A Beginner’s Guide to Writing, Publishing & Promoting on the Platform

Medium is a platform for writers. Should you’re not a author, that sounds fairly easy. However for those who write, you perceive simply how big that assertion is.

Is it a running a blog platform? Social media or an search engine optimization useful resource? A web based neighborhood or a option to earn cash writing? Sure. The entire above.

You may be a poet publishing on The Coil, a brand new UX designer studying your craft, or a enterprise proprietor sharing tales about early challenges and triumphs. Regardless of who you might be and what you need to write about, there’s a spot for you on this platform.

I have been writing about advertising and marketing since 2017, I’ve used many various platforms for publishing and selling content material. Now, I will let you know how I take advantage of Medium, and how one can too.

What’s Medium?

Medium is a social publishing platform that’s open to all and residential to a various array of tales, concepts, and views. Anybody can write for the platform, so it is nice for learners.

In style matters on Medium vary from psychological well being to social media, from world affairs and trending information to productiveness hacks. This makes it a strong selection for anybody who desires to begin running a blog.

As Medium founder (and Blogger creator/Twitter co-founder) Ev Williams wrote when he launched the platform in 2012:

“Medium isn’t about who you might be or whom you realize, however about what you need to say.”

How does Medium work?

The very first thing you will discover on the Medium web site is its web site design. As former HubSpot Senior Content material Strategist Erik Devaney says, “It is minimalistic, that includes numerous white house and restricted formatting choices. Need to change the header typeface to Comedian Sans? You’ll be able to’t. Medium will not enable for such atrocities of design.”

This resolution makes nice writing the main target. However that is simply one among many nuances of Medium.

Medium is for 2 sorts of folks: writers and readers, by means of on-line content material publishing. Once I began my profession in content material writing and technique, I wasn’t certain what that meant. I found Medium as a result of I used to be making an attempt to determine the place to construct my writing portfolio. I would heard Medium was a good selection, however the first time I signed up I wasn’t certain the right way to use it.

Should you’re simply getting began on the platform, there is a honest quantity to be taught earlier than you hit publish. Let’s get into it.

High quality results in discovery.

Many writers go for years with out sharing their writing. However when you determine to grow to be a author, whether or not you are ending a primary novel or writing content material for manufacturers, it is advisable to discover a option to share your abilities.

Medium is nice for writers who make investments time and power of their work. It rewards in-depth, well-researched, and helpful articles, not simply reputation or model consciousness.

Platform-enabled reader engagement.

Feedback and likes are well-liked in on-line media. However while you’re new to writing, it is useful to know precisely what individuals are responding to and why. To fulfill this want, Medium provides readers an opportunity to focus on and remark instantly inside the textual content of every article. This course of is like the way in which skilled editors interact with writers.

Curation and publications.

Medium has curators who assessment articles for high quality. If a curator chooses your article for wider distribution, it provides you an opportunity to introduce your content material to extra readers. This would possibly embrace highlighting your article on the platform, displaying your publish to readers they assume will need to learn it, or including it to subscriber emails.

Most curators are publication editors. A number of the most popular publications on Medium in 2023 embrace:

• The Startup
• In the direction of Knowledge Science
• Private Progress
• UX Collective
• The Writing Cooperative

Medium’s curation and publication fashions aren’t simply nice for writers. Additionally they give avid readers and followers an opportunity to help their favourite writers.

Paid alternatives.

Medium additionally provides writers the prospect to earn cash with their tales. As a member of the Companion Program, you possibly can put tales behind a paywall to earn revenue.

On this program, you possibly can enhance earnings with repeat readers, engagement alerts, and extra.

Writing for Medium

Anybody who has a Medium account can write for Medium — there is no different vetting course of concerned.

To get began, merely sign up for a free Medium account (or improve to a $5/month membership for limitless entry), and also you’re prepared to begin writing from there.

However articles should adhere to Medium’s content material pointers and guidelines. For example, as a author I can not promote controversial or excessive content material on my Medium account. I can not do third-party promoting. And there is a separate set of insurance policies if I need to write about cryptocurrencies.

Internet affiliate marketing hyperlinks are allowed, however writers should inform their viewers that they are together with these hyperlinks. For the total record of guidelines for content material, check out this publish on Medium Rules.

As a marketer, Medium presents a possibility so that you can attain a brand new viewers together with your content material. The platform is open, so some matters lean towards sharing longer-form, extra well-thought-out content material whereas others are brief and topic-focused.

On this means, Medium is like advertising and marketing on many different channels, as a result of success in writing for Medium is not nearly nice writing. It takes some analysis into audiences and publications in a particular space of curiosity. So, what makes Medium an amazing channel for writers?

Within the subsequent part, I’m going to get into the subject above, and speak about how I selected between Medium and WordPress.

Medium vs. WordPress

This publish presents an exceptional breakdown of WordPress vs. Medium for pricing, running a blog, and search engine optimization from a enterprise perspective. So, I need to use this house to share my private expertise with the 2 platforms.

How I’ve Used WordPress as a Content material Author

I labored with a designer to construct my private web site on WordPress and constructed a separate facet undertaking by myself with Elementor. I’ve additionally used WordPress professionally as a content material supervisor and freelance author. Altogether I have been utilizing the platform for six+ years to create and promote content material.

WordPress is a wonderful platform for sharing content material on-line inexpensively. It additionally makes it simple so as to add plugins, options, and instruments to attach my websites to different related channels, like social media feeds or fee gateways.

I like WordPress as a content material author as a result of it lets me run unbiased websites on-line that I can use to check concepts earlier than broadly broadcasting them.

That stated, it took years of studying about SEO (SEO) to start producing site visitors on my private websites. With the speedy latest modifications in search engine optimization, I have been investing extra time in researching social channels for advertising and marketing and promotion.

How I’ve Used Medium as a Content material Author

As you possibly can see above, I selected to go together with WordPress for my portfolio. However I began utilizing Medium once I was managing content material for a small ecommerce startup.

I used to be searching for efficient methods to advertise content material for our weblog. I needed a channel that might assist increase the affect of the superb writers on my group. So, we began with Medium.

I requested writers on my three-person group to put in writing an unique piece for Medium as soon as a month along with their scheduled weblog assignments.

Whereas some posts sat on our model’s Medium web page with out a lot traction, a number of grabbed worthwhile consideration. Particularly, we had essentially the most success with posts that we submitted to well-liked publications on the location.

For instance, I submitted this publish about Ecommerce Easter Eggs to the Marketing and Entrepreneurship publication curated by Larry Kim, and Bryce Patterson submitted this piece on the content writing process to the publication “The Writing Cooperative.”

These publications have devoted audiences, which helped us present our writing to extra folks and construct followers for our branded Medium account.

WordPress vs. Medium — which is best for you?

Whereas these are each glorious platforms to showcase writing, they’re fairly totally different. I take advantage of each platforms, however I spend extra time on WordPress due to my objectives as a creator. However many writers will discover that Medium is the most effective platform for them due to its give attention to author discovery, monetization, and community-building.

At this level, you could be able to attempt utilizing Medium. Let’s take step one.

Getting Began With Medium

1. Create an account.

Anybody can view free Medium content material. However to publish and work together with people on the platform, it is advisable to have an account and log in.

So, step one is creating an account. Signing up was tremendous simple for me. I headed to Medium.com and clicked the “Get began” button on the prime of the web page. From there I had three totally different sign-up choices to select from: Google, Fb, or e mail.

I used my Gmail account to create an account first, which was tremendous quick and easy. They even made including my title to my profile simple, as a result of it auto-filled based mostly on my e mail.

I additionally arrange a separate account, this time signing up with e mail. All I wanted to do was click on a hyperlink in my e mail to finish setup, and the method was in any other case the identical.

Throughout signup, it helped to keep in mind that Medium is a component social media. It is not only a platform to put in writing blogs, it is a house to share, remark, and curate content material inside a neighborhood.

So, I felt like some elements of the signup, like selecting matters, felt extra like signing up for Twitter (X) or Pinterest than creating an account on a running a blog platform.

I like holding my running a blog and social media accounts separate, however Erik Devaney recommends signing up for Medium utilizing Fb. He says, “That means all your current connections from Fb who’re on Medium will robotically be following your account as soon as it is created. This protects you the difficulty of getting to construct up a brand new viewers solely from scratch.”

No matter what you go together with to begin, you possibly can all the time hyperlink your Twitter (X), Mastodon, or Fb to your Medium account later within the “Safety and apps” tab within the Settings menu.

The Settings menu can be the place you possibly can replace your username, profile web page URL, profile design, and extra. You can too management what e mail notifications you obtain from Medium on this menu.

To finish my profile, I added a photograph and wrote up a brief (160-character max) bio for my Medium profile web page. I take advantage of the identical bio throughout my social media accounts, so I simply copied and pasted this from my Instagram account, emojis and all.

2. Comply with folks, publications, & matters.

In a Medium feed, the content material that is surfaced comes not solely from the accounts of the folks and organizations you observe, but additionally from publications and tags. What’s extra, when looking for content material on Medium, folks, publications, and matters all present up within the outcomes.

Folks

First, determine who you need to observe. Whose writing do you need to learn? Who’s making content material you possibly can be taught from as you start your new writing journey?

There’s all kinds of writers on the platform, and I am keen on somewhat little bit of every little thing, so this step was fast to finish. Whether or not you are keen on politics or people-watching, computer science or world travel, you are more likely to discover some writers you need to observe too.

Publications

Medium publications are collections of tales based mostly round a typical theme. Anybody can create them — your self included — and the way in which they work is pretty easy.

Because the creator of a publication, you are an editor by default. This implies you could have the flexibility to:

• Add writers to your publication
• Edit and publish the tales submitted by your writers
• Assessment the metrics for all of the tales which might be a part of your publication

Because the publication’s creator, you will even have the flexibility to nominate new editors (to allow them to do all that stuff I simply talked about).

Making a publication is simple to do. First, I wanted to submit fee to grow to be a Medium member. Then, I clicked on my profile picture within the prime proper, and scrolled right down to “Handle publications.” A pop-up appeared, and I clicked “Create a brand new publication.”

This led to a brand new web page the place I wanted to enter data on the title, description, social accounts, and subject for my publication. I additionally wanted photos prepared so as to add an avatar and brand.

The avatar picture seems on featured pages round Medium, whereas the brand picture seems on the homepage of the publication. You’ll be able to study picture sizes for these necessities and extra in this Medium post.

As soon as I completed getting into this data, I had an opportunity to create a customized design for the house web page of my new publication.

This publication will give me an opportunity to not solely share my very own writing, but additionally join with different writers on the matters I care about.

Subjects

As soon as referred to as “Tags,” Subjects are the hashtags of the Medium ecosystem. If you publish a narrative on Medium, you get the choice so as to add as much as 5 matters, which seem on the backside of your story.

So, once I click on a subject it brings me to a web page the place I can see extra tales with the identical subject. It additionally provides me recommendations for different matters I could be keen on.

As an alternative of surfacing content material based mostly solely on the social graph (for instance, the folks/publications you observe), Medium makes use of matters to floor content material that is based mostly on particular pursuits.

For instance, this article from Beth Dunn, a latest Advertising Fellow at HubSpot, consists of 5 matters:

• Consumer Expertise
• UX Writing
• UX Design
• Inclusive Design
• Content material Technique

Following matters like these might help personalize my Medium expertise and make it simpler for my readers to search out extra of my content material.

Now that I’ve arrange an account, began following some accounts, constructed a publication, and adopted some matters, let’s begin partaking with content material.

Tips on how to Work together With Medium Content material

3. Suggest, share, and bookmark content material.

Clapping palms are the “Like” of the Medium world. It is a option to present that you just help and recognize the content material that somebody has shared.

When studying a narrative on Medium, you possibly can help it at each the highest and the underside of the particular story, the place you see the clapping hand image.

In both case, I simply click on on the clapping hand icon to help a narrative. As soon as clicked, the palms will change from a top level view to strong black. The primary time I supported a narrative, I unintentionally clicked the quantity beside the clapping palms icon. This was a contented accident as a result of it let me see the total record of people that really helpful that story.

Be aware: You’ll be able to clap as much as 50 occasions per publish, and you’ll clap for as many posts as you need.

If you suggest a narrative, the author, by default, will obtain an e mail notification. (However that is one thing you possibly can management in Settings). The extra help a narrative receives, the extra seemingly it’s to be shared across the Medium community. Tales that obtain essentially the most likes inside a given time interval get featured on Medium’s house web page.

In the identical two places the place you possibly can suggest a narrative, you can even save, hearken to, or share that story. To save lots of a narrative I needed to spend extra time studying, I clicked the bookmark icon and it saved the story to my studying record. I may also create particular studying lists on this a part of the platform.

To hear, I simply clicked the play icon, however if you wish to use this function, it is good to know that it is for members solely. Lastly, I shared the story by copying the hyperlink or sharing it on LinkedIn, Twitter (X), or Fb.

If you bookmark a narrative, it is going to seem in your studying record, which you’ll be able to entry out of your Medium profile web page or from the Medium homepage on the backside of the right-hand sidebar.

4. Spotlight particular phrases.

Now that I understand how to help, share, and bookmark Medium tales, it is time to unlock a second stage of interplay. I do that by choosing sections of textual content with my cursor.

As soon as I spotlight some textual content, a pop-up menu will seem that offers me 4 choices:

Spotlight

Clicking the highlighter icon (highlighter image) places a inexperienced spotlight across the textual content I chosen. That is seen to my Medium followers. By default, a narrative’s author will get a notification when anybody highlights a piece of their tales.

Response

Clicking the speech bubble icon lets me write a response to the story I am studying. The part of textual content I’ve highlighted seems on the prime of my response. (Extra on responses in a second.)

Textual content Shot

Clicking the Twitter icon generates a “Text Shot,” which is a tweet that robotically pulls within the textual content I highlighted as a screenshot.

Non-public Be aware

Some tales can even present a lock icon in a speech bubble. Clicking this icon lets me ship the author a non-public word. Should you do not see this icon, it is as a result of the creator has turned off personal notes.

You’ll be able to select this on or off in your settings, however I selected to depart it on as a result of I learn that editors sometimes use private notes to offer feedback to writers earlier than publishing.

5. Write responses.

In contrast to conventional weblog feedback, Medium responses are treated as individual stories. Apart from showing on the backside of the tales I reply to, I may also publish my responses to my profile web page.

That is useful for me as a result of it lets me interact with folks on the platform with out having to decide to writing a full-blown story. It additionally helps me provide you with concepts for tales.

Medium’s strategy to responses provides feedback the potential to take off and get circulated similar to conventional tales.

A fast word: Responses are engagement alerts on the Medium platform. And, responding is a tip that exhibits up in lots of articles about the right way to promote your writing on Medium.

For me, this makes it essential to reply genuinely. Whereas responses are a option to enhance my visibility on the platform, I work to be considerate within the methods I help and have interaction with the writers I reply to.

Tips on how to Write and Publish on Medium

6. Format textual content in your posts.

Prepared to begin writing my first Medium publish, I click on “Write” on the prime right-hand nook of the Medium house web page. I may also get there by clicking on my profile icon on the top-right of the Medium web page, after which scrolling to “Tales.” I can create a brand new story by clicking the inexperienced “Write a narrative” button. That motion pulls up a display screen that is prepared for my content material that appears like this:

As Erik Devaney says, “Writing in Medium’s editor is extremely intuitive and — from a stylistic perspective — almost not possible to screw up.”

As ordinary, it’s the writing that’s powerful, however a device might help with the main points. Once I write, I typically use a template, like one among these free blog templates.

Then, I copy and paste my writing into my chosen publishing platform. Medium makes this step simple. It retains hyperlinks and different formatting from pasted textual content.

If I need to make a change to the textual content, All I’ve to do is spotlight a piece to disclose a number of primary format decisions corresponding to daring, italics, or hyperlinking. It additionally lets me designate textual content as an H1 or as an H2 utilizing the massive T or little t:

And I can select between two totally different types of block quotes —

Possibility A:

Or Possibility B:

If I actually need to get fancy, I take advantage of Medium’s drop caps operate.

Know these enlarged, stylized letters you generally see firstly of sentences? These are drop caps. In line with the Medium team, they’re helpful for “pacing, beginning a brand new chapter, or just a bit typographical delight.”

An alternative choice for creating some separation between totally different sections of a narrative in Medium is to make use of a separator. To insert one, I click on the little plus icon that seems on an empty line of a narrative:

Clicking that plus icon will open up a menu with six choices. The one on the far proper — the icon with the 2 little strains — is the separator.

This is what it seems to be like on the web page:

Try this story for extra formatting how-tos, corresponding to including inline code, mentions, or emojis.

7. Add photos and media.

Including photos, movies, and embeds to a Medium story will be so simple as copying and pasting URLs into Medium’s editor. The editor, most often, can robotically acknowledge the media’s format and render it accordingly.

For instance, I need to add a pair movies to my in-progress publish. For the primary video, I simply copied and pasted the YouTube URL, after which clicked “Enter.” Then I added a TikTok video by clicking the video icon that exhibits up after clicking the plus icon. The ultimate outcome was the identical irrespective of which steps I adopted.

You’ll be able to add a spread of media to your Medium story together with:

• Importing a picture out of your laptop
• Including inventory photographs with Unsplash
• Inserting a video with a URL
• Inserting an embed code for approved media

There are additionally totally different measurement and orientation choices for displaying media.

For instance, the choices beneath appeared in a pop-up menu after I inserted my YouTube video. There are three decisions for sizing a YouTube video on Medium:

8. Share drafts and publish posts.

Once I completed my story and was proud of how every little thing appeared, I headed as much as the highest navigation to decide on between two choices: “Publish” and an icon with three dots. The three dots spotlight a spread of decisions for writers. These embrace sending a draft hyperlink, checking the looks of the publish, unlisted publishing, and extra.

For instance, “Share draft hyperlink” generates a hyperlink to the draft of my story, which I can share with anybody — even when they do not have a Medium account. And the folks I share the draft with may also depart me notes.

Clicking the “Publish” button, in the meantime, opens a menu the place I can select as much as 5 matters for my story. It is a kind of pre-publishing dashboard, with reminders so as to add a featured picture and a hyperlink to be taught extra about what occurs after publishing. I like that it additionally presents an opportunity to schedule my publish if I need to share it later.

It is also the place I hit the “Publish” button to share my story with the world. 

Tips on how to Get Paid on Medium

Now that I’ve gone by means of the right way to use Medium, I am fascinated with the right way to take advantage of it. I’ve accomplished some analysis and located a number of methods writers monetize with this platform.

First off, there’s the Companion Program. If you wish to earn cash together with your tales, that is an thrilling option to receives a commission on Medium.

The Medium Companion Program pays writers instantly every month. To receives a commission on Medium I first must grow to be a paid Medium member. Then, it’s time to use for the Companion Program. The necessities for this are easy. I must:

• Have revealed no less than one Medium story
• Be 18 years or older
• Stay in an eligible nation

This course of additionally consists of signing up for Stripe, to gather funds, and Tipalti, for tax functions. As soon as I am a part of the Companion Program, I can put new and already-published tales behind a paywall for premium members. When somebody reads my story, I am going to earn a proportion of their membership price.

That is the bottom carry selection, as a result of it is monetizing one thing I am already doing — writing tales for the platform. It additionally makes use of engagement metrics to determine how a lot I receives a commission for every story, connecting what readers like to what I make from the platform as a author.

Whereas I will be making an attempt the Companion Program to earn on Medium, I am additionally interested in different choices. For instance, I arrange tipping by going to “Settings,” then “Publishing” and updating the settings beneath “Handle tipping in your tales.” I can add a fee hyperlink and I am going to have the ability to obtain ideas from readers. There are alternatives to make use of Patreon, PayPal, and different well-liked platforms.

One other option to monetize is utilizing my tales on Medium to advertise a enterprise or model. The brand new audiences I introduce to my tales on the platform can drive new curiosity to my enterprise. This strategy is like what I discussed above once I talked about my previous expertise utilizing Medium.

9. Measure your outcomes.

I revealed my first Medium story and I’m set to earn cash on the platform, however the affect I could make with Medium will rely upon how my tales carry out. To see metrics for my Medium content material, I clicked my profile icon within the prime right-hand nook of the Medium homepage and scrolled right down to “Stats.”

Once I arrived on the “Stats” web page I did not see a lot (but). However quickly, I am going to see the mixture variety of views and claps my tales and responses have obtained over the previous 30 days.

There’s additionally a graph that gives day-by-day granularity, with particulars on follower counts and highlights.

Image Source

As I scrolled down the web page, I has the choice to click on on particular tales to view particular person stats. The Medium group can be making changes to the Stats pages. It seems to be like most of those modifications are for monitoring fee metrics or serving to writers tie fee to efficiency.

This is a fast rundown on what metrics Medium at the moment tracks:

• Claps: The variety of claps a narrative receives.
• Responses: The variety of responses a narrative receives.
• Lifetime earnings: The full quantity a narrative has earned.
• Views: The quantity of people that visited a narrative’s web page.
• Reads: Tracks when somebody views a narrative for 30 seconds or extra. Scrolling to the underside of the story was once required, however is not anymore. Views and reads for particular person tales stay on story element pages.
• Member learn ratio: This stat tracks member reads divided by member views.

Fast word: Member-only and non-member exercise is tracked individually in Stats.

The Medium App

I journey ceaselessly, so consuming and interacting with content material on the go is greatest for me. For this, I am utilizing the Medium app. The app consists of the identical tales and content material I can discover on my laptop computer, with the added bonus of a mobile-first interface.

On the app, I can floor content material associated to my pursuits. These curated lists rely upon the tags, publications, or authors I observe. I additionally use the app’s Discover function to search out new, fascinating content material and to interact with fellow readers, becoming a member of conversations as they’re taking place. I hoped I may begin drafts within the app, however no. That stated, I can examine story stats wherever I’m, which is useful.

Use Medium for Writing and Sharing Your Finest Tales

Medium is a robust platform for writers and content material creators to share concepts, interact with readers, and even earn cash. By following the steps I shared on this article, you possibly can unlock the total potential of Medium. So, begin writing and exploring the chances. Your viewers is ready.

Editor’s word: This publish was initially revealed in August 2021 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness.