I Have a Few Questions For You
My response to questions about how I promote my articles on social media
1. How many articles do you publish each week?
Recently I have been publishing once or twice a week. Prior to that I was publishing articles daily. I have been on Medium since June 2020, so I am coming up to my one year anniversary soon.
During the 11 months that I have been on Medium I have published over 171 articles, which works out at roughly 15 articles per month, or an article every other day.
2. How much time do you spend on social media every day and do you have any set routine for the same?
I aim to read five or more articles per day via the channels I use. The best time for me is at the start of my day. Any reading or promotion I do after that is a bonus.
I also aim to read, comment and share five articles directly from Medium. I spend between 30 minutes to two hours per day, depending on my level of engagement, or how busy I am.
3. Do you have any favorites in social media?
Twitter is my favourite social media platform. I love it because it gives me the opportunity to promote articles I enjoy by tweeting quotes or phrases I like, whilst engaging with other creators. The writers whose work I share usually reciprocate. It’s a win-win situation.
I also use popular and relevant writer tags which help drive traffic. Every little helps.
4. You do this all by yourself or do you have a guy who does it for you?
I do all my own promotion. I don’t have anyone helping me. It was overwhelming when I first started but I now have strategies which work well for me. One of them is doing the promotion as soon as the article is published.
I don’t pay for advertising on Facebook. I tried that when I first joined Medium, and it did not work for me. I spent £10 advertising an article hoping to drive traffic. I made 11 cents. Fortunately my income has increased significantly since those early days.
Later I learnt that it is more important to generate traffic from paid Medium members as that is what translates into earnings. That’s a whole other article.
5. The other day, I watched a video by Sinem on her YouTube channel. She categorically said that no need for social media marketing, google SEO, and/or having your own website.
I am really super confused as I am new on this and want to build my brand but don’t know as you say to focus more on writing or marketing. I have also seen that unless you engage on any social media tool say FB group or Twitter, nobody pays attention to your stories. But engaging requires too much time.
I love Sinem and am a member of her MWA group on Facebook. She shares valuable nuggets from her writing journey. That is her journey. She has had excellent results, but the only reason she gets new sign ups for her courses is through promotion - right?
You have said yourself that when you don’t engage in promotion, no one reads your work.
I understand where Sinem, and other great writers like her, are coming from when they discourage writers from promoting their work. They want you to focus on honing your craft, and produce quality articles which are engaging. If you spend too much time on social media you’ll be left with very little time to write.
You need to find a balance that works for you. I favour promotion because it helps you identify what people want to read. This is particularly relevant when you are still new on the journey.
As writers we want to write what we like and for readers to fall in love with our work. Unfortunately since the world doesn’t work that way, we have to compromise somehow.
Once you are established, you will be able to write just about anything and people will read it. You will still have to do some kind of promotion though, otherwise you will find yourself back at square one.
Main Takeaway
- Read about what other writers are doing to succeed, watch their channels, then apply what resonates with you.
- Personalise your own strategy because when it comes to succeeding at anything, there is no one size fits all.
Rejoice Denhere helps businesses and individuals recover from setbacks, putting them on the path to success, using her signature programme “Master Your Life. She is the author of Fearless and has been featured in High Profile Magazine. You can subscribe to her newsletter here.
