Medium’s NEW Boost Guidelines — Reading Between the Lines

How to be a boosty Mcboosterton and get that sweet, sweet booster juice

Medium just updated their guidelines to getting The Boost! The new update was posted in the Medium Blog, but before you run off to read it, I might be able to save you 9+ minutes of your life.

If you aren’t familiar with The Boost, it’s Medium’s new curation model that gives articles the booster juice of 500 additional views. This is an algorithmic audition, as some get picked up by the algo to get thousands (up to 100K) views. And they just updated the guidelines for it.

‘Robin, Did they finally pull down the curtain and reveal the great tricks of the Wizard of Oz magic boosting powers?’

Aww, you’re cute. No, because…Medium, and…reasons.

So here is the Medium post (and updated official guidelines). But below is my CliffsNotes version — and my superdooper, inside scooper, party-pooper analysis.

What’s Been Updated?

Not much to be honest. It’s still vaguery wrapped up in an enigma. They did make a few small alterations though…

1. The 5 Main Tenets

The original 5 main tenets were:

• Is it Constructive?
• Is it Original?
• Does the author speak from Relevant Experience?
• Is the story Well-crafted?
• Does it feel Memorable?”

These have been updated to (changes are bolded):

• Is the reader’s life enriched by reading the story?
• Is it original, human-created content?
• Does the author speak from relevant knowledge and experience?
• Is the story well-crafted?
• Does the story have impact?

So now it has to be human-written? Lord thunderin’ Jebus…were they boosting AI before? I thought being human-written was a given, but I guess before it could have been written by a gibbon.

So they changed constructive to life enriching. That makes sense as they note that constructive doesn’t apply to all genres. And now instead of memorable it needs to be impactful. What examples were given to illustrate the differences? Well, none.

There were 9-minutes worth of words, but here are my main takeaways:

• They listed some examples with explanations of why it was boosted. This was the biggest difference, and worth studying.
• They are giving more opportunities to fiction, poetry, and humor.
• There is no auto-boost (I never thought there was but the tinfoil hat brigade had been pushing the theory apparently), and not every single one of your stories will be boosted.
• Write for the readers' benefit (this is good advice — boost or no).
• No AI, duh.
• Don’t use clickbait titles (in my opinion they like dull, cryptic ones)
• Use ALT text on images for accessibility.
• Length doesn’t matter (but for guidance, I personally haven’t seen any shortform boosted other than poetry).

And then there was a long section, written by a curator, reviewing their own curation job and saying they aren’t biased. I’ll just sit back for a moment and let the irony fill the room.

‘Robin, that wasn’t helpful — I still don’t know what gets boosted!’ Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, this isn’t ‘Murica. I’ve got a few practical tips for you at least, see below. But first…

Why The Boost is Important

The Boost is Medium’s new baby (which I think makes my unboostable ass the red-headed stepchild) — and it’s working as they’re seeing great new growth with it! They are putting a lot into this and it’s the way of the future here. So if you like getting new readers, growing a following, or just…like money, then it’s important.

There are three reasons why I think the boost is important for Medium writers:

1. The Earnings Multiplier

With Medium’s new MPP calculations, boosted posts get paid with a multiplier. So mo’ boost — mo’ money. Nuff said?

2. Preferential Views

According to Medium, boosted posts are la creme de la creme of the platform. I guess that makes me la creme de la merde, héhé. What do you think will be the first thing they present to people? If you guessed boosted posts — ding ding, you get a cookie 🍪. Boosted posts have prime real estate. They have to, they have to get 500 views.

If you want to compete, getting boosted should be your ideal.

3. The Future & Competition

Have your views been suffering like mine and most of the writers I know? Well, as the boost program grows — that ain’t getting any better without a boost. They are currently only at about 4% coverage (and only have a few, probably 3 or 4, people deciding on boosts). When they reach 100%, that will be some stiff competition.

But don’t worry — you have time. They are growing their coverage insanely s-l-o-w. They have less than 70 boost nominators now (and have been for months), and plan to get to 100 in the fall. So that will be what, 5.5% coverage? 7%?

That is in my opinion, a major issue with the boost. They’re only covering a small % of Medium and are rolling out to cover more topics and pubs at the rate that molasses moves in the Arctic. So there are ‘have’s’ and ‘have nots’. But if you’re in the 4%? Phew — you have an incredible advantage at the moment.

So…let’s get you into that elite club of special mofos.

My Actionable Tips to Getting Boosted

I gotchu boo boo. I have consumed more boosted content, and talked to more boost nominators (“nommers”) than a sane person should. Luckily my dastardly arse never claimed to be sane. I’ve learned a few things. I won’t do them, because holy fuckknuckles I love cursing. But you should.

1. Don’t curse. Nobody seems to know if this is an official rule — but the nommers I’ve spoken to don’t think it would fly.
2. Post in Boosty Publications. I know 39 of them, but some are secret. Boosters can boost outside of these publications — but they would have to find you in the vast expanse that is Medium. Your odds are WAY higher using those pubs.
3. Certain topics seem to get boosted more. Anything ‘woke’ like social justice, LGBTQ+, racial equality, disability, neurodivergency, etc. seems high on their priority list. As are memoirs, personal essays, AI (topic, not AI-written), UX, spirituality, personal development, programming, photography, aging, women, and writing. Do not write about: sex, erotica, meta-Medium stuff (the MPP, money, earnings, or the boost), or rants (unless it’s woke I guess).
4. Format properly. Use title case, the title and subtitle formatting, paragraphs, images (copyright-free and that add to the story — and use ALT text), etc. Make it look nice, and don’t have spammy links all over it (unless they’re source info).
5. Spelling and grammar. I personally will take a better message over perfect spelling and grammar — but they seem like sticklers. Run your post through Grammarly or Hemingway (or both)…albeit, do this anyways.
6. Study other boosted posts. In their updated guidelines they finally added some example posts. So you can check their examples, and I have 86 more examples here. Look at the formatting, sentence structure, tones, etc. You should see some commonalities, or an overall ‘vibe’.
7. Be unique. Write something that hasn’t been written a thousand times — or, if it has, have a unique take or perspective. But also, make it interesting and give your readers a darned-tootin’ good reason to follow you.
8. Be detailed. They seem to like overly verbose articles that are super descriptive (unless it’s a technical topic, then be…technical) that use fancy words. As they said in The Big Bang Theory, “What would you be if you were attached to another object by an inclined plane, wrapped helically around an axis?”. That’s highfalutin for, “screwed”.
9. Don’t be clickbaity. They don’t like clickbait titles or clickbait images, so using them could exclude your article from getting the boosty boost.
10. Don’t be edgy. Anything that could possibly offend anybody seems to get boosted less (good luck with humor, héhé), unless it’s pro-woke I guess.

So, if you can — I highly recommend getting boosted. The best advice I can give you is to post in the pubs with the boost. That will give you your best odds by far.

Or…be like me, say fuck it and do whatever you god-damned want to.

Just try to avoid the boost envy you get from watching your other writer friends getting gold stars (and…mo’ money) from Medium though. But who knows…maybe they’ll stop playing it so safe and start boosting edgier shiznit one day.