Crowdsourcing for “claps” and credibility

Ok, so I got myself a profile on Medium and published a couple of posts.

Here’s a link to one of the posts.

Now I need to get folks to read it. And then hope that some of the readers will “clap” for it.

When you are on Medium, and other digital media platforms, your credibility is crowdsourced.

Claps, tweets, shares, and likes become a direct measure of your perceived worth.

Asking people to clap, and/or share my posts does not come easily to me. I know I shouldn’t have to.

If you build it right, they are supposed to come.

I have a sense of déjà vu.

I have been here before.

Writing a decent post is the easy part, getting people to actually read it and engage with it is a lot harder.

I should know.

I maintain two blogs: A relatively new one called Reboot Social, and a six-year old one — Racquet Social — which is not as active as it used to be.

I have a small, but steady base of readers who are a mix of new and returning visitors. I have a good open rate on my weekly emails. The “average time on page” for posts hovers around four minutes.

So, I know that they actually read the posts.

But I struggle to get my readers to engage — comment, like, share, and clap.

My subtle engagement baits such as “Would be awesome if you shared” and “Please share if you like this post” etc. have only received lukewarm responses.

I feel tacky using them.

Clearly, I have a lot to learn from the folks who have taken the time and become experts at growing their tribe, especially on Medium. I read posts by Tom Kuegler, Rob Howard, and Steve Campbell to figure out how to become relevant and successful on Medium.

I see that a lot of the writers who seem to be doing “well” have been on Medium for less than a year.

So there’s hope.

I do believe in the philosophy that initially you shouldn’t care if people read your posts or not. If you like and believe in what you write, that alone should be worth your while.

That approach has worked for me.

A couple of my blog posts rank number one in Google for certain sports-related key words. “Squash vs tennis” is an example. You guessed it; I am into racquet sports.

When I first delved into the world of social media and crowdsourced credibility, I realized that there is a fair amount of “you scratch my back and I scratch yours” that goes on among the “influencers” within the industry. If you are an outsider, they would like you to follow them and read their posts while they don’t necessarily reciprocate.

Perhaps it’s the way of the world, but I don’t buy into that model.

I am hopeful that quality and persistence will pay off in the end. A little bit of luck helps too.

When you are trying to entertain or pass on life lessons, it is hit and miss. Often, it’s not your best content that strikes a chord with readers.

Until now, I have not tried to monetize my blog posts. I don’t have anything to sell, or e-books for people to download.

Sometimes I wish I did.

I started writing for the love of writing and to take my mind off work. I write more about everyday stuff now and less about technology and sports.

A quick note: I have written this in first person, but I believe there are others out there who may be able to relate to the spirit of this post.

I am now a writer for The Ascent, one of the publications on Medium. This is my first post through The Ascent.

For me, Medium is an avenue to socialize my writing. I like the fact that they have developed a — nascent — program to compensate writers, albeit in small amounts.

I am realistic. I won’t add Medium to my retirement planning.

I am here for beer money.

And a few claps…