This Is the Secret of Tim Denning’s Success On Medium
Not the obvious one
He writes a LOT. Duh… right? That’s NOT the secret though.
How does he write so much content is the real question? This answer is surprisingly easy.
He recycles his own content all the time.
Another take on it
What do I mean by that? Tim takes a topic and writes a great post about it. He’s witty, he mastered the art of click-worthy headlines, he owns the intro, and he finishes strong. All aspects of a great writer.
But those alone wouldn’t make him successful if he only wrote 1 story per week. At least, not as successful as he is. The key factor is:
He is a master of recycling content. He takes a topic he’s written about in the past and writes a similar post with another take on it.
He does that every few weeks or months. Just take a look at these two stories side by side:
These two stories have similar headlines, an overlapping topic, and they’re even published in the same publication Index. One story is from November, the other dates back to July 23rd.
Steal from yourself
See what Tim does? He’s stealing from himself in a good way. He’s taking inspiration from his own posts. And that’s not accidental. I bet he has some sort of a spreadsheet or a database with all his posts linked by topics. That way, he can quickly come up with a “new” post idea. By recycling an old one.
As I said, Tim is doing this frequently. If you scroll through his profile, you’ll find countless of similar storylines.
Usually, they are a few months apart. Sometimes closer.
This is great for him because:
Obviously, he generates multiple stories with one idea in mind.
From July to November, many new readers joined the platform, so this recycled story will reach new people. And even the ones that read the first story have probably already forgotten most of it. He can copy small bits from post to post too.
He will never run out of articles. He can recycle those within Medium, but also on other platforms like NewsBreak if the topic fits.
The bottom line
Connecting the dots. Your posts usually don’t stand alone in your catalog of existing stories. Connecting pieces is a crucial factor for success on this platform.
This means linking between posts on the one hand, but it also means recycling and reusing content as Tim does.
I actually do something similar. I use shortform content to recycle, repurpose and ultimately promote my longer pieces.
Do you incorporate that trick in your writing?