3 Shocking Ways to Succeed on Medium Without Getting ‘Curated’
You can run a victory lap even if your stories don’t get selected for “further distribution”
You can easily achieve success on Medium without getting curated.
I have been writing on Medium since September 17, 2020, and till today it’s been 5 months and 19 days, and not even my single article has been chosen for further distribution. The highest I earned in these 5 months was $22.63 in January. None of my articles have been submitted in 'big publications' such as The Ascent, Better Marketing, and The Writing Cooperative, to name a few.
Neither did I got an opportunity to work on any commissioned work on the platform. Hell yeah, I don’t even write 30 articles a month, I focus on quality and craft up to 10–15 stories.
Still after all these, not achieving any milestone as taught by some “gurus" on the platform, I will end up making a lot more money from Medium, just not in the short run. I always think about the long term and in that aspect, I am pretty much killing it on the platform.
It all boils down to, “ what is your definition of success on Medium”?
If you are thinking of making some quick bucks and ghost away, then you need to follow all the steps prescribed by big writers on the platform.
✨ However, if you can take it slow and want to build up an empire by having a website of your own and have deep connections with people who trust you and even buys every shit you sell, then my friend this article is specifically for you.
Let’s get the ball rolling.
1. The money is in the list
Every $1 invested in email marketing earns you a profit of $38.
Even if people read one of your articles, what is the guarantee that they will return to read more of your blogs?
Short answer — they won’t.
Every day billions of blog posts are published on the internet. BILLIONS of BLOG POSTS!!!!!!. People don’t even remember which writer or on which site they visited to read the articles. All they want is a solution to their problems. Once a reader reads one of your articles, he/she can never turn back and visit your page again. It’s not their fault. They don’t remember, because there are billions of them today.
The best way to capture their attention and win their trust is to make them subscribe to your email list.
Email list rewards you a return on Investment ( ROI ) of an astonishing 3,800%.
What did I do?
I specifically write about self-improvement and digital marketing. These are the two fields I am crazy about and have in-depth knowledge of. Now to capture people's email addresses, I have designed two landing pages for it.
At the end of every article on Medium, I Insert a link to my landing pages for people to subscribe. And why won’t they subscribe? I am giving away a FREE eBook to them. Don't you like something valuable for Free?
What can you do?
You can replicate my process if you wish. But please build an email list in the fields that you are passionate about and have in-depth knowledge about.
Craft landing pages, give your readers something for free in exchange for their email address. No one likes to subscribe for nothing. Copy my landing page design as an example.
Once you have their email address, you know what niches are they interested in and are willing to read consume more of your content. Then you can slowly and steadily nurture your subscribers by giving away more valuable and informative knowledge and share your blog posts with them. This will make them revisit your content frequently.
If you build your own website, you can drive these people to visit the site by sharing a link with them. You can literally do anything until you are educating, teaching, and informing them in the fields they love.
It’s all about winning the trust.
I use MailerLite to build landing pages, automate and send emails to my subscribers. It’s totally free up to 1000 subscribers and 12000 emails/month.
Earn $20 credit as you sign up.
2. Freelance opportunities
Medium articles have landed me my first freelancing opportunity yesterday.
I can’t believe it. It is possible. I have witnessed it. The good is that you can do this too. You can also land your first freelance client by writing on Medium.
How can you do it?
You have got to do two things with your Medium articles to earn freelancing clients.
✨ Post it on LinkedIn
✨Make your Writer’s portfolio
Let me first walk you through LinkedIn. The organic growth on LinkedIn is insane. No other platform has the same power to reach your posts to thousands of people. Also, LinkedIn is the place where recruiters are finding people with skills to do the jobs. This can be a perfect platform for you if you want to freelance.
You have got to do nothing new. Just post the same article on LinkedIn and at the end, you can leave a link saying ' originally published on’. Keep doing that for a month and two and also engage with your community. Spread your word and identity out.
LinkedIn is all about connections, networking, and referrals.
I got a message yesterday from one of my connections and she told me that she is looking for content writers for an upcoming project and she thinks my work can be a great fit for it. Not to brag but, she was impressed with the way I write and format the articles. The message was followed by a brief call and discussions about the project and boom, I got my first freelancing client.
Now, can you imagine the power and opportunities of pasting the same Medium articles on LinkedIn? You are losing a great deal of money if you are not posting on LinkedIn.
Writers Portfolio
Let me walk you through the concept of creating your writer's portfolio. I have talked in detail about how you can get into freelancing by creating your portfolio with your best Medium articles and promoting it on the platform, in the Bio, and on social media.
Check this article on how to make your writing portfolio for free.
Grab your first freelancing client with a portfolio.
3. Fans> Followers
To succeed on Medium or any other platform, one thing to revise every day and work towards it is that — you need to attract and earn fans for your work, not followers.
Followers are merely people who read some of your work and will engage with it sometimes.
Fans are the ones that are the hardest to earn but are the most worthy of your online success.
Fans will interact, engage and share your content and will end up buying your services or products if you sell them.
A writer with 10,000 followers on Medium doesn’t guarantee success but one with 1000 fans does.
It’s important to have a handful of fans rather than hundreds and thousands of followers.
You can earn these fans by publishing consistently, interacting with them, replying to their comments, providing them freebies, and educating them.
Even if 10–15 people read your work on Medium, make sure your content is so good that these people tend to convert into fans after a couple of months and so.
So, don’t get discouraged with only a handful of people reading your articles, be super encouraged that you have the opportunity to turn these people into fans by posting consistently quality articles.
What curation does, is that it increases the reach of your stories to readers who will only read them once and forget about them. That’s why it's so much important to write for a small audience first. Show up every day and educate them.
Please don’t be a writer whose work is only read once and forgotten afterward. Let people remember you. Focus on a small group of people. Make relationships with them. Win their trust.
More platforms to spread the word out
To gain the trust of your readers, you have to show up on multiple platforms. That’s the truth. That’s how things work here. No, I am not saying make unique content for each platform. Post the same articles that you publish on Medium. Simple.
Just show up. Showing up is an underrated skill.
Three platforms are:
- Quora — Other than answering questions on the platform, you can also build your space. Space is a community on Quora just like a publication on Medium. You can post your articles there and invite others to read or contribute to your space. You will not only attract more eyeballs to your work but if a lot of people engage in your space, you will get paid too.
Read about getting paid on Quora here.
2. ManyStories — A place or an opportunity for every blogger/writer around the world to share their work and engage with fellow writers. It doesn’t matter if your content is behind a paywall or a subscription, it will be easily accessible to everyone. ManyStories is a great platform to increase views and engagement on your articles.
3. Reddit — Don’t say that you are not allowed to share links in communities, I know you can’t. The moderators are heavily guarded regarded links of any sort. What you can do is create your own community and share the posts. Not a link but the entire post on the Reddit community. I know this doesn't help people get back to your article but that’s not the goal here. Create your identity independently on the platform. Copy and paste your Medium articles. Don’t forget to engage with people in the community.
You can also try out Mix.com, It also gives you the opportunity to share your blog posts links and let the interested readers jump directly to your blog to read it.
So, if you know the right technique and tactics you can easily succeed on Medium. Don’t worry if your articles are not getting curated. Do what you can do the best. Keep writing and follow the above methods.
I promise you will win in the long run.
Thank You for reading!
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