Increase Views and Reads on Your Medium Stories
What I learned after my first month as a Medium Partner Member
Background:
Views are the number of visitors who clicked on your story’s page, while reads tell you how many viewers have read the entire story. Why is it important to generate views and reads on your stories? Views and reads signify that people are engaged and interested in your writing. For those looking to make money, Medium pays writers who are part of their Partner Program based on member reading time. So earning reads is the key to success!
As a new member on Medium looking to turn writing into a business or side hustle, it can be discouraging to see less than ten reads on your content. All new writers have to start somewhere.
Below are some tips and tricks that I picked up through reading Medium’s guidelines and analyzing hundreds of articles.
Reach Out To Publishers:
Getting distributed by a publication means increased reach and exposure for your story. If you don’t already know, there are hundreds of publications on Medium. These publications typically focus on a genre, for example, business, productivity, marketing, science, or technology. Once your article gets published, it will appear on the publication’s home page and feature pages. Depending on the size of the publication, you could generate thousands of views and reads on your story.
While you are drafting your story, research 5–10 publications whose genre or theme relates to your story. Go through the pitch process for multiple publications because not all will reply. As a new writer, I would include large, medium, and small publications.
- Large publications typically have strict guidelines you must adhere to including minimal grammar mistakes, relevant to the publication, and interesting to read. Large publications usually only publish well-polished stories from experienced writers.
- Small and medium-sized publications are less stringent and have a higher chance of approving your story if it aligns with the publication’s objectives. I found great success with small and medium-sized publishers.
Don’t be discouraged if you do not hear back from publications. Continue to pitch, pitch, and pitch! From my experience, if your story is decent and relevant, it will get picked up by a publisher. You just need to be patient and find the right one.
Market Your Article:
People are not going to find your article if you do not market it. Post on your own social media profiles: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Quora, Reddit, etc. to generate eyeballs on your content. You can even email it to friends, family, co-workers, or your next-door neighbor! The more you share, the more exposure your content will receive.
I joined a few Facebook Medium Groups recently: Medium Writers and Bloggers, Medium Dreamers, and Medium Magic. These Facebook groups allow you to share your story with its’ members. I’ve posted a few of my pieces and got a handful of reads, views, and claps. I even had an expert Medium writer review and provide feedback on my content.
Market the heck out of your story — your story deserves it! The more exposure, the more views and reads.
Understand Medium’s Curation Guidelines:
Another way to get more eyeballs on your story is through curation. What is curation? The Medium team reads and reviews thousands of published stories daily and selects those that meet high editorial standards for curation. When a story becomes curated, it gets distributed across Medium’s homepage, the topics page, app, Daily Newsletter, and other marketing content. Once again, this could result in increased views and reads on your story.
Make sure you are part of the Member Partner Program and that you check off the “Make my story eligible to earn money and allow curators to recommend my story to interested readers” box. In addition, read Medium’s curation guidelines thoroughly and make sure your story does not break any of the curation rules.
Another helpful tip is to read and analyze curated content on Medium. Look at what they do well and how you can apply their strengths to your stories. I’ve read hundreds of stories on how writers got curated!
Use Tags:
Before publishing your story, do not forget to add Tags. Tags allow your post to be discoverable on Medium’s platform. As a writer, you are allowed to add up to five tags per post.
Some of the most popular tags include Startup, Life, Politics, Entrepreneurship, Life Lessons, Writing, and Love. By implementing tags, your story could appear in Medium’s search bar for those tags. Medium has a section for “Top Stories” and “Top Writers” for each tag.
This is a great way to increase exposure and searchability for your content.
Final Thoughts:
Rarely do Medium writers blow-up overnight. It can take years to achieve the goals you want on Medium.
Getting views and reads on your work will require some work. Reaching out to publishers, marketing your content, optimizing your story for curation, and utilizing tags are four ways to increase views and reads on your articles.
It will take hard work, perseverance, and consistency to increase reads and views on your stories. Keep writing and keep reading!
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Thanks for reading!
