How My Medium Article Got 24,000 Views and 11,600 Reads
A few days ago a colleague of mine sent me a Slack message asking how we got so much traffic from Medium. I sent him an example of an article I did and began to detail my strategy. But, I wasn’t telling the story very well. So, rather than go deeper into an explanation on Slack, I told him I’d write a Medium article to break everything down.
This is that article.
On June 12, 2017 the famous productivity guru, Tim Ferriss, released a new Ted Talk video about a new type of checklist he called Fear Setting.
The talk was fantastic, and like anything Tim Ferriss does, I knew it would go viral.
I wanted to jump on this massive wave that I knew was about to form.
So, the very next day I decided to write an overview about Tim’s new Ted Talk so people could learn everything they needed to know in 2-3 minutes, without having to watch the 13 minute video.
I wanted to hit a wider audience and I really wanted the post to rank high in Google, so I used Medium. I posted it on June 14, 2017. (2 days after the Ted Talk released)
But, I didn’t stop there. The Ted Talk was about creating a new type of checklist that listed your fears, instead of your goals. So, I decided to publish a Fear Setting Checklist that anyone could save, copy, or download for free. I used a free publisher account on Checkli.com. I linked to the free checklist from my new Medium article.
The Results:
- Medium: 24,000 Views on Medium
- Medium: 11,600 Reads on Medium
- 19,000 Views on Checkli
- 1,965 copies made on Checkli
- 3,156 downloaded PDFs on Checkli
- #2 for“fear setting” in Google (Behind Tim’s blog)
- #1 for “fear setting checklist” in Google
Takeaways:
- New Trending Content: Look for exciting and new popular content using Google Trends, Twitter, Reddit, and email newsletters. Discover what’s hot right now.
- Celebs and Influencers: Follow big celebrities and influencers and keep an eye out for new content they put out.
- Ride the Wave: When hot, new trending content comes out, try to jump on the wave as quick as possible. #newsjacking
- Use different platforms like Medium to communicate to whole new audience, in a completely different way. You don’t always need to use your own blog.
- Maximize your ROI by using additional platforms like Checkli to offer interactive bonus content.
Conclusion:
That’s really it. The Medium article took me less than an hour to make, and the Checklist took an extra 30minutes. But the traffic has lasted a year and a half so far…and it keeps coming.
If you enjoyed this short little article and found it useful please let me know by commenting below.
Good luck!
