What being #1 on the leaderboard did and didn't do for me in 24 hours
Am I allowed to be this transparent?
Hi there!
You may have seen the announcement that I am taking my second publication off from the Substack platform.
It was everything but an easy decision and I contemplated on the move for several months. I even wrote a reflective essay about 9months into the process as a way of deepening my own understanding with supportive data, as well as give you a glimpse into the process.
(You can read the reflective analysis “I launched a second publication and this happened” here 🔒)
When I finally made the decision a few days ago, kicked it off and began migrating my work, I received the honour of being #1 rising on the Arts and Illustration Leaderboard.
The new incentive for “rising” leaderboards is brilliant from a theoretical standpoint, allowing lesser known writers to get a chance in the spotlight without having to necessarily compete with the already big and bold on the general leaderboard (which is mostly based on GAR1).
But is it working on a practical, real level?
I received the notification of the #1 spot only ten minutes after the public announcement about my move. The irony isn’t lost on me as to whether the Algo-Gods wanted me to make a quick turnaround again and stick it out. Because…. FOMO!!!!!
Admittedly, the news came as a gut punch when I should’ve just felt filled with gratitude. Gut punch, because it felt like the universe worked against my bold move of taking something off a social platform and back onto my own website.
But what happened next is even MORE interesting and I felt a burning urge to share it, because I think it confirms the idea that we MUST focus on our own work and steer away from metrics as much as we can. They aren’t helping us. They are consuming us.
So, what happened?
I kept track of the statistics during the period of following the announcement and my bright #1 spot.
The publication isn’t deleted yet and won’t be for the foreseeable future, because I will use it as a strategic lead magnet. But I am in the process of taking off the payment option (I’m just sorting out the backend stuff, which has revealed to be somewhat of a nightmare…). I can sense a post of “XX things I wish I knew before I went down the road of monetizing on Substack” coming in the near future..
The graph shows a spike in traffic on the 10th of April, the same date that I received the #1 position.
