Summary

The author reflects on their three months of blogging on Medium, announcing a shift from republishing old content to creating new, original pieces, and plans to change their follower engagement strategy to foster more organic growth and meaningful interactions.

Abstract

The author has been actively blogging on Medium for the past three months, having posted nearly 100 articles. Initially intended as a business blog, it evolved into a platform for personal expression, unrelated to the author's day job. With the New Year approaching, the author plans to reassess their goals and methods for the blog, as the supply of standalone excerpts from their novels is nearing exhaustion. They intend to transition to writing fresh content, with a focus on topics like relationships, work-life, travels, and childhood. The author also acknowledges the need to change their approach to follower engagement, moving away from aggressive follow-for-follow tactics and instead focusing on genuine connections with readers who appreciate their work. They aim to achieve organic growth and a more curated list of followers, which will be managed with the help of a "minion" who will unfollow those not reciprocating the follow. The author also contemplates the possibility of creating a personal publication to better organize their content, despite reservations about the limitations of Medium's publication system and the challenges of starting anew.

Opinions

The author views their past follower growth strategies as "tricksy" and outdated, favoring a more authentic approach moving forward.
They express a disdain for SEO manipulation and aggressive marketing tactics, such as email lists, preferring to let their writing speak for itself.
The author is critical of their own neglect of personalized feeds due to following a large number of people without genuine interest.
They are skeptical about the effectiveness of being added as a writer to publications, given their experience with submissions not being accepted.
The author is frustrated by the restriction that an article can only appear in one publication on Medium, which complicates their desire to reorganize their content.
They are disappointed that their preferred publication title, "A Slice Of Life," is taken but unused, likening it to domain squatting.
The author is grateful to their followers and looks forward to deeper engagement with them in the coming year.
They apologize for the self-indulgent nature of the post, promising to minimize such content in the future.

My New Year Medium Resolutions

It’s all fresh and organic from here on in…

So — three months in and almost 100 articles posted.

What was started with the intention of being a business blog quickly became a platform for whatever I wanted to talk about or rescue from obscurity, none of which had the slightest connection with the day job.

On the other hand it’s been a blast to connect with other writers, attract new readers and generally get back into the swim of having a public persona.

But the New Year is as good a time as any to take stock of what I want to achieve here (and how!). Also, my mainstay of the past three months, re-publishing chunks of my old novels, is about to come to an end.

There simply aren’t enough pieces left that stand alone without the connective tissue of the surrounding stories. I have come to the end of what I want to share from Obsession, and within a few posts I’ll get to the same point with the Alpha Lab, hopefully before the fireworks go up on New Year’s Eve.

So what’s going to change? First of all, let’s focus on the How.

In a bid to round up a decent cohort of followers, I have used (almost) every trick in the book. Throwing numerals into titles, following random readers in the hope that 1 in 10 will follow me back. Sharing all of the posts via Manystories.com.

As a result I am following more than 10 times as many people as are following me, laying my threadbare methods out for all to see. More shamefully, I am not really following them at all, and completely neglect my personalised feed because of the sheer numbers involved, and the fact that I wasn’t really selecting them for quality in the first place.

All that will change. I have a minion on standby who will augment her pocket money by unfollowing all 7K on my list, after which she will re-add all of those who are following me, to restore equilibrium to the numbers.

From January 1, everyone I follow will either have followed me first, or will be someone whose work I have read and appreciated (and they will persist in the list irrespective of whether I get a follow back).

Organic growth, in other words, hopefully reaching a tipping point where I get added because I have been featured somewhere, or otherwise caught their attention in a more natural fashion. Tricksy follower growth is so 2019.

I will of course continue to scorn the SEO jiggery-pokery and email lists which are the mainstay of the big hitters here on Medium. Life is too short, and I really don’t need the money that much that I’m going to funnel my readers into paying any more than their current Medium subscription.

The other big change will be that all of the writing will be fresh produce, (unless I come across some cracking old piece that I just can’t ignore).

The reception of my newer writing has been pleasantly positive, in terms of acceptance to publications, curation and reader feedback.

There are plenty of new stories to be told about relationships, work-life, travels and childhood, so expect more of those, albeit at a slower pace.

I may need to do some research on the setting up of publications. A personal page is attractive, simply because of the ability to set up tabs for different themes. However, there is an unfortunate restriction that an article can only appear in one publication. Does that mean that I have to remove my (tiny number of) articles from the Startup and PS. I Love You in order to feature them on my own page?

My experience with publications has been patchy, and should probably be the subject of another post (spoiler — being added as a writer doesn’t mean they will ever accept any of your submissions).

It also feels like starting again from scratch if there is no way to swing the current follower list over to a new publication (except by quality of writing I hear the purists among you say!).

A Slice Of Life, which was my preferred publication title has been nabbed already, by someone who has made absolutely no use of it — the Medium equivalent of domain squatting. And I had the pizza icons all ready to go! Some workaround will present itself, but first a little research on publication formatting is in order.

A heartfelt thank you to all those who followed my feed, clapped or left feedback on my stories to date. I look forward to more focused and in-depth interaction with each of you in the coming year.

In the meantime, pop those corks and enjoy a very festive New Year celebration. We all deserve an interesting and fruitful 2020.

Many thanks for reading, and pardon the self-indulgent navel gazing. Will try to keep it under wraps going forward!