In my previous thread I said that you need to think, when doing public-facing history/classics (esp. online), about how you are going to get the word out and how various platforms may work for that.
So I want to talk in more depth on my experience about strategies for this. 1/
So I want to talk in more depth on my experience about strategies for this. 1/
The first decision to make with your project is if you are going to use someone else's platform or create your own because that is going to shape a LOT of what follows.
The advantage of using someone else's platform is that they solve a lot of logistics and reach problems. 2/
The advantage of using someone else's platform is that they solve a lot of logistics and reach problems. 2/
Now I need to be clear here that when I say platform I mean an editorial platform like a reddit, magazine, group podcast or youtube channel, etc.
I don't mean a hosting service (e.g. YouTube itself), which offers little editorial constraints or a locked in audience. 3/
I don't mean a hosting service (e.g. YouTube itself), which offers little editorial constraints or a locked in audience. 3/
Becoming a moderator and frequent answerer on r/askhistorians (@askhistorians ) gives you immediate access to a big audience of interested people. They already have a house style which you can adopt and they already run the basic administration of the website. 4/
The downside is, of course, you have little/no control over someone else's platform: you have to conform to their expectations. That may mean limits on content or style. It can also mean limits on monetization which may matter if you don't have secure academic funding. 5/
It also *generally* means that you are spending your time building the platform, which may make it hard to bring your audience with you to other projects - the audience is not tied to you, but to the platform.
Again, that can be good or bad. 6/
Again, that can be good or bad. 6/
In that sense, writing for r/AskHistorians is a lot like writing for a media publication (except you don't get paid): you borrow their audience, but they get the audience you build and their house style is likely to make it hard to promote other projects not on the platform. 7/
From my perspective, borrowing a platform makes a lot of sense if:
1) you don't intend to engage with the public regularly (and so won't build your own audience and thus need to borrow someone else's)
2) you are not interested in building an audience. 8/
1) you don't intend to engage with the public regularly (and so won't build your own audience and thus need to borrow someone else's)
2) you are not interested in building an audience. 8/
So if this is something you plan to do once or twice a year, or your project is a one-off, something like a single, 6-episode podcast run, finding a platform to house that project is a good idea so that it gets seen. 9/
If you do want to build your own platform to do public history (or classics, or archeology), you need to think about how to get a readership (because you don't have a pre-built platform doing it for you). 10/
Getting that audience can't be an afterthought either - in this 'attention economy,' competition for eyeballs is fierce - you are competing not only with well meaning other folks but also with pseudo-historians, extremist nuts appropriating history.
They play to win. 11/
They play to win. 11/
So what are your options getting the word out?
Borrow Platforms - if you get the right match between your project and a larger platform, this can work but it is tricky -most platforms by design or accident are set up to be bad at promoting your off-platform project. 12/
Borrow Platforms - if you get the right match between your project and a larger platform, this can work but it is tricky -most platforms by design or accident are set up to be bad at promoting your off-platform project. 12/
A lot of reddits have anti-self-promotion rules, for instance. Media editors are excited to have you talk about current issues, but less so about current projects. And frankly a lot of academic projects are self-focused and don't do a lot of cross-promotion. 13/
(Notes at the bottom on how I am trying to avoid this with my project)
The indirect approach can work however. Depending on your topic it is worth thinking about the 'topography of the internet' - are there certain reddits, youtubers, other projects...14/
The indirect approach can work however. Depending on your topic it is worth thinking about the 'topography of the internet' - are there certain reddits, youtubers, other projects...14/
...in your wheelhouse? Can you reach out to the directly? Or can you use their word-of-mouth?
One of the major successes of ACOUP is that the 'history-through-pop-culture' lens allowed word-of-mouth about the project to spread through ASoIAF and LotR reddits early on. 15/
One of the major successes of ACOUP is that the 'history-through-pop-culture' lens allowed word-of-mouth about the project to spread through ASoIAF and LotR reddits early on. 15/
Social Media - social media can be a tool to get the word out, but again you are facing competition. Moreover, *your* social media footprint might not be ideal - chances are your friends and follows are fellow academics, but we're trying to reach the public! 16/
Note that I would strongly suggest avoiding a project that lives entirely in a social media platform: it has all the problems of the platform (Musk can tank your project tomorrow if he's high enough) with none of the benefits of a built-in audience. 17/
Social media may also not bring as many hits as you'd like. I have, by academic standards, a pretty big social media footprint - not huge, but decently chunky. Social media links made up just 18.5% of readers on my blog this past month. 18/
Only half of that was on Twitter (where I am); 20% was from Reddit, 10% from Facebook (where my account is private and I have no friends, like in the real world), and another 18% from news aggregators.
You may think a big Twitter account drives big traffic, but it doesn't. 19/
You may think a big Twitter account drives big traffic, but it doesn't. 19/
Still, an initial audience is valuable to get evangelists so think hard about social media and also think about what each platform gives you. Twitter is relatively small, but fully public, which is why seemingly every successful project has a presence here. 20/
So of course your network on social media is going to matter, but the tricky part here is that the Big Accounts get a lot of engagement which means it is hard to get their attention.
All of my Big Follows (Hi!) have been by accident or by reader evangelism. 21/
All of my Big Follows (Hi!) have been by accident or by reader evangelism. 21/
The last major option is The Algorithm: YouTube, Search engines, podcast discovery mechanisms, etc.
The problem here is that you are competing with people whose daily bread *depends* on mastering that Algorithm and who can relentlessly conform to it. 22/
The problem here is that you are competing with people whose daily bread *depends* on mastering that Algorithm and who can relentlessly conform to it. 22/
There's some good discussion on this by @KRosencreutz in one of his videos (youtube.com).
Advice here will be very platform specific and since I run my own website I can't offer much. I refuse to Search Engine Optimize no matter how much WordPress begs me, so 🤷23/
Advice here will be very platform specific and since I run my own website I can't offer much. I refuse to Search Engine Optimize no matter how much WordPress begs me, so 🤷23/
One thing that does work: ask your audience to promote your work. I do this in basically every single post - the people reading you, they *want* (mostly) to help your project, so tell them that the way they can do that is to tell their friends and follows about it! 24/
I know that seems obvious (surely they know that!) but it isn't obvious - your readers do not know how many they are or if you are famous or not and they almost certainly underestimate their collective ability to spread the word about your project. 25/
One thing to avoid is click-bait: remember that the value proposition you provide is *real* *expertise,* so do not fall into the trap of click-bait - you'll never outcompete the content farms there.
Your advantage is knowledge, so foreground that advantage. 26/
Your advantage is knowledge, so foreground that advantage. 26/
Most of all I'd say that building an audience for a platform is slow work. I think folks assume that the 'big score' may lead to an enduring audience, but big reader floods ebb quickly and most of those folks don't stick around. 27/
Instead sustaining an audience is an exercise in slow accretion. A regular release/posting schedule helps a lot if you are not on a big platform (my schedule is weekly - whatever your schedule, make it easy to remember and anticpate - every friday or every 1st of the month) 28/
You need to have a strategy and that strategy needs to be focused on your public audience - if you write with one eye (or both) on your colleagues or hiring committees, you will struggle to get anyone else to read what you write (or them either, to be honest). 29/
I want to close by noting that I think we're all on the same 'team' here, working together, not competing. What we want, collectively, is to provide better quality public education in our fields so it's not you against me but us against the pseudo-historians. 30/
That's part of why I like to promote public-facing projects.
1) Every few weeks I have 'fireside' posts with 'recommendations' at the end of things online that I can link to that I thought were neat. Got a good history/classics essay or podcast or video? I want to share it! 31/
1) Every few weeks I have 'fireside' posts with 'recommendations' at the end of things online that I can link to that I thought were neat. Got a good history/classics essay or podcast or video? I want to share it! 31/
Recommendation links usually generate a few hundred outgoing clicks - it's not huge but a few hundred can be significant for smaller projects, especially if these are *new* readers (a link on the very biggest blogs, to go by my analytics, might generate a few thousand clicks) 32/
2) Guest Posts - My project is text-based, so if you want to write an essay detailing your project or research, I do accept guest-post pitches from other historians and classicists (inc. (esp!) PhD candidates and early career folks). 33/
Downside: you need to write it. Upside: More views, around 10,000 usually. Alas, I cannot currently pay writers because the blog's revenue stream is how I eat; I hope one day if I get a permanent academic post to be able to pay writers, but who knows if that will happen. 34/
And of course I retweet on Twitter projects that I think are really cool (note for ancient stuff, @sentantiq and @rogueclassicist do this too and a lot more so make sure they know about your project!), so let me know about your project! 35/
Retweets may not bring in a flood of permanent readers, but they can help build a network and then the network brings a few readers, who generate your word-of-mouth base (that is how I got started, at least).
Remember: we're all rowing the same scholarship boat!
/end
Remember: we're all rowing the same scholarship boat!
/end
Postscript: This is not a complete discussion of course. There is a WHOLE other discussion to be had about the art of placing essays in major media publications, which is another big outreach avenue that isn't as easy as it looks (but very doable).
Anyway, I'm happy to chat with smaller projects that are thinking about how to get started in terms of strategies, though I can only offer my own experience.
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