These 10 Strategies Will Springboard Your Writing Success on Medium
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You are writing on Medium for a reason: You have great ideas that need to be heard.
But with millions of readers and writers on this platform, how do you stand out in such a crowded place?
How do you carve out your own niche in this virtual land of opportunities?
How do you succeed on Medium?
If you are new to Medium, or you’ve been here a while and find yourself plateuing, these ten tips will breathe new life into your writing and propel you to Medium success:
1. Know Your Goal
What, exactly, do you want to get out of your Medium experience?
Are you trying to develop a writing platform, or are you content to bounce from piece to piece, reading and writing a little here and there like a happy bumblebee enjoying the flowers?
Whatever you decide, that will determine which of the following tips are relevant to you, and to what extent.
Here are some of my goals:
- Build up a writing portfolio that promotes powerful, positive ideas that make people’s lives better.
- Clarify my worldview by exploring complex ideas about life, faith, and learning, so that I can change my own life for the better.
- Create a library of comprehensive notes on valuable books that I’ve read
- Create a writing platform
- And make a living writing
And these are the strategies I use to work toward those goals:
2. Write Regularly
Try writing at minimum 5 days per week to start, and stick with it. At least for several months, if not years.
When I first started on Medium, I wrote something every day, come hell or high water.
At the time, I was also juggling a novel-in-30-day writing challenge, so I was writing upwards of 4,000 words a day.
But it was worth it.
By writing regularly, you develop discipline and can build up your portfolio (see tip below).
Another reason why you should write regularly is because it makes you look more reliable to readers, and makes it harder for them to forget about you.
Let’s face it, the internet is noisy. If you don’t publish your work regularly, readers can easily forget about you, especially if you are still a beginner and don’t have other powerful characteristics that make you stand out head and shoulders above other writers.
Even Seth Godin had to start somewhere.
3. Focus on Your Portfolio
Sometimes you write silly one-off pieces for fun. But if you have a long-term view of writing, you should think “portfolio” rather than “individual articles.”
That means, write the best article you can at this moment. But once you’ve submitted or published it, don’t forget it forever.
Writing can be repurposed. As you write more and more, you’ll start to notice themes in your writing and see ways to develop them further.
Ask yourself: What are you good at as a writer? What is your unique contribution to the world as a writer? Is it humor? Personal development? Finance?
Whatever it is, stick with it. Because you only get your best ideas in a theme when you’ve stuck with that theme for a while.
Also, people don’t usually enjoy reading really random thoughts on a variety of topics, and the best writers know that. For example:
- Benjamin P. Hardy carved out a niche on Medium by writing about personal development and entrepreneurship, which is what he studied as a PhD candidate.
- Tom Kuegler writes particularly about post-grad young adult concerns, the digital nomad lifestyle, and entrepreneurship, because those are all relevant to his current life stage.
- Kris Gage writes primarily about romance and relationships based on her own experiences.
Each of these top Medium writers focus on writing about specific themes. When readers are looking for articles about personal development, digital nomad-ing, or romance, they don’t have to surf around looking for articles on their interests — they know exactly where to go.
Another tip: keep track of your portfolio.
I created an index of all the articles I’ve ever written and update it regularly.
That way I can see what topics I’ve written about, when, and quickly and easily go back to those articles to revise, repurpose, republish, reuse them as needed.
It’s a lot easier than scrolling through your own Medium page trying to locate that one article you wrote seven months ago, which is now currently buried under five dozen articles you’ve written since.
4. 50% Input, 50% Output
You can’t produce anything if you don’t have ideas to work with.
So don’t just sit yourself down at the computer and expect the words to come. Spend time learning and reading quality books and articles to fill your well.
I read 1–3 books per week, many of which give me great ideas of articles. In fact, book notes ARE one of the article themes I regularly write on.
Two birds with one stone, you know.
Spend some time reading Medium articles, to see what kind of content works on this platform. But also read other content so that you can collect diverse ideas that can percolate in your head and create interesting results.
(Books are ideal, because most of the time, authors worked really really hard on those buggers — more than the average article writer spends on his article. So you are almost guaranteed quality content and learning when you read books).
5. Be a Giver
- Respond when people comment on your work.
- Thank them if they share your content on Twitter and Facebook.
- Let them know that you see and appreciate their efforts to help you get your best ideas out there.
- Follow writers and clap for/comment on their writing.
Don’t be fake about it — don’t clap for things you actually don’t like.
But be generous about clapping for things you DO like, and most importantly, comment thoughtfully on other people’s posts.
And be a true giver: don’t expect anything back.
That is, don’t expect people to clap and comment for you when you do so for them — just be glad that you learned something from their writing.
Eventually, though, you will see that the more you contribute to others through claps, comments, and conversations, the more that happy juice will spill back on you and your work 😄
6. Don’t Lock All of Your Posts
Medium is the only writing platform I am aware of online that allows content creators the ability to easily share in its profits, through locked Partner Posts.
This is fantastic news!
But don’t abuse it.
Especially if you are just starting out.
Even if your primary goal on Medium is to make money, locking all your posts is not going to help you. Not unless you already have a large, devoted audience of Medium subscribers who love everything you write.
The real goal of good writing is to share good ideas that can help make people’s lives better, and locking posts can sometimes work against that.
On the other hand, there is talk that Medium actively promotes locked posts (of course it would, locked posts help it make money too), so there is that factor to consider.
In the end, it’s a balance.
I have been experimenting with post-locking, and usually I put out two versions of most articles — one locked, one unlocked. That way people who don’t have access to a locked post may still be able to read the unlocked version if they like.
7. Join a Publication or Two
Especially when you are starting out.
Publications have established audiences, so this is a great way to reach out to readers when you are a newbie with no fans (yet).
So read some articles from the publications you are interested in pitching, then apply. Each publication has its own rules and preferences, so make sure you know what those are and follow them when you apply/submit work.
Focus on publications that focus on those themes you want to write on (refer back to the “Focus on Your Portfolio” tip above).
Here are some quality publications to get you started:
- Publishous: features content that motivates and benefits people, in the categories of health, productivity, faith, and more.
- The Writing Cooperative: focuses exclusively on everything writing-related.
- P.S. I Love You: feature stories that talk about — what else? — Love, of course!
- The Mission: is home to many top-notch articles on personal development, inspiration, and fascinating true stories about historical and modern successes.
- The Post-Grad Survival Guide: is interested in post-grad life, entrepreneurship, and the digital nomad/young adult life.
- The Ascent: promotes positive content that documents life lessons, first hand accounts, and personal stories grounded in experience.
- The Write Purpose: This publication founded by yours truly features stories that promote the 3 Ls: Laughter, Love, and Light (life lessons).
8. Start Your Own Publication
If nothing else, you should create your own publication for these reasons:
- Your own publication is a great way for you to build up that portfolio of yours
- You can easily send group messages to subscribers through the Letters feature
- It’s like your own little hub on the larger Medium platform — not exactly your own site, but close. And it’s a good way for people to find you.
9. Study Successful Medium Writers
Look for writers who are ahead of you — those who are WAY ahead, and those who are somewhat ahead.
How do they write? What strategies do they use to 1) write well and 2) reach readers?
Look at their headlines, their content, their social media, everything they do. Learn from the best.
This is a sample page that I created while studying articles written by top Medium writer Benjamin P. Hardy:
Remember, you can learn from everyone — even writers who are not quite in your niche, even writers you don’t always agree with. Doesn’t matter.
Part of learning is discerning. So discern the lessons you want to absorb from each writer, and put it to work in your own writing!
10. Don’t overlook the nitty gritty
Sometimes, we writers tend to be idealists who imagine that as long as we dream up great ideas, they will be heard.
You know, that whole “if you build it, they will come” concept.
Sadly, this concept usually doesn’t work in real life.
Ideas translate better when they are well-packaged. And that takes skill and practice, not just inspiration.
The internet is packed. Life is busy. People are distracted. There are techniques, strategies, and tools for cutting through the noise, so make sure you learn those techniques and strategies, and USE them.
That includes things like learning how to create your own writing system, how to craft compelling headlines, how to become a skilled storyteller, and more.
It doesn’t matter how brilliant your ideas are if no one can receive them. So learn how to write well, to put your ideas in a form that is easily receivable.
Then you will go far as a writer, and not just on Medium.
Bonus tip: Persevere
If you want to succeed on Medium, it won’t happen overnight. All writers spend years developing their voice, their talent, their platform.
So work hard. For a long time.
Keep experimenting, keep learning, and most of all, keep writing.
If you don’t give up, you will eventually be able to:
- develop your writing platform
- become a better writer
- build up a valuable portfolio of truly meaningful articles
- learn about writing and life
- make money off of your writing
- and more.
It’s not a matter of if — it’s only a matter of when.
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