I am making another push in 2021 to get my content out in the world and meeting users where they are. See how I plan to execute.
Platforms
- waylonwalker.com
- DEV
- hashnode
- Medium
- Anchor
Markdown
My content is written in markdown, all markdown. I find that markdown does a really great job at getting out of the way and letting ideas flow onto the page. I am never fussing with fonts and formatting while physically writing posts. Not that I don't spend way more time than I need to tweak these things on my own personal site where everything gets posted.
Articles
Much of what I create is inside of short articles that get posted to my personal site waylonwalker.com. These will get cross-posted to DEV,
hashnode, Medium.
I have made cross-posting a bit easier for myself by posting the markdown for each article next to the post on my personal site. Add .md to any post and there is the source.
Should I be giving my articles to Medium?? Personally, I am not a fan of the bait and switch that they did with adding a paywall years after launch. From what I can tell authors are not getting paid much from it, users are discouraged when they are blocked, and they really only promote articles that are behind the paywall.
In the end, I am a fan of meeting users where they are, if they like Medium I don't want them to miss my content.
More Catalytic
soft skills
My articles are very code-heavy, I do want to transition over to some more evergreen type of posts that are long-lasting. I want to create some more content around how to be a good developer, data scientist, engineer, whatever you call yourself.
Personally, this is some of the content I enjoy consuming, but for some reason is not something I tend to create.
Slides
I am really enjoying the slide output of my articles on
LinkedIn. It makes for something that is unique and easy to digest. I have a pandoc script that takes in the markdown from my posts and kicks out a set of slides, so it's quick and easy to do. Not every post works well this way by many have so
far.
Threads
With less success (shares, views, likes) I have been converting articles over to Twitter threads as they are released, again not every article works well this way, but many do.
Simplicity
just write markdown
In the end, everything needs to be simple and build off of the original markdown post. Automation should be in a place where it makes sense. I am no longer manually creating cover art or article descriptions, those are scripted out of the article itself.
I have come cli tooling in place to simplify my process. Expect more of that to come.
Audio
I have set up a podcast where I read out my posts, but the time that I have available to read them is very constraining to the process. It may be something that I figure out how to work out or something that I drop. It's something that I think would be really nice, but still trying to figure out how to do it.
I personally really like this as I often find a cool blog article that I want to read, but it's time to cook dinner or drive somewhere. Articles with audio make it super convenient to consume while doing a task requiring eye contact.
TLDR
Meet Users Where They are.
Top comments (3)
LinkedIn renders pdf files as a carousel. you can make them in powerpoint, Canva, whatever pdf making tool you like.
reveal.js was a bit finicky to get it to print on something that wasn't 8.5x11 paper format. I'll make a post about it eventually, once I am confident in it.
My next step is to auto break sections longer than about 250 characters into multiple slides.
Interesting ideas! As a working student, I'm going take inspiration from you. Establishing a plan based on simplicity makes sense when you have to work at the same time. It's better than having no plan at all. I've been looking at your website and I must say that your productivity is impressive. What do you think about making videos to teach something? Being in a lot of platforms is interesting because you can reach more users but it may require some extra work. It sounds like a real challenge but I guess that's what makes teaching a creative activity.
Making video is a fantasic option. I it is a format that a lot of people consume and depending on the content can stand for a long time. I am struggling to record audio, I don't think my lifestyle fits video recording right now. especially home with kids during the pandemic.