A Data Driven Story
ILLUMINATION Has Quadrupled in Size
How We Continue to Grow & Add Value to Writers & Readers
When I first set out to capture ILLUMINATION’s growth data, I wasn’t really sure what it would tell me. Were we growing? Were we average? Or did we have some work to do?
After collecting the first few rounds of data, thanks to the TopPub website, it became clear to me that our publication was something special. The data allowed me the opportunity to compare our growth with the top 604 publications as tracked by TopPub.
Though TopPub tracks the data for nearly 12,000 publications, I only needed the data for the publications down to about 520th place to make sure our publication was covered. I included an additional 84 publications in my spreadsheet, just in case there was a smaller publication that was growing the way we were. Even after two months and ten days, there isn’t.
Take a look at the spreadsheet.
As you can see, we have grown at three times the rate of the next closest publication. I would say our marketing strategy is working.
In the time that I have been tracking our growth data, we have almost quadrupled in size. That’s right! From 5500 followers to 20,677 followers in about 71 days. Those are really incredible numbers. I am in no way saying that this has been easy. As a team of writers and editors, we have merely done what others are not willing to do.
We aimed for the stars, and we followed it with tons of writing, editing and publishing. We connected on as many platforms as we could, and many of us have built up connections on other platforms that we have never had before. That means that for many of us, our personal networks are larger than they have ever been. So in addition to our own networks here on ILLUMINATION, our message and your stories are going out to a wider and wider audience every day.
The curation stats for our ILLUMINATION articles continues to grow as well. Here is the link to our newest Curated Stories.
It doesn’t stop there either. Check out this article that features writers with Top Writer status who write for ILLUMINATION.
Many people and publications are taking notice of us, and we welcome them all to join us here at ILLUMINATION.
There is one thing that I want you to remember. Even though we want writers to publish their stories with us, ILLUMINATION also encourages you to submit your stories to other publications. We are here to help our writers grow, and if writing and learning with another publication is working out for you, then continue to work with them. We will never make you choose between us or them, because this isn’t about us or them, it’s about you! And the values we stand by in this publication will continue to ensure that it remains about you. Here is the clarification and guidance on this.
As I said before, we have something special going on here. Not everyone will get to experience the excitement and energy of a growing and successful startup. Not every startup has a vision like the one we have been given for our publication. And not every startup has the collective knowledge, drive and experience that we have here. We are growing because many pieces are in the right place and are coming to us at the right time. But even if they don’t, we’ll find a way to make it work. This is what we do. You can find out what our writers say about our publication.
We have a strong editorial board supporting and giving directions to our writers.
And creative writers spreading insights to over 20K readers on Medium and many more potential subscribers.
To all writers and future writers, editors and future editors, publication owners, and future publication owners:
ILLUMINATION is giving you a place to stand — move the world.
