ADVICE

Getting the Attention of the Curators

A Perspective That Could Make a Huge Difference

Last week I was on a conference call, masterminding about things like cognitive biases and blind spots and how these things matter when it comes to sales.

And one of the discussion points was about getting the attention of your audience.

Getting attention can be a challenge in so many areas.

We all experience this when we write articles and think of how to serve our audience, how to understand their needs, so we can attract a larger audience and loyal following. And the first audience we need to attract is the mysterious curator du jour. Who are these people?

So many unknowns! Are they young? Perhaps high schoolers and this is their first job on their way to a career in journalism? Interns?

Or maybe old? Like octogenarians, with fading memories and unable to sit on a chair for too long in between visits to the restroom. Or napping in between articles. Kind of like that person who missed the virus in The Andromeda Strain.

Possibly, they work from home. In which case, they might be time slicing between feeding dogs, cats, babies, reading a couple of articles, hopping back up for a cup of tea or coffee to get a fresh caffeine fix so they can whip through their quota of articles processed per hour. On their own special hamster wheel.

Or maybe this is their second, or third gig, after a full day at Gig Primero, so they just sit down in front of the computer after a couple of cocktails at the neighborhood Applebee’s, and slosh their way through the next 1000 articles.

Maybe your article just published and hit the desk of the day shift, located in proper corporate offices in a big city, like New York. And they know good writing when they see it.

Maybe it’s all just curated by bots and a lottery algorithm.

How in the world can you stand out and differentiate yourself? Especially when there are so many great minds and writers here on this platform?

I have a suggestion.

I made a subtle, but easily overlooked observation over the past year.

In all my pieces that got curated, they shared one small thing in common.

It wasn’t that the writing was spectacular. I thought these pieces were good, but I didn’t think they were my best.

What they all have in common was the quality of the photographs. The photos were all either rare, unique, or quite breathtaking.

When we write, the best pieces are the ones where we consider our audience, and what their needs are.

I am here to propose that those live curators are feeling pretty darned overworked and underpaid. The same way we writers feel.

If I were in any of the above categories of curators — -except for the bots — I imagine I’d get pretty tired of seeing this photo in yet another article. I mean, how many times have YOU seen it?

Or this one.

Or even this one.

There are millions of photographs in the world. Why do we keep using the same ones?

Give those poor curators’ eyeballs, and brains, a rest.

Find a talented photographer to partner with. Or start taking, and using your own great shots. OR, find a talented artist and partner up!

It will liven up your pieces, brighten the publications you publish in, and improve Medium as a whole.

And the curators may just reward you with a curation for your extra efforts.

Susan Brearley is a brilliant strategist and writer/editor. She’s the owner/operator of the MuddyUm Writer’s Self Help Clinic. And the Captain and Editor in Chief of the Good Ship MuddyUm.

She’s been writing comedy for about 2 weeks.