What I Learned From Breaking 5000 views And 500 Followers Milestone On The Same Day

3 things that helped

I was prompted to write this after reading a fellow writer’s article about how she struggles to manage her inbox on account of the sheer volume of daily emails she receives from Medium.

When I started on Medium around 4 months ago, I was getting few views on my articles and little engagement from readers. I have to admit there were times I had wished the green notification button would light up once in a while just to acknowledge that I wasn’t completely invisible.

Suffice to say, I have come a long way thanks to a number of factors - most of all my readers.

I cannot forget 5 of my very first supporters who have been part of my medium journey from the beginning itself. Without them showing up to read, comment and clap, I would say writing would have been a lonely endeavor indeed. These wonderful folks are Orla Kenny, Elvie Lins, JJ Sum, Sheryll James and Krishna V Chaudhary .

I have since built wonderful friendships with many other writers.

One experience that stands out the most for me is the astounding amount of support I have received from readers for my article titled “I Experienced Unwelcome Attention From A Married Man”. I’d like to thank my readers for supporting me in this, especially Rodney Brazier.

As a victim of sexual harassment, it was a very difficult experience to write about and I admit I was a little anxious about how it would be received due to feelings of residual shame. But nevertheless I thought it important to write about my experience and how I reclaimed my power back in the hope that it will help someone, somewhere.

Now these stats may not seem a big deal for some but for folks like me who are starting out, it is indeed a milestone.

I find it interesting not to mention uplifting to see that from the initial single digits, views on my stories have crossed the thousand mark and the 5000 mark. This is not in anyways to brag about my viewership or income earned or whatever. It is simply to let my readers know that if it can happen to me whose experience in writing is mainly limited to my field of expertise (I’m an Economist by training) and who is not a native English speaker, then anything is possible.

Here is a pic of my Stats page which basically shows visitor traffic for my stories. It also gives details on how readers are interacting with my stories.

According to the Medium Help Center “Views are the number of visitors who clicked on a story’s page….The bar graph represents traffic over the last thirty days.”

The views are for my 9 stories which were published during the period between May 21 and June 19.

Three Things That May Have Helped :

1.Audience: I think this one word pretty much sums up what it takes for getting views. While I have no magic formula, I can offer observations based on my experience.

In his article, Mike Fishbein divides the audience on Medium into three types:

The Author’s audience: these are the people who follow you because of what you write.

The Publication’s Audience: this refers to the followers of a pub. Some writers go for big publications hoping to reach a wider audience. In my experience, small and medium pubs work just fine. What is important though is to pick publications that are a good fit for your articles. That way, your articles have a better chance of reaching your target audience.

Some of the pubs I have been published in have weekly newsletters, Facebook groups and Slack channels which can further help in getting exposure.

The Tag’s Audience: this is why picking article appropriate tags is so important. By making use of the correct tags, your articles have a better chance of popping up in the feed of medium users who follow those tags so that way you get more eyes on your articles.

Personally speaking, I am the kind of person who loves reading other writers as much as I like writing. It doesn’t matter what genre or topic as long as I find it sparks my interest. I always remember to clap and post a comment in appreciation of the article and writer, after all only another writer can understand the amount of work that goes into doing what we do.

From this, I can safely say, I am inspired, receive valuable feedback and am connecting with some great people. Win, win & win or what?

2.Top writer badge and articles Chosen for further Distribution: Recently, I was twice recognized as Top writer in The This Happened To Me topic on Medium. I wrote an article about it titled “How I Became A Top Writer” which has become quite popular. What is interesting about it is that it not only boosted my followers but also there has been a noticeable spike in the views of my previous articles.

Additionally 5 of the 9 stories published during this time period were chosen for further distribution which also contributed to the increase in views.

Another often overlooked source for views is the Medium Daily Digest. A friend who I consider my mentor, Vishnu*s Virtues, was kind enough to forward his weekly Medium Daily Digest in which one of my articles popped up. The Medium Daily Digest is a weekly email that contains a collection of stories based on your reading interests. This is how it looks like:

3.Learning and Improving: I am committed to improving my craft and do so by learning and taking advice from writers I admire on Medium.

Starting out, I thought all I needed to do was write and hit publish. But gradually, I came to realize that there is actually a lot more to it. I’m talking about the importance of having a great title, subheader and image. I’ve also found that crafting a good article takes effort, research, rewrites and edits.

It’s almost akin to creating a culinary delight: The final product should not only look appetizing but taste great too.

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