3 Reasons I’m Quitting My Blog & Moving To Medium

I’m leaving my Wordpress blog. Nothing against Wordpress. It’s actually been really good to me. As a matter of fact, I still recommend setting up your site on Wordpress.

Here’s a video where I share how to do it:

My site will still be on the Wordpress platform. But, I recently made the decision to move my blog over to Medium. As my business grows and as I grow as a writer, I’m continuing to explore new ways of reaching a greater audience. Like many other bloggers, I’ve done the research and heard the suggestions:

• SEO your blog
• Guest post on other blog that are heavily trafficked
• Make comments on others bloggers sites
• Use video
• Re-purpose your post content on other sites and backlink
• Vary your post content

Don’t get me wrong. Those are all great suggestions. In fact, I followed most of it and was active on blogs like Michael Hyatt, Ray Edwards and others. I did form some great relationships and even had some great podcast interviews because of some of these relationships. But, what I’ve learned is there are so many blogs out there and people are really looking for community. They are looking for a place to easily consume information and also to connect with others who have similar interests. This is why social media is so successful. This is also what makes it difficult to have people consume content on your own blog. Your content might be great, but community will trump your content any time.

However, creating and sustaining a community is hard work. Ben Martin writes in his blog, Online Community Results, that people want to know what’s in it for them and why they should stay. There is attrition. You’re always marketing. You’re always trying to provide something new so it doesn’t get stale. But, communities that work well seem to be able to do this fairly easily.

If you apply this thinking to your blog, it’s easy to see why it’s so hard to convince people to read your articles and then stay on your site to engage. If you don’t write everyday, then your content will stay the same for fairly long periods of time by today’s microwave standards. So, publishing in a place where there is a thriving community, dynamic content and built-in engagement makes sense for me.

I promised 3 reasons in the title of the article, so here they are:

1. Medium has a publications feature which makes it easy to categorize and gain a following based on specific tags
2. Medium already has great community. This makes it easier for me to share with others but also a great way for me to learn about what others are doing without having to leave the medium site. I’m already overwhelmed with information. Having one place to consume a major portion of non-commercial content is very helpful for me.
3. Medium makes it easy to “guest post” by requesting access to other people’s publications. They can also simply request to add your article to their publication if they believe it provides value to their micro-community.

Nothing is forever so I won’t predict that Medium is the next greatest thing and it’s here to stay. But, in business, you test, you adjust and you see what works. This looks like it will be worth it right now. So, I’m jumping in with both feet, barefooted.

I’m Robert and I speak about leadership & communication. If you enjoyed this article, hang out with me to get more over at robertkennedy3.com. Sign up here to hang out.