6 Ways to Find Your Audience Creators Hub
Created: January 28, 2024 3:14 PM
Tag: medium
Tags: Medium
Find Your Reader
**A
Quick Guide on Building Your Audience From Scratch**
6 ways to find more
readers for your work
Photo: Getty Images
This post was updated in May, 2022
There is no secret method or cheat code for growing your audience or
increasing story views. Genuine audience growth and readership happens
organically over time. When we are building an audience from scratch —
zero followers and zero story views — it requires developing an
authentic relationship with potential readers and the broader community
of writers.
Developing an audience from the ground up is hard and involves a lot
of digging to understand your readers and engagement with the community
of writers on the platform. Here’s a guide to how you can become your
own audience editor and build the audience you want to increase your
readership.
Find your ideal reader
Building an audience from scratch often comes down to finding the
right community to connect with your content. The one question to ask
yourself every time you write is “Who is this for?” Defining your
audience helps you narrow
the scope of your blog or publication and creates the space for you
to focus on cultivating work for a specific reader. Writing for your
ideal audience will make it easier to find this audience.
Audience editor
encourages creators to build the persona of the “ideal reader” to
help inform “everything from the voice and style of writing they might
like, to whether or not they’d be interested in your particular
expertise, to typical demographic information like age or location.”
Zabell recommends going through a simple audience building exercise
to create your perfect reader.
This post has a few questions to get you started on building your
ideal reader persona:
Be an avid reader
Engage with the community on Medium by reading work from creators who
write on topics you are passionate about. This builds a relationship
with a community who is most likely to engage with your pieces and
become a loyal audience.
When you read an interesting story on Medium consider the following
engagement methods:
- Leave a comment.
- Respond to comments left by other readers to engage in dialogue
around topics you write about. - Clap for pieces to celebrate and acknowledge your favorite
creators. - Highlight a sentence or paragraph to draw attention to the parts
that stood out to you. - Leave a private note on a story of an author you admire and ask them
to read one of your stories and leave a comment.
Make yourself an active part of relevant communities and mimic the
engagement you seek for your own work.
Medium writer
recommends devoting 15–30 minutes three times a week to reading and
responding to your comments and then reading a piece from a commenter.
If you don’t have any comments, focus on reading and responding to
creators you admire.
“You have to love writing and be open to reading and engaging with
other writers. You may not agree with everything they say, but you’re
guaranteed to learn something new and grow as a writer as your audience
and readership grows,” she writes.
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Share your stories widely
You are the best person to champion your stories and communicate your
unique value to potential readers. Medium is a great place to publish
stories and connect with your readers, but don’t forget you exist in
many forms online. Tap into your other social media networks to promote
your stories. Find writing communities on other social platforms to
surface your work and engage in discussions about topics that interest
you.
“Journalistic self-promotion isn’t egotistical. Rather, it can be a
thoughtful way to share work you’re proud of and connect with readers.
It’s designed to draw more eyes and exposure to your portfolio,” writes
audience editor
.
If you’re feeling weird about self-promotion, refer to the Levine’s
How
to Self-Promote Without Turning People Off guide, where she outlines
several strategies to help you unabashedly champion your work
online.
Create a social media promotion plan that will enlighten your
followers and reflect your writing style. Concentrate on posting where
you are the most active. You don’t have to start tweeting if you don’t
tweet. Consider where you “live” digitally and focus on promoting
stories there.
Also, don’t be afraid to post more than once! Get creative with how
you leverage social media platforms to promote your writing. Need help
getting started? There’s a guide for that, too.
Follow the link below for more insight into how you can craft
engaging social media posts that will direct your followers to the
stories you publish on Medium.
Workshop your headlines
A good headline draws your readers into your story by clearly
communicating what the story is about. Your headline doesn’t need to
veer into clickbait, it should be clear, direct, assertive, and focused
on what is most interesting.
When workshopping headlines, imagine you are seeing your story for
the first time with no context. Would I want to read this? What framing
would make you more interested in clicking this story? If you get stuck
on a headline, pause the brainstorming process and answer this question:
What is this story about?
Here are examples of strong headlines and why they work to help in
your next brainstorming session:
Here is some more advice on writing strong headlines — including a
video of a workshop we ran recently on the topic:
Optimize your profile
Your profile information— on Medium, that’s your bio and About
page — introduces you to your readers, builds your credibility, and
lets readers know why they should follow you and read your work.
Here are some tips for updating and optimizing your profile on
Medium:
Get comfortable writing
into the void
Building an audience takes time and growing your readership takes
effort. When starting out, get
comfortable with writing into the void, says Medium writer
.
“Use this time to create a writing schedule, a method for
self-promotion, and practice your networking skills,” she writes.
“Whatever you do, remember we’ve all been there.”
✍️[What’s your story? Start writing
here!](https://medium.com/new-story)