Introduction
I started blogging about Data Science and Machine Learning in October 2019. Now, 10 months later I would like to share my journey with my readers and other Data Scientists who are considering starting their own blog.
In these 10 months, I did not make a living from my blog, neither become a Data Science influencer with a large following, however, I have written dozens of articles that got read more than 180 000 times by Medium readers.
And more importantly, I have learned a lot by sharing my knowledge.
So how this all started?
Pre blogging time
In May 2019 I started working as a mentor at Thinkful Data Science Bootcamp and this is how I discovered Medium. When I started mentoring I got a lot of questions from my students for additional resources regarding many Data Science and Machine Learning concepts. It turned out that many times I have referred them to Medium articles.
I have noticed that Medium has covered different topics on Data Science and I found the articles especially useful for beginner Data Scientists. This is when I realized that I could probably write such articles myself. Additionally, I work with students on a daily basis so I know what concepts they struggle with.
First Blog post
I did not think too much and decided to write my first post. Prior to this I did a quick research on Medium writing and learned that I should include some photos in my article and write for publications.
The publication I mostly used when reading Medium articles was Towards Data Science so I decided to apply to become a writer for them. Surprisingly they have accepted and I published my first article: “5 reasons why everybody can and should learn Data Science”.
On the same day, I got 130 views, and on the next day almost 500. There were some likes as well. For some, these numbers may not seem that high but for me, it was enough. People were reading what I wrote, and I was hooked.
Followup posts
After, my first blog post ‘success’ I kept blogging and wrote more articles about Data Science. In the early months, I wrote when I felt like it, so my initial writing schedule was a bit inconsistent. There were months when I published six articles, and other months when I did not publish even one.
It has been the last few months that I have decided that blogging should be part of my Data Scientist’s life routine. The early months showed me that I love sharing my knowledge with others and that my career should change in a direction to include this. This is when I started blogging more regularly. I currently try to write one article a week either on topics connected to Machine Learning or Data Science.
Medium and the stats
Writing a couple of hours a week I have achieved the following Medium stats (actual on 29th of July 2020).
Articles published: 28
Number of followers: 768
Total Views: above 180 000
All those numbers are encouraging and they keep growing. I hope that delivering good quality content will help me to grow my audience in the following months.
Staring my own blog
This ‘little success’ on Medium inspired me to create my own blog, and you are reading it right now!. I hope that thanks to that my articles will reach more people including those who do not use Medium. It will also allow me to deliver different types of content and have more control over what I publish.
Future plans
My current goals are to keep publishing good quality articles once a week on Medium and my blog. I do not have a number of views or followers that I would like to reach. I would rather focus on writing good quality content.
This is what I have been doing so far and it seemed to work pretty well for me. Finally, my articles got read all over the world, and I hope they helped a few people with their Data Science challenges.
Eventually, I would like to be able to turn this little hobby into a more serious Data Science learning project. Maybe even create a Data Science related course in the future. I have been amazed by how many people want to learn Data Science nowadays, and I think as someone who has already some experience in the field, I should be able to help them.
Advice for Data Scientist that think about starting their own blog
Do not think about it, just do it!
Probably there are many of you thinking of starting their own blog but are putting it off because they think this is not the right time.
There will never be the ‘right time’, so if you think about writing a blog, start writing your first article and publish it right now.
Medium makes it so simple to get you started with blogging. You do not need your own domain, nither you have to worry about hosting your own website.
Thank you note
I just wanted to leave a short thank you note to Towards Data Science Team that has published my first ever Medium article and therefore allowed me to start this blogging journey.
I do not think I would have the courage to start my own blog without the Medium platform and without Towards Data Science publication support.
Also, thank you for all my active readers for their comments and support so far.