Some people figure themselves out relatively early in life.
But many others don’t even know what they want to do or what they’re passionate about until later.
This is not a matter of right or wrong.
Age should not even factor into the equation when it comes to fulfilling on a purpose.
Transcription:
In my estimation, you are about as old as you make up your mind to be.
I’ve seen 60-year-olds that look like 30-year-olds, and I’ve seen 30-year-olds that look like 60-year-olds.
The question is, do you want to be on this thrilling roller-coaster ride? Do you want to experience all that life has to offer? Do you want to experience more?
Or do you say to yourself, “I’m 40. I’ve lived. There’s nothing left for me to experience. It’s all downhill from here.”
I know people who feel like they’re just getting started as a 40-year-old. They’ve found something to be passionate about. Something that excites them. Something that gives them life.
People get too fixated on youth. They look at someone younger and say, “they are the future,” and yet equip them with nothing that will give them a leg up in being a better leader than they were. What kind of legacy is that?
Some people take themselves right out of the game because they think they’re too old. What kind of message is that sending to the youth? That they should give up when they’ve reached some arbitrary age too?
Change is constant. That’s the one thing we can count on.
It’s not that we are insignificant. It’s that with repetition and constant programming, we can be convinced that we are insignificant. We’re constantly being told we are in subtle, and in less than subtle ways.
You are important, no matter how unimportant you feel. The world would not be the same without you.
So, what are you too old for? Italian sculptor Michelangelo was said to have lived to the ripe old age of 88 because he had a purpose. Something important to fulfill on.
What is your purpose? What do you have to fulfill on?
Shh… Don’t tell anyone. Only the cool kids are talking about it.
And I soon discovered that some people are worried about publishing daily or publishing too often.
I thought I might be able to speak to that issue in a targeted way. Here’s what I have to say about posting too often.
Know Your Platforms
So, it seems some people don’t even know about the long-form blogging social network called Medium (click on the link to learn more). People just saw “traffic” and assumed I was talking about traffic in general.
I don’t think you could over-saturate your audience on Medium by posting daily. I bet there are people who post more often than that even.
Lately, most of my newer stories on Medium have been getting about 20 to 40 views. And that’s with 412 “followers”. I’m clear that, Medium hasn’t been, and isn’t even interested in, getting my posts in front of all my followers.
(Nor is Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Mix, YouTube, LinkedIn… need I go on?)
And I’m also clear that not all 412 followers are even going to be interested in all my stories.
Either way, I’m not bombarding anyone with too much of anything and I would be hard pressed to do that with blogging or any other channel. Because there’s always an element of choice.
I publish daily because I was challenged to. I publish daily because I thought it might give me a chance at reaching my business, financial, and fulfillment goals.
The platform you’re using does play a significant part what some might consider “posting too often.” But on Twitter, some experts post 15 tweets per day (which isn’t even that much on Twitter). On Facebook and Instagram, two to three posts per day seems to be the norm, and I still don’t think you could overwhelm your audience with more.
When it comes to posting frequency, it helps to understand each platform you’re planning to publish on.
Know Your Algorithms
It’s often been said that “marketers ruin everything.”
So, here’s the rub – because marketers continually ruin everything, the organic reach of your posts suck rotten pickles. I’m just telling it like it is.
Marketers ruined organic reach, they ruined live streaming (technically still alive on Instagram), and they will ruin advertising too. They will latch onto anything that works and exploit it until it’s gone.
When you post to Facebook, most of the time, only the people who liked your last post are even seeing your latest post. And that’s assuming they still follow you.
And even then, I’m honestly being a little generous. Because not everyone logs into social media every day, stops to look at what others have posted, or even cares about what’s being said. It might be sad, but it’s 100% true.
Social media wasn’t designed for human interaction. It’s mostly for data collection.
So, posting two or three times per day on Facebook? Not a big deal. You’re not bugging anyone unless you’re intentionally going out of your way to offend them (especially politically or religiously), troll them, spam them, and extract their credit cards, identity, and firstborn.
Know Your Experts
I don’t know who’s teaching you to be restrained in your posting efforts, but if you were to observe their social media feeds for more than a day, you’d probably see they are posting way more than they say is safe or advisable.
This is the problem with advice and tips from so-called “experts” in general, in that even the person offering them doesn’t necessarily follow their own advice. Further, they don’t necessarily know what got them to where they are, and it was long, circuitous journey of trials and errors to get to where they are.
They just don’t talk about it because they like to reinvent the past. They’re embarrassed and scared crapless about their wrongdoings and failures. Which I think is tacky.
Dr. Joe Dispenza says we remember 50% of our past wrong. So, you can’t trust everything you’ve heard. You can barely trust your own experience for crying out loud.
No one is perfect – even the experts.
Know Your Stories
This is not something we’re taught in school (even though it should be).
Basically, we end up constructing stories in our minds about other people and their opinions of us. As if we’re that important.
We assume a lot based on body language and things said or not said, when our assumptions are nothing more than figments of our imagination.
We feel the way we feel about certain people because we’ve continually reinforced the same thoughts about them over time, and thoughts always crystallize into feelings.
Basically, we all live in a world of make believe, assuming things are the way we see them.
The reality is I’ve experimented with posting 10, 20, and even 30 times per day on social media. Overwhelmingly, the response I got ended up being positive. People said it gave me a “presence.”
I won’t speculate on what those who didn’t voice their opinion of me thought because I don’t think they’re thinking about me anyway. And if they are, they’re too chicken to say anything about it.
Know Human Nature
Again, it’s kind of sad to say, but no one cares about YOU that much. They just don’t.
If people follow you, it’s for their own benefit. If people un-follow you, it’s for their own benefit. Either way, they’re only interested in themselves!
If they’re coming to check out all your posts, then welcome them with open arms! Tell them about your latest product, or email list, or coaching group. These are your superfans and you want to hold onto them tightly!
I don’t know anyone who bothers with all my posts. And I get there are a few considerations, from relevance, to messaging, to how much they like or don’t like me.
And they’ve usually got a lot of great stories about “time” too, which is just motion and focus. There’s no such thing as “time” because everyone experiences it differently.
But at the end of the day, if my posts aren’t getting seen, then the only sensible conclusion I can come to is I need to share more, and preferably with different copy and messaging.
Especially since people keep saying my writing is great and they resonate with it. I don’t know if I trust that either, based on the complete lack of engagement or support, but hey, at least they were nice to me once.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to posting frequency, why not do as I did and treat it like an experiment?
I’m not saying there hasn’t been some downsides to my experimentation, but I’ve learned something from everything I’ve done. I’ve never been too shy or too scared to try something.
And inevitably, what works for one won’t necessarily work for another, because of a lot of the reasons I’ve already shared.
Bottom line – if you’re the type of person that’s worried about posting too often, you’re probably not posting enough.
Shh… Don’t tell anyone. Only the cool kids are talking about it.
I’ve done my fair share of reading on the topic, and some of the experts make it sound so easy…
Well, I don’t know how easy it is to get 1,000 views per article. I just know what I had to do to 4X my Medium traffic.
And I’m not even saying I’ve reached all my goals, but I am glad to see things have picked up.
Here are some tips that should help you broaden your horizons and begin to see new possibilities for Medium traffic.
Publish Daily
This is the meat of it. The 80/20 if you will.
Publishing daily is the best way to continually bring more eyeballs to your content.
In saying that, you’ve got to let go of perfectionism completely.
If you let perfectionism take over, you’ll overthink the process, try to come up with an inspired post every single day, and take on the impossible task of trying to change the world with your writing.
Sorry, not going to happen.
Although I mostly share about the music business and personal development or spirituality, I have snuck in the occasional story about life experiences or food too (I love food!).
I don’t think this has done me any harm. And my niche content sits on my niche websites anyway and is imported to Medium where there is a broader base of readers.
So, see if you can get in the habit of publishing daily, because it will boost you traffic over the course of weeks and months, even if virtually nothing happens upon starting (it might be crickets for weeks).
Share Personal Stories
In July, when I began publishing daily, I started off with a couple of origin stories discussing how I got to where I am, and then iterated on them.
I shared a lot of details about my past, with one of the most notable things being the death of my father when I was 13.
I wasn’t sure what the results would be, but these stories ended up connecting with my family, who still check in on my writing from time to time.
I didn’t necessarily think of writing as a relationship building tool, but when you think about it, it has the potential to be exactly that.
I don’t know how much you want to reveal about yourself, but it might be worth experimenting with. As I’ve shared before, I think it’s tacky to reinvent the past.
Comment on Other People’s Stories
Others in the Medium community have already pointed out the significant traffic boost this simple act can provide.
But just commenting isn’t good enough. Don’t say, “great post”, “awesome job”, or worse: “🔥🔥🔥🔥” and run off like you’re the hottest thing since sliced ham.
Connect personally to the author. Mention them by name. Pick out something specific you loved about the article and add your own thoughts and ideas to it.
Basically, be a participant in the discussion. Take the time to read what others are sharing and be thoughtful in your interactions.
Hilarious that I should even need to tell you to do that, but trolls are in no short supply.
Connect with Friends
I have some friends who are also publishing daily on Medium. So, I figured it would be worth connecting with them, too.
I don’t do much except for read their occasional story, offer a clap or two, and maybe leave a comment, but no good deed goes unrewarded, right?
Do for others what you want done unto you, and blessings will chase you down.
I also shared some stories with my friends on WhatsApp and LINE, especially if they had any part in inspiring it.
Create Your Own Publications
Since I share a lot about the music business, I created a publication called Music Business Training awhile back. So far, it hasn’t picked up much steam, but I still think it made a difference to my Medium traffic.
If you haven’t created any of your own publications yet, then it might be worth a look.
I plan to create another one revolving around personal development and spirituality. There would be an opportunity to add my friends as writers to the publication too.
If people have made you a writer for other publications, then there’s obviously an opportunity to leverage there, too.
I’ve been added as a writer for an investment related publication. I haven’t written enough about investments to be adding stories to it all the time, but it’s always nice to know the opportunity is there.
Share Your Content on Social Media
This is basically advice directly from Captain Obvious of Obviousville, but free traffic is nice, isn’t it?
In my case, I loaded up my Medium feed into Meet Edgar so that I can approve new posts to be shared on Facebook and Twitter. And it’s great that I don’t need to go in there all the time to create new posts.
This makes a lot of sense to do if you’re publishing daily.
Since Meet Edgar will keep pulling from your library of content and share it out continually, that can give your content a second life, third life, fourth life… You get the idea.
Of course, auto-posting just doesn’t work as well as manual posting. So, when you share new content, the best thing is to write a compelling, personal introduction like this:
(That’s the copy I put together to introduce a new podcast episode but the same idea applies to introducing blog posts.)
Note that the copy you create can be used in your emails as well.
Share Your Content Through Email
If you’ve got an email list, it can’t hurt to share your stories with your audience.
It’s up to you how often you share, but I think daily might be a bit much. You could handpick the best stories and share them with your audience one by one, or you could take the classic approach of putting together a weekly digest style newsletter where all the posts are linked up.
I admit I haven’t been doing this as much as I could be lately, but then again, I’m trying to keep my workdays to four to six hours max.
When you’re publishing daily, you want your time and energy to go towards writing, not to busywork that may not even pay off.
Link Up Your Content
Any time I see an opportunity to link up my content on Medium, I do.
The main sites I publish on are Music Entrepreneur HQ and my personal blog, and there are quite a few links pointing to my stories on Medium from each.
But I’ve even tried creating audio/video versions of my posts, which I’ve uploaded to YouTube. Link is in the description, of course!
Finally – and I guess you could say this is kind of advanced – my books also point to relevant stories on Medium as additional resources. If it benefits the reader, why not?
Interlinking your stories on Medium is not a bad plan, but if you can link to them from other sites, blogs, and platforms, why not?
Medium Traffic, Final Thoughts
What I’ve shared here is just the beginning. There are so many other ways to get Medium traffic.
But like I said, publishing daily was the main thing that made a difference for me. It might make a difference for you too.
Have fun writing and let me know how things go. If you manage to 4X your Medium traffic, obviously I would love to hear about it!
Shh… Don’t tell anyone. Only the cool kids are talking about it.
Because listening suggests we’re hearing what’s being said. Most of the time we’re not hearing what’s being said at all.
And you’re already off in the weeds because you’re thinking, “the reason we’re not listening is because we’re thinking about what to say next.”
I didn’t even have to say it, and already you’re leaning on something familiar. Your mind is making familiar connections it has probably made thousands of times.
At no point in this post was I going to suggest we don’t listen because we’re thinking about what we we’re going to say next.
What I wish to share is this:
It is possible to come from a new space of listening. And from that space, you won’t automatically jump to what’s familiar.
Transcription:
When it comes to listening, most people will say, “I’ve been listening my whole life. Therefore, I am a master at listening.”
But if you’re coming from a place of judgement saying “I like this, I don’t like this. I agree with this, I don’t agree with this. I think it’s good, I think it’s bad.” Basically, you’re not hearing anything.
And that’s the greatest challenge of listening. Most people are off somewhere else in their minds.
Let me demonstrate this. I could bring up any subject and instantly your mind goes somewhere. Here’s a good example – influence.
I say influence, and instantly your mind goes to, “influence ripples out like a pebble being dropped in a still pond.”
The challenge is you’re still thinking of the pebble. You’re not even hearing what I’m saying anymore, because you’re associating influence with something familiar, something you already know. And that’s firing up all manner of neuropathways in your mind. I’ve lost you.
First and foremost, the best thing to practice is to listen from nothing. If we can listen from nothing, we can hear what’s truly being said.
The magic of listening, though, comes from consciously choosing where to listen from.
You can listen from, “what is this person’s need or desire – how can I help them?”
You can listen from, “what’s the opportunity here – there’s got to be a win-win.”
You can listen from, “I want to make this moment even better than it is.”
You can listen from anywhere.
But first, you’ve got to be able to listen from nothing. Once you’ve mastered that, you can begin listening from a place you consciously choose and tap into the unlimited possibilities and opportunities that exist. That’s the magic of listening.
Shh… Don’t tell anyone. Only the cool kids are talking about it.
Because the moment we see something isn’t going well, we tend to think everything is going awry.
If you were to assume, just for a moment, that the universe is taking you on the shortest, most direct path to your desire…
And if you were to assume that path wasn’t free of complication…
Wouldn’t you begin to embrace the roller-coaster ride you’re on?
You wanted this experience. Desired it.
Somewhere along the line, you forgot that a journey, an adventure, is exactly what you wanted.
So, when we embrace the path, regardless of how it looks, we stop adding resistance to it.
Letting go of that resistance helps us rise to the next level. It takes us to the next step in our journey.
When we focus on the problem, we can end up back at square one.
It’s more enjoyable to stay on the ride than to have to start the process all over again.
You don’t need more secrets. You just need to follow your bliss!
Transcription:
The bottom line is you follow your bliss, you follow what you’re excited about, you keep at it. You enjoy the process. You allow things to unfold. You don’t resist the “bad things” that come up. You rise to the challenge and then you make it to the next level.
Shh… Don’t tell anyone. Only the cool kids are talking about it.
