The Busy Medium Bee

Buzzing around and making honey. 

I love honey. My teeth can’t handle sugar anymore, so honey is my sweet treat, mostly with a peanut butter sandwich. 

The analogy of the bee buzzing around, working hard to make honey and the Medium writer staying active on the site to produce views and money is appropriate I think. Bees take time off in the winter in cold locations though. 

Unless a person has a massive audience somewhere else they can successfully transfer over to Medium, building a regular audience on the site takes time and a consistent effort. 

What I’ve noticed since writing on Medium regularly for the last three months is the time spent reading and interacting with other writers’ work directly correlates with how many views and money you make. 

In the last few weeks, I’ve been posting as much as ever, yet have decreased my interaction by about 70%. I’ve noticed my views and interactions have decreased by about the same. 

On the one hand, this can be discouraging because we may feel under the whip of having to interact to gain any traction; on the other hand, it gives us something we can do to help our chances of gaining traction. 

The good part is reading and interacting on the site helps us learn, gain insights, and feel more connected with other fellow writers. This is good considering how lonely writers can get when focusing on their craft and building their online presence. 

There really is no substitute for purposeful interaction to help build a sincere audience of readers. This is true at WordPress, Medium, and other similar sites. 

All of the shortcuts we see people do at Medium aren’t going to really help speed up the process. 

The only way to stay consistent at Medium and WordPress is to genuinely like the communities and want to interact with them. 

I imagine someone who can read and clap on 50 articles a day, leave 25 comments, and follow dozens of people they like would find they are stirring up a buzz around the place. If they could sustain this for a year they would likely have great success here along with posting quality articles. 

Most of us can’t sustain this type of interaction, yet it is interesting to consider. 

At NewsBreak I make much more now than I do at Medium and I don’t have to interact at all. I already have over 500 followers even though only have half as many articles and hardly any interaction. 

I think most writers find Medium requires too much energy for what they are getting in return. That’s why we see so many ghosted profiles. 

Maybe the best strategy is to schedule a certain amount of time you can spare for reading and interacting. Maybe a certain amount of articles you will read on Medium and WordPress. Staying consistent with the effort would bring the best results. 

Watching the views go down and the followers diminish is discouraging, so instead of letting the downward trend gain steam, get busy and make some honey. That’s my advice. 

Happy writing.