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.

Comments

What Does the Future Look Like in Ten Years?

Tech will rule nearly everyone all the time. Ten years isn’t a very long period of time, yet with online technology exponentially growing, it is a long time for things to change. Already, look at what we’ve seen change since the smartphones came out in 2010! In just 16 years, our country doesn’t even resemble itself from before. This is the period of time when the Z generation came of age as well, around 2020, which also has changed things drastically. In ten years (2036), the Alpha generation will be 11-26 years old, therefor coming of age. This will change things drastically again, as this generation is the first to never know a world without a smartphone. The online world, smartphones, and smart tech, is ruining people’s character. Social media, social engineering, is ruining people’s values. The younger generations mostly have bad characters and will only get worse as technology becomes even more prevalent (the destruction of the Biblical family by feminism is key for this to happe...

Is Writing on Medium and Vocal Worth It?

Honestly, the writing site, Medium, is my favorite from the user friendly and quality aspects with reading and writing. I like the concept, the pay structure, how it works in theory. Why then, am I not writing there anymore? Deleting my Medium writing account wasn’t an easy decision, and I’ve had some times of regret in losing what I considered the best compilation of my articles online, yet, overall, it was a good move for me. When it comes down to what matters, where we write makes a difference in our identity as a writer and person. Medium continued to show me that it had much different values than I did as a conservative Protestant Christian. That is the main reason I’m glad I’m not there anymore. Yes, it is a shame that I had to delete hundreds of articles, all chronologically published, representing my work in a professional and quality way on their excellent writing and publishing site. And, the yearly membership fee really wasn’t very much, around $60, and I probably made aroun...

What Would Draining the Swamp Accomplish?

Does humanity have the solutions for the human condition? Most of us would agree that there is a “swamp” in the power structure that needs to be dealt with and removed, yet what would happen if this actually happened? The bigger question is: Can humanity solve the problem of the human condition? The human condition is a modern way of saying we are under the curse of sin and death. We are fallen and naturally disposed for destruction. If we remained fallen without being redeemed by the faith of Jesus Christ, wouldn’t removing the swamp just be a temporary solution? Wouldn’t the swamp just come back and take over power again eventually? This may sound like a black pill perspective to those looking for solutions from humans instead of God, and in truth, it is a fatalistic perspective when it comes to humans being able to solve the problems of fallen humanity. See, if somehow we were able to drain the swamp and remove the bad apples from the power structure, they would simply come back int...

The Dormant Blog Dilemma

With the internet changing so rapidly, being stuck in time with an archaic blog and writing to the obscure winds of vacant space within its outdated theme seems to be an exercise in futility at times. Yes, I can syndicate the content to places like Medium, yet what is the point of pointing them back to my blog anyway, and won’t that ruin the chances of the Medium article being indexed if by chance the site thought it worthy? All of these thoughts and more run through the mind of the old blogger. The crux of the issue has always been strategy and the lack thereof. Honestly, the majority of my writing efforts online have been committed to the strategy and technical aspects of blog design, building, and formatting. What a waste to spend the majority of my writing time trying to face the huge and ever-changing learning curve of building a blog and creating an online writing strategy. The importance of having a strategy of some sort is vital, yet in the back of my blogging mind, there...

Business and Society Articles

Search This Blog