ACHIEVEMENTS AND INSIGHTS
My First 12 Months of Experience on Medium
What I learned and achieved on Medium within a year
Introduction
My experience was so joyful that 12 months were like 12 minutes to me.
Starting with an open mind on Medium last December, my experience substantially increased.
I want to share some highlights covering my modest achievements and lessons learned from my interactions. My goal is to provide valuable insights to beginners on this platform.
A new way of writing
I was new to Medium a year ago but not new to writing. I have been writing and publishing for over three decades.
Discovering Medium helped me gain a new writing style and a unique voice.
The essential contribution to my style is improving my skills in storytelling.
My prior focus was on writing articles, essays, and blog posts on similar platforms.
I shared my writer bio recently and answered some questions about my personality.
New Audience
The audience in Medium is unique.
Even though the platform has limited collaboration tools, writers and readers communicate effectively. I gained 5.1K followers within 12 months. Gaining this many followers is a good achievement for me.
I still have a long way to go, especially considering the writers with 100K or more followers on Medium. I learn from their successful strategies that steady and sustainable growth is more compelling than fast growth. I strive for meaningful connections.
Last year this time, I did not know any of the people who followed my content. The platform allowed me to engage with so many new people.
Opportunities
An outstanding opportunity for me was to create two large publications serving around 75,000 readers on Medium.
ILLUMINATION which I created in late March 2020, gained around 58K followers in fewer than ten months. It transformed into a significant publication contributed by 15,000 writers.
ILLUMINATION Curated which I created in September 2020, gained 16.2K followers in fewer than four months.
I started two new publications extending the capabilities of two older publications. They are Technology Hits and ILLUMINATION’S MIRROR.
My mailing list substantially grew with the visibility created by my publications.
Achievements
I published around 1,000 stories. This means that I submitted at least one story per day. Publishing almost every day was an essential contribution to gain 5.1K followers.
For me, a lower number of regular readers is more important than a large number of followers. 10% of my followers (around 500) are my regular readers.
Gaining 500 regular readers within 12 months was a significant achievement, aligning with my goals. My goal in 2021 is to transform the remaining 90% of my followers into regular readers.
Several of my articles in leadership and technology domains were curated, and some gained good visibility after creating my publications. However, as soon as I started ILLUMINATION, my stories were not curated by Medium anymore. Even though some of the new ones were of higher quality and had a higher impact, they were not distributed to topics.
I believe the reason for my curation jail was publishing editorial bulletins and writing a lot about the platform to guide writers contributing to my publication. I guess the algorithm detected my publishing profile and removed me from the list by stopping notifications of my stories to the curators.
While I lost the curation chance, my non-curated stories, such as guiding writers, made a better impact. These non-curated stories gained more visibility and readability than my curated stories. Therefore, I am grateful because missing the curation opportunity appeared to be a blessing in disguise.
The best part was to help hundreds of writers to taste curation by reviewing their content and providing them guidance with editorial rigor. Creating visibility for outstanding stories was well received by our discerning readers.
Working with experienced writers, especially top writers contributing to my publications, is an absolute pleasure.
Encouraging several writers to create their publications and promoting them gave me a distinct joy. Their success inspires me.
Many writers got a chance to introduce themselves from their pen and gained further visibility. And interviewing some of them helped me explore their background and gave me a chance to create visibility for their profiles.
Creating a virtual platform outside of Medium on Slack workspace and giving an opportunity to 12,000 writers to collaborate is a substantial achievement for me. And using Slack for the operation of our publication, supported by diligent editors is a delightful experience.
Giving voice to our fiction writers and poets through virtual clubs worth mentioning.
I inspired the writers to think and act like entrepreneurs.
One of the most important contributions I made to our writers was creating additional platforms to amplify their stories. Some prominent ones are Quora, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Flipboard, Reddit, Facebook, Good Reads, and Twitter.
Key Lessons Learned
Even though I know not everyone would enjoy my content, and not everyone would support my writing goals, my Medium engagement proved this.
I received excellent support from thousands of writers and readers but also had set back from several people. Based on my analysis, around 5% of Medium members did not like my goals. They tried to stop my contributions by using allegations. I am grateful to 95% who supported my goals on this platform.
The key lesson is that not everyone can be your friend. I accept this fact.
I attempted to be a role model for beginners and aspiring writers teaching them how to create visibility. However, my passion and enthusiasm to help others were misunderstood by a few. They took them out of context and interpreted differently.
I came across unusual practices. The most striking one was forcing the writers to write for a specific publication by requesting them to leave other publications. This odd strategy did not make sense to me. Therefore, I pointed out that my publications’ contributors are not exclusive to us and supported them to join other publications.
Another unusual practice was creating allegations about successful publications and blaming them for causing problems that are already inherited in the platform. The irony was those who make allegations used double standards and took things out of context pushing their agendas.
I observed envy for successful writers too. Some role model writers like Tim Denning, who have 200K+ followers, were harshly criticized by some even though these successful writers create vitality for the platform with legitimate and inspiring content. They brought substantial traffic, but some did not even notice their contributions and got jealous of their earnings.
An unbalanced focus on earning was noticeable. I observed that a majority paid attention to tangible outcomes and only a minority touched on intangible results created on this platform. In my opinion, intangible opportunities of this platform represent the larger part of the iceberg.
I learned that unless we take personal responsibility to create visibility for our content, this platform helps little despite its membership amount. It was disappointing to witness high-quality curated stories receiving fewer than 20 readers on a platform with thousands of readers.
By analyzing viral stories, I noticed that stories creating emotions and sensations gain more visibility than those written with logic, style, and rigor.
When I started Medium, the platform was more stable. The recent changes, unfortunately, introduced new restrictions and reduced the visibility of our stories. The situation reached its climax in November and December. Many writers noticed a significant drop in stats.
The capabilities of Medium for publications are limited. Unless publication owners invest in extending the publication features, it is tough to run successful publications on Medium. Some unnecessary restrictions are affecting the success of publications. I hope these issues will be resolved soon.
Conclusions
Medium introduced me to opportunities, but I had to take risks and responsibility to achieve my goals and grow.
Writers need to create visibility and act like entrepreneurs in any writing platform. Just joining the platform and posting does not help for growth.
I am grateful to meet thousands of people across the globe. My engagements also helped me extend my writing to other platforms such as Vocal Media and recently News Break.
Comparing to other platforms like Vocal and News Break, Medium has some unique values from my perspectives. Collaboration among writers and readers is critical and is achieved to some extent on Medium.
The self-publishing feature of Medium is remarkable and a competitive advantage even though it creates challenges for the platform.
In my view, a combination of hard and smart work with priority management is the key to success in any writing platform. Leadership skills are essential for writers to grow.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
In addition to numerous topics like technology, leadership, content strategy, social media, health, mental health, fitness, self, and personal development topics, I also write about my independent reviews of well-researched supplements for metabolic and cognitive health. You may check out these links if you are interested in them:
Urolithin, taurine, citrulline malate, biotin, lithium orotate, alpha-lipoic acid, n-acetyl-cysteine, acetyl-l-carnitine, CoQ10, NADH, TMG, creatine, choline, digestive enzymes, magnesium, hydrolyzed collagen, nootropics, pure nicotine, activated charcoal, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B1, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, and other nutrients that might help to improve metabolism and mental health.
Sample Health Improvement Articles for New Readers
Defeat Metabolic Syndrome and Slim Down Waistline with Three Tips
Why 442 Million People Live Diabetic and What We Can Do About it
Six Tips to Prevent Brain Atrophy and Lower the Risks of Mental Disorders
What Can We Do About NCDs Killing 41 Million People Yearly?.
Reduce the Risks of Neonatal Disorders to Prevent Infant Mortality.
Reduce the Risks of Major Diseases with Healthy Lifestyle Habits
How to connect with me
I am a technologist, postdoctoral researcher, published author, editor, and digital marketing strategist with four decades of industry experience.
I write articles for Medium, NewsBreak, and Vocal Media. On Medium, I established ILLUMINATION, ILLUMINATION-Curated, ILLUMINATION’ S MIRROR, ILLUMINATION Book Chapters, Technology Hits, SYNERGY, and Readers Hope publications supporting 15,000+ writers on Medium.
You may subscribe to my account to be notified when I post on Medium and join my publications requesting access here.
About the Author
Editor Profile
Writer Profile
Thank you for subscribing to my content. I share my health and well-being stories in my publication, Euphoria. If you are new to Medium, you may join by following this link.
You can join my publications as a writer requesting access via this weblink. I write about health as it matters. I believe health is all about homeostasis. I share important life lessons from people in my professional and social circles compiled in the attached collection.
Here are Insightful Life Lessons from Personal Stories: A summary of valuable perspectives gained from people whose paths crossed with mine via serendipitous encounters.
