Pause for Thought on Joining the Partnership Program
For three weeks my dream ticket was gaining 100 followers. Now that milestone is passed, what’s next?
I joined Medium in early April. It was a steep learning curve, but I learned fast, mostly due to Ayodeji Awosika’s expert tutelage and reading all those writing and Medium-related posts that are pushed at you when you first join.
My initial goal, as for many, was to gain 100 followers so I could enroll on the Medium Partnership Program.
It took three weeks and 20 stories, but I got there and enrolled in the Partnership Program as soon as I could.
I applied and enrolled with great excitement and a spring in my step.
I had achieved my first goal and was making progress on the platform.
But then I thought, what’s next?
Some people make their next follower-related goal gaining 1,000 followers. But to me, that seems absurd as a short-term objective. The jump between 100 followers and 1,000 followers is seemingly vast.
It’s important to have a staging post.
My next follower goal, therefore, will be to gain 500 followers.
I have another goal, too, which is to tone down my current “post-a-day syndrome”, and aim for three stories each week for three months. Life on Medium is a marathon and not a sprint, and if I am not careful I might develop burnout posting every day.
Hopefully, by the time three months are up, I will have refined my voice, found my niches, and defined my audience.
There are also a number of other thoughts I have had around Medium over the past weeks.
A rich world of creativity
Some people believe that Medium is full of writers writing about writing and how to make money from it.
It’s true, there is a lot of that about. But it’s a veneer at the surface. Dig deeper and turn off the “make money from writing” pushes and a whole wonderful world of creative writing pours forth.
The people who think Medium is just writers writing about making money from writing perhaps haven’t explored the platform to its fullest extent.
I’ll be honest, until a few days ago I was one of those people. But I have recently begun to scratch the surface and I was surprised at what I found.
So it’s another new goal of mine to get to know Medium properly and explore new niches of writing.
Defining my niches
Niches are funny things. The concept of niches raises a couple of questions for me:
- How many niches is too many?
- When is a niche too niche?
My niches currently include mental health, self-improvement, screenwriting, cats, and bagpipes.
Is that too many to enable me to develop a meaningful voice? Is the multi-niche concept part of my voice? Are some niches, like bagpipes, too niche?
I will only find the answer through experimentation, and that is partly what the next three months are about.
Actually, I posted a story about bagpipes recently in partial trepidation. Who, after all, is interested in bagpipes? To my surprise, the article gained some traction and led me to believe I shouldn’t be afraid to experiment with “micro-niches” such as bagpiping.
This relative success emboldened me to write an even more esoteric article about falling in love with a tree:
Again, the story is doing quite well, which convinces me still further that Medium readers aren’t just interested in stories about making money from writing.
Another new goal for me: don’t be afraid to think outside the box.
Nurture your audience
My final new goal is to spend an hour or two a week reading other peoples’ stories and commenting on them. In that way, I will nurture my medium community and grow my tribe. It will also lead me down new avenues of research for my own articles.
Some of the stories I am reading are happily surprising in their content. In particular, I would like to give a shout out to a beautiful article about bonsai trees written by Rodrigo S-C:
This is but one example of the depth and breadth of the writing available on Medium. It gives me hope that the fulfillment of the goals I have set myself will be a joy and not a torment.
Takeaway
It’s always good to reflect on where you are up to and what’s happening next when you achieve a particular goal.
My core reflection on reaching 100 followers and joining the Medium Partnership Program is that Medium is a multi-faceted beast. Approached the right way, those new goals I have set myself will be a delight to grapple with.
Bring it on…!
