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Blogging/Writing
Make a Strong, Loyal Reader Base Now
My travel blogger friend asked how I grew my following. These are notes from that conversation.
Recently, I read an excellent article by my friend and peer from Ireland, Orla Kenny. She details her experience publishing one hundred posts on her blog in her piece. Now that she accomplished that in six months, she feels it’s time to rethink her strategy on this platform.
Could you take a moment to observe her adventures? She writes about traveling across Europe and shares her poignant perspective along the way. While she plans to return home soon, I look forward to seeing what comes next for her.
Now she wants to publish things that inspire her rather than pushing content in quantity. She desires to be even more authentic in connecting with others and to focus on her interests. We corresponded in the comments section.
I commented on her post, congratulating her on her success. While I started on Medium in 2018, I put my blog on ice until April 2021. After telling her I had written for the past three months, she asked me about my experience.
Orla: “Thank you, JM, for your comment. For only 3 months on Medium, you have a large following. Well done!! What do you think contributed to that?”
Me: “I can tell you what I did to get to this point. Although, I wouldn’t worry about the subscriber number because many are not reading. Having a large following looks nice but doesn’t do much for my readership.
In reality, I have about 20–30 readers who regularly and authentically engage with my work. In addition, there are about fifty others who comment intermittently. So I would make the most of the people who read and comment on your work by responding to them.
Many of my regular readers are from The Daily Cuppa. I started the habit of reading and commenting on my peer’s work in the pub, and it’s not so hard because the DC is a short-form pub. It only takes a minute or two per article.
