How ‘Google Trends’ Helped Me Get Curated on New Topics
Google Trends and, of course, a good deal of friendship, synchronicity, erudition, and bravery.
I have been writing more here on Medium since I got semi-curated (I wasn’t a Medium member at the time, so the article was distributed with a few limitations).
Here is the email they sent me:
Since then I became a medium member and eagerly sought to get more of those “good” stats I had on that first “semi-curated” text. And I did. I got curated again on other mathematical pieces. But I don’t want to write only about math (yes, I write about “philosophy of mathematics” here on Medium and it got me curated more than once).
I also would like to write about science fiction, cinema, politics, philosophy, psychology, and arts in general. I really have studied these things throughout my life, and I wanted to speak about some of them here too and it would be great If I could get curated now and then on one of these topics too.
So, between one math text and another, and engaging with some articles about writing and marketing, I found the “trending topics strategy” on The Bad Influence.
This is how this strategy works: you access google’s most searched terms and try to write something related to one of those trending topics (something well written and that may help readers too).
It surely is not that simple, but I wanted to try and learn from my mistakes.
So I found one topic I could write about, “Munch.” I knew a few things about Munch and expressionism because I graduated from a film school. So I decided to try.
Edvard Munch was trending because his most famous painting, The Scream, had a secret message and Norwegian experts were saying it was written by Munch indeed. This information was trending for 12 hours — I was kind of late, but CNN was too and they wrote a text about it anyway (quite a poor text, actually) — . So I said to myself, “I will be the first to write a text about this topic on Medium, and I will be published today and hopefully curated”.
I began to work, and while I was researching I also tried to choose a publication that could help me publish my text, but soon I realized almost every publication wouldn’t give me feedback in less than 12 hours. Thus, I thought of Illumination because I was already a writer for them.
They, however, don't have an “arts”, or “history” section on their page… But they have Marcus! Marcus has been helping me since I wasn’t a Medium member. In fact, he is a very helpful person, and I felt I was abusing his goodwill because he was already editing two other texts of mine. At least, I thought, he would like the opportunity to know more about Munch or help me being curated on another topic.
To my surprise, he accepted to edit the Munch piece! He worked hard. He pushed me forward to give a bit more of myself to the text. I mean, he wanted me to give my opinion about Munch. He showed me I was doing a good investigative job about the hidden message on The Scream, yet, something was missing.
Indeed, I thought I was only testing a marketing strategy, but Marcus was right when he saw I was hiding myself behind my research. So I followed his advice and he probably doesn’t know this but the text really spoke to me after all his help.
I really love the investigative job (which was “researching”) about Munch, but it was even more interesting when Marcus made me realize it was not only about culture/art. I mean, it really was about expressionism (a really big and important cultural movement that influenced a good part of modern culture, and even criticized the emergence of modernity) but It was about me too(!).
Expressionism always meant something to me, and Marcus made me remember that. I began to remember how I love King Kong (largely influenced by expressionism) since I was little (when I read a short and incredible King Kong graphic novel in my school’s library), or when I saw Metropolis for the first time when I was a teenager getting more interested in cinema and science fiction. So these are a few of the reasons why I love stories about common characters fighting devious authorities and harsh societies (stories that expressionism surely influenced a lot).
And soon enough I was also thinking about a lot of my life decisions because of this famous quote by Edvard Mund.
“No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.” — Edvard Munch.
I was lost in my thoughts, and as time passed I was afraid that all my effort to follow the trending topic strategy could have been in vain (what increased my volume of thoughts and stress). However, in less than 6 hours after we published the text, it was chosen for “further distribution” (we got curated!).
Then, Marcus me about synchronicity and that’s why I am here. Bravery and coincidence walked together I am almost having an existential crisis now because of such a dense philosophical task/journey that was writing and researching about Munch.
Thank you, Marcus.
What did I learn after all this?
If you want to follow trends you must:
(1) Try to be included as a writer in many publications before you do it (because you don’t want to wait more than 12 hours to submit your text for publication).
(2) Follow trends that you feel you can write about.
(3) A background knowledge helps, but curiosity helps too. You can research and write a good text in less than 6 hours.
(4) Never give up, and try not to be shy or afraid. You may look aggressive sometimes in your strategy but don't forget to be useful for everyone too.
(5) Look who already wrote about it, and check if there is a good chance you gonna get read still.
(5) That’s it. Good luck.
