by Katy Kauffman @KatyKauffman28

I tried so hard to make those baby trees grow. Two years ago, I transplanted three small trees from my front yard to the back, and for weeks I “mommy-ed” them. I watered them, staked their six-inch-tall trunks to the ground, and made sure no one mowed them down. I even talked to them. One by one, they shriveled and died. 

The next year, dancing leaves on a short green stem caught my attention. Ten feet from our giant mama of a gum tree, a baby tree had sprouted. I went outside and stared at this tiny plant. God made things grow when I couldn’t. 

This year, the mama tree got a little happy. Because the grass grew slowly this spring, we didn’t mow the backyard for a while. Tiny leaves dotted the backyard like confetti. Instead of seeing just one new tree, I counted nearly 200. When God smiles on a dream, it’s sure to grow. 

When we start our writing journeys, we nurture our platform like we would a tiny tree. We want it to blossom and be vibrant with life. But sometimes it doesn’t appear to grow, and we get stuck. If we try to force opportunities to happen or we despair over social media numbers not being what we want, we may cause our publishing zeal to shrivel. 

We need God’s smile on our dreams. Just like everyday life, the writer’s life is a constant partnership with God. We need His involvement and guidance to grow our audience. He knows which initiatives to take, and He creates opportunities that couldn’t have sprouted on their own. He can tell us which endeavors are worth keeping and which need less “tending.” As we follow His lead, we can continue to do our part and watch Him do His. 

Three Strategies to Cultivate Your Platform

If you find that your platform isn’t growing fast enough, take a step back and use these three strategies to evaluate your efforts. Review your endeavors every few months to see if you’re maximizing your time. Log your observations into a journal or a word processing file so you can track your progress and endeavors. When I evaluated my own promotion efforts, I saw that I needed to shift my focus and try new venues to connect with my audience. 

Save yourself time on social media by researching which posts resonate with friends and followers.

What kinds of posts receive the most engagement on your social media pages? Do they include memes? Weekly verses and a brief devotional paragraph? A question that introduces your recent blog post? Make a list of the posts that people have liked, commented on, and shared; and keep sharing similar content that your target audience needs. This will take the guesswork out of creating new posts and save you time. 

If you’ve established the basics of a platform, see if you need to focus on one particular tool or try a new one.

Just as trees need a balance of sunshine, water, and nutritious soil, writers need a balanced platform. The basics include social media (usually Facebook and Twitter), a blog, and a newsletter. Take a look at the growth of each of these, and see if one needs more attention for a while. Then consider whether it’s time for a new adventure—speaking to churches and groups, YouTube videos, podcasts, and more. 

Ask God whether you’re ready to branch out and maximize your reach through a new venue. He knows what you can handle. And be sure to do your homework. Does your target audience watch YouTube videos? Are they more likely to listen to podcasts? Will they be at church events or meeting in small groups once the COVID pandemic is over? As you cultivate your platform, seek God’s guidance and keep in mind the best tools to share your message with those who need to hear it the most.

See your platform as an overflow of what God is teaching you. 

After several years of being on social media and blogging, I felt like I had to grunt to come up with something new and insightful to post. The thought came across my mind more than once, Just share something!

Just as our books are an overflow of time spent with God in the ups and downs of life, the material we share in our platforms is an overflow of our relationship with God. We can share the precious treasures He is teaching us—Bible verses, picturesque definitions, hit-the-nail-on-the-head illustrations, and new strategies for victory and freedom. As long as we’re learning from God, we’ll have material to share and we don’t have to grunt (except perhaps to make a deadline). 

So dear platform grower, don’t give up if you feel stuck. This may be the moment that you feel God nudge you in a new direction or reinforce what you’re already doing. Trust Him to make platform growth a good adventure. He’ll help you to know what strategies to keep and which tools to try. After all, when He smiles, the world shines. 

Katy Kauffman is an award-winning author, an editor of Refresh Bible Study Magazine, and a co-founder of Lighthouse Bible Studies. She loves connecting with writers and working alongside them in compilations, such as Feed Your Soul with the Word of God, Collection 1 which is a 2020 Selah Awards finalist. Lighthouse’s newest compilation, The Power to Make a Difference, was released in January 2020.

In addition to online magazines, Katy’s writing can be found at CBN.com, thoughts-about-God.com, the Arise Daily blog, and three blogs on writing. She loves to spend time with family and friends, watercolor in her Bible journal, and do yard work in the summer sun. Connect with her at her blog, The Scrapbooked Bible Study, and on Facebook and Twitter.