Wattpad is a social media website for writers to share their short stories, poetry and even novels. You can even sell your writing on there by becoming a "Wattpad Star", but to fulfill the criteria needed you need to do several things: You need to post two finished stories that each have over 50,000 words, and you should probably have at least 1000 followers.
So how do you get 1000+ followers on Wattpad?
It is tricky if you are just starting out as a writer and you don't have any existing fan base.
During the past 3 months I have determined that Wattpad follows a similar Follow/Followback culture to Instagram and Twitter, which implies that if you want lots of followers you really want to be following other writers (especially writers with less than 1k followers) as they are the most likely to give a Followback.
On Twitter it is very easy to reach 5k followers. You just follow 5000 writers (often during #writerslift) and then unfollow anyone who didn't followback with 7 days. Then repeat.
Same thing on Instagram. Follow 7500 people. You can easily follow 100 people per day, over 75 days, until you reach the 7500 limit. Then unfollow anyone who didn't followback. Repeat the process.
On Wattpad it is basically the same thing, but there is a 1k cap, and there is also a bigger delay because some people don't login to Wattpad regularly. So you really want to be following writers who are regulars/have multiple works/posted recently, because it is those people who are the most active who are the most likely to give the precious Followback.
Repeating this process I estimate a person should be able to gain 100-200 followers per week, and they should only need to login 3 times per week (Mon-Wed-Fri) for roughly an hour for a period of 5-10 weeks until they reach 1k followers.
After they reach 1000+ followers the social benefits of having 1000+ followers should kick in and the writer can focus more on writing.
The writer can get those two 50,000 stories done (basically two pulp fiction length novels) and should be able to apply to get the Wattpad Star status. For reference it should only take 1 month to write a pulp fiction novel if a person is a full time professional writer.
Thus it is in theory possible for a full time professional writer to get that Wattpad Star status in about 2.5 months, and it should only take them about 30 hours of following/unfollowing other writers spread over a period of 10 weeks, and the actual time requirements for writing their pulp fiction length books.
After reaching the 1000+ followers mark the writer really needs to focus on producing quality writing in order to build a following of readers. This means posting regularly and often.
But on the plus side, if they have already gained Wattpad Star status they can now sell their stories.
Or use their Wattpad account to promote their Amazon author page. Or their Twitter page, their Facebook page, their YouTube page, etc.
Writers really need to be on top of their social media accounts these days. Even authors who go the traditional route of getting a publisher need to build their social media presence. Publishers expect it of authors to be doing it.
Don't believe me?
Just look at Margaret Atwood's Wattpad page:
wattpad.com/user/MargaretAtwood
It isn't like Margaret Atwood isn't already a world famous successful writer. It is just that in order to get more sales even successful authors like Atwood are expected to be spending a few hours per week promoting their social media presence. Don't believe me? Just look at how busy her Twitter page is:
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