How Do You Do Self-Promotion?

A loaded question… and a broad answer

(This article contains affiliate links, and as such I may get paid for qualifying purchases.)

If you didn’t know, I recently started a challenge with a cash reward for the month of October. Check that out here:

In the challenge, I mention that self-promotion is encouraged. The winner is based on claps, because I want to encourage writers to develop this one important skill we often fail to focus on of promoting yourself.

Oh, yes. It’s an important element of self-publishing, and you’ll need it to succeed in the long run.

So, a little bit of money as incentive to help provoke the community to grow a little in this regard. Everyone wins that tries, because the skill helps them as a writer beyond the contest.

But then a question hit…

How Do You Self-Promote???

I should have seen that coming. If it’s an underdeveloped skill amongst writers, then a lot of people are going to struggle to even begin. Because they simply don’t know how.

And what a loaded question! Because there’s so many ways, and I don’t want to leave one out.

But let’s assume everything is allowed that isn’t illegal or against the rules on Medium. I think that’s a good bar to include things I haven’t considered yet. Sound good to you?

With that, let’s cover a few suggestions to get your gears moving on self-promotion:

Social Media

This one is the most obvious. You share the link for the story on social media — that’s level 1 promotion.

BUT if you really want to, you can pay to promote it there, too.

It’s counter-intuitive, because the reward is only $20, but I’ll allow it. You get paid for the member reads, too, so maybe it’s worth it to you?

You can also add in a comment requesting all your followers read and rate the article, mentioning that you’ve entered it into a contest — so they can help you win. That’s a method people do all the time, and it’s often quite effective.

Medium Only

One thing I do to promote my own articles is create an article and then link to them. Sometimes, like above, I’ll use the article as the main focus. This increases the chances of someone curiously clicking to learn more about the topic.

You can use this same strategy and write about how you’ve entered it in the contest — again, asking people to read and rate to help you win.

Contests And Challenges

There are likely going to be other challenges and contests that overlap the same theme; unless they state you can’t enter that article elsewhere, it’s completely allowed in my book.

Challenges tend to have a tag chain effect; you can use that to your advantage and include at the bottom that you also intend to enter the article in the TED’s October Challenge — they might support your article (of course, they could also enter an article themselves as well)!

Other Suggestions?

If you think of other ways to self-promote, comment and I’ll add more here. I feel like I dropped the ball here — because this is important information I didn’t even consider providing! It completely slipped my mind, and so I wrote this purely in response to the question by Mridul Vijay. Thanks, btw, for bringing this to my attention!

Whether you participate in the challenge or not, I hope you now have some ideas on how to better promote your articles. Sometimes the only problem you’ve got with a story is how little promotion it got; so try some of these things out and see what happens!

And Speaking Of Promotion…

I’ve released a book on Amazon you might be interested in. It’s called “Medium Fits All,” and is a condensed summary of all the information I’ve collected from my various accounts on Medium.

It looks like this:

This book contains everything you need to understand the way Medium works, and to navigate the challenges you will undoubtedly find along the way.

To me, Medium is such a wonderful place — and can easily support the writing journeys of so many kinds of people around the world. It really does “fit all!”

~And yes, even those not supported by MPP. Because the true benefits of Medium aren’t in the petty cash you’d earn from their program.

Medium’s true strength is its community.

That same community that encourages and supports can also be the start of a whole new career, complete with a variety of income streams!

Think of Medium as the fertile soil to grow your endeavors within — and the writers are your fellow gardeners all doing the same. Some can help guide, while others join you in the trenches as equals.

Whatever your writing goals are, Medium is a fantastic place to start.

But don’t just take my word for it —

— check out Medium Fits All today!

Until next time, follow each other, follow the dopamine, and follow yourself, always!

Hey, look: a newsletter. And also Twitter. And Facebook.

Support writers, read without limits, and be part of the community — all for $5.