strategic and selective with reading, and that you have quality work that people love.

Remember that other than our work being communication and up for reader interpretation, we ourselves in this world presented in public are also communicating constantly and are texts to study too. This is not at all a disturbing notion - it happens all the time. You do it too. People do it subconsciously and instinctively, without even thinking about it. And it makes for an interesting world. We are artists, which means we are putting ourselves out there for people to read and see. Alternatively, there are authors who choose to use pen names and personas, because they are aware of this fact and has a particular intention with their entire identity. In conclusion, we ourselves become both art and business too. (Art vs. Business is another concept we will discuss in the future).

If you're ready to embrace this concept, you are along the way forward to becoming that great author or successful Wattpad writer you wish to be.