Content Strategy & Marketing

How to Create Viral Stories on Medium

Patterns and Lessons learned from the content of successful writers on ILLUMINATION. How to increase the chance of your stories going viral.

Update: original title “Anatomy of Viral Stories on Medium.”

I updated the title based on feedback from readers. They believed the title looked too scientific even though the content was a practical and useful topic.

INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT

Writers create content to be read by many readers. Writing is a therapeutic activity. Many writers dream for their content to go viral and read by a broad audience.

Even though every story has a chance to go viral, the likelihood is low. From my experience, the desired outcome can be influenced by awareness, skills, and diligent effort.

The purpose of this article is to describe the key components and elements of successful content reaching a viral state. I focus on the following points:

introduce common patterns,

provide samples from our top writers whose stories have already reached viral state and some stories which are trending for the potential viral state, and

make recommendations based on my observations and findings via engagement with writers and readers.

My primary focus is to share my observations, findings, and interactions with writers whose stories trended and went viral recently. Based on these points, I aim to give practical guidance and make some tangible recommendations to our writers.

In this story, I introduce our successful writers briefly and provide some sample articles which are trending and going to viral state.

I provide supplemental materials based on my previous analysis of specific viral stories under some sample profiles. Therefore I did not go into details for each component. Some details are captured in previous stories.

This is a preliminary story to give you a high-level point of view. I aim to keep this story in a reasonable size as details can overwhelm the readers. I plan to create separate articles and provide details on each critical component and factor.

CRITICAL FACTORS FOR CREATING VISIBILITY

In this section, I want to highlight six critical factors to increase the chance of creating trending articles and prepare them for the viral state. This is not a complete list by all means but it seems to address the matter at least 70%. I learned these factors by observing and analyzing viral stories. I also interacted with successful authors and gained their insights to validate these findings. These five points are relevant and confirmed by many successful authors and content strategists, and marketers.

1. Title and subtitle

I noticed that this is the primary factor for a story to gain visibility. Readers click on a story based on its title. This is a critical opportunity for writers to make the first impression.

If your title and subtitles are compelling enough, your readers will click on it.

However, if your title is a clickbait, you miss the opportunity. Initially, you may have many views, but reading times will suffer. Reading time is the essential factor for the success of your stories from a financial and recognition point of view.

Your reputation as a writer depends on the quality and promise of your title. If you can deliver what you promise in your title, it is the first step to the sustainability of your readership basis.

2. First paragraph

After the title, the most crucial factor can be your first paragraph. Many readers read the first paragraph and then determine to continue to read the rest of your story. The first paragraph must hook the reader and tell them what your story is about and why they should invest time in reading your story.

3. Final paragraph

Advanced readers most of the time, check the conclusion of an article first. If the conclusion is informative, engaging, and insightful, they decide to read the body of the article elaborating upon the argument of the story. This is a prevalent pattern for sophisticated readers. If you are writing about topics such as science, medicine, technology, philosophy and so on, you need to pay special attention to your conclusion. Your conclusion must be as compelling and attractive as your first paragraph.

4. Main text

After the title, first paragraph, and conclusion, the main text in your story is the next determining factor for readability and success of your story. This is the main part of your story, which can increase the reading time.

We use the title, first paragraph, and conclusion to hook our readers and use the main text to gain the reading time. Without grabbing the attention of the reader using the first three elements, we cannot realistically expect substantial reading time for our stories.

5. Credibility of writer

Many readers want to read content from credible authors. It is not necessarily your expertise but how you position yourself for your content. You don’t have to have a Ph.D. to be trustworthy. In fact, sometimes, big titles can have a detrimental effect when the title and content quality do not match with the perceived credibility.

Our readers can gauge credibility by three primary means. The first one is the brief description in your profile, the second one is your credentials in your profile, such as the number of followers and top writer status, and the third one is your style of writing.

Fixing the first two components can be relatively easy but require time. For example, you need to be in the platform for a while to create a follower base and need to publish a considerable amount of stories in specific tags to gain top writer status.

The last component, style and quality of content, can be the hardest one. It requires substantial writing experience and research skills. It is doable but requires effort, time, and investment in your writing expertise.

6. Engagement

Just writing and publishing can hardly create trending and viral stories. It would help if you initiated the visibility of your work. This can be done in various ways. One of the low-hanging fruit is a collaboration with other writers.

When you collaborate with other writers, they most likely read your stories and react to them with comments and claps. Once you have some reactions to your stories, the algorithm of the platform can favor your content.

For example, on Medium, the algorithm selects the stories with a high engagement rate and features them in relevant tags you use in your stories and your top writer status.

In addition, engagement can be done with external sources as well. Sharing content on social media can also increase the chance of gaining more readers for the content and can help the platform algorithm to favor your stories for featuring.

Review of Samples Viral Stories from Illumination

In this section, I want to introduce the top writers and their successful articles, which gained substantial visibility and readability recently.

I also supplement my assertion by providing recent stories featuring these writers.

These stories are curated and distributed to multiple topics.

Kristin Wilson

One of the most successful stories on ILLUMINATION was authored by Kristin Wilson. Kristen is an accomplished writer with substantial travel expertise.

The title of the story is: The Pandemic Proves That Society Was Wrong About How to Live Life: Here’s what to do about it.

This unique article received 86,000 views and 1,274 hours of reading as of today. It is still trending. I shared my analysis of this story in the attached link.

You can read the story from this link.

Brian E. Wish, PhD

This l story was authored Brian E. Wish, PhD and hosted on ILLUMINATION. Brian is a reputable writer and a consulting editor of our publication. Many stories of Brian on ILLUMINATION were curated.

The title of the story is: Four Reasons Trump Will Leave Office

This unique and controversial article received 75,000 views and 902 hours of reading as of today. It is still trending.

I shared my analysis of this story in the attached link.

You can read the article from this link.

Kylie Fuller

This story was authored Kylie Fuller and is hosted on ILLUMINATION. Kylie is an accomplished writer with a research background. Many stories of Kylie on ILLUMINATION were curated.

This recent story received 40,000 views and 443 hours of reading and still trending on top of multiple tags.

I shared my analysis of this story when it reached to a viral state yesterday.

You can read the story from this link.

Lindsay Brown

This recent story was authored Lindsay Brown and is hosted on ILLUMINATION. Lindsay is an accomplished writer with a strong sense of humor. Several stories of Lindsay on ILLUMINATION were curated.

This recent story received 27,000 viewers and 334 hours of reading.

I shared my analysis of this story in the attached link.

You can read the story from this link.

Erin King

This story authored by Erin King, who started writing for ILLUMINATION since day one. Many stories of Erin on ILLUMINATION were curated.

This story received 25,000 views and 233 hours of reading and is still trending.

I haven’t featured this dedicated and accomplished writer yet but you can access her story from this link. Apologies for neglecting you Erin but I will make it up for recognition of your remarkable contribution to ILLUMINATION readers. Many stories of Erin are curated and distributed to multiple topics. She has authority, expertise, and excellent reader-base in #relationship and #parenting topics.

Charlotte Zobeir Ali

This recent story authored by Charlotte Zobeir Ali who is a relatively new writer on ILLUMINATION, but she produced outstanding results and has recently started contributing to our publication as an editor. Charlotte has strong language and acting skills.

The story received 11,500 views and 175 hours of reading.

As the story was special challenging my intellectual capacity, I shared my personal views on the story.

You can read this great story from this link.

Britni Pepper

This recent story authored by Britni Pepper and is hosted on ILLUMINATION. Britni is one of the most engaging writers on Medium. She has a great ability to entertain her audience and depicts strong traveling expertise.

This fascinating story has already received 9.200 views and 426 hours. This story can go viral as it is trending in the #travel topic. What is unique about the impact of this story is having over four minutes of average reading time.

I haven’t featured this accomplished writer yet, but you can access her story from this link. Apologies for neglecting you Britni but I will highlight your excellent contribution to ILLUMINATION readers.

OTHER TRENDING STORIES WHICH HAS THE POTENTIAL TO GO VIRAL

The following curated stories have already received thousands of views and are still trending. I want to share the authors and the stories to inform you of the completion of my analysis.

Rebecca Stevens Alder

This story distributed to #race #equality has already received 9,000 views

You can read this fascinating story from the link below.

Julia E Hubbel

This story, distributed to #fitness #lifestyle, provided our readers and me interesting perspectives. Julia E Hubbel is an award-winning author with multiple top writer categories on Medium. Julia has been supporting ILLUMINATION since day one and being a mentor to our writers.

You can read this fantastic story which received 5,200 views and is still trending.

Last but not least, my only story out of many stories on ILLUMINATION, which is trending now. I am grateful to my readers, who show interest in my humble leadership research and expertise.

SUCCESSFUL STORIES NOT DISTRIBUTED TO TOPICS

Yes, curation help, but sometimes non-curated stories can also start trending and can be visible to thousands of readers.

Here are four examples of stories on ILLUMINATION which were not distributed to topics, however, they received thousands of views and are still trending.

Mukundarajan V N

Mukundarajan is a prolific and insightful writer on ILLUMINATION.

You can read this successful story from the link below.

Claire Handscombe

Claire is an accomplished writer with a unique style.

You can read this story from the link below.

Noah Levy

Noah’s stories challenge my intellect and add entrepreneurial flavor to my reading taste. I adore his thought-provoking and informative stories.

You can read this interesting story from the link below.

These trending stories have the potential to go viral one day if they can hit the right audience group and be discovered via indexed back-links on the web.

I will provide insights on the importance of backlinks for viral content in my upcoming stories.

Conclusions

In this story, I introduced critical success factors for trending articles to gain further visibility and reach a viral state.

The critical factors are creating stories with compelling title/subtitle, first and last paragraphs, the body of the content, a credible profile, and engagement.

Even though we may influence the outcome, viral stories have a luck factor. We never know which stories can go viral; however, writing interesting, high-quality stories can increase the chance. Therefore, we emphasize the importance of serendipity on social media and content platforms.

To give you ideas, I provided sample stories in the viral state and trending stories for the potential to get to the viral state.

We need more viral stories on Medium. Viral stories can bring more traffic to ILLUMINATION, other publications, and the Medium overall platform. All writers can benefit from traffic in this ecosystem.

To help ILLUMINATION writers, I create many initiatives aiming to increase vitality among writers.

For example, I recently initiated a project to cross-pollinate our writers and increase the curation chances for more of our writers. As part of this initiative, I am now compiling our curated stories as collections submitted by writers. This list will grow soon as we have many writers with excellent curation histories.

If you have experience with trending and viral stories on Medium, I’d love to read your comments and include them in my upcoming stories.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

If you are a new reader and find this article valuable, you might check my holistic health and well-being stories reflecting on my reviews, observations, and decades of sensible experiments.

Sample Health Improvement Articles for New Readers

I write about various hormones and neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, GABA, acetylcholine, norepinephrine, adrenaline, glutamate, and histamine.

One of my goals as a writer is to raise awareness about the causes and risk factors of prevalent diseases that can lead to suffering and death for a large portion of the population.

To raise awareness about health issues, I have written several articles that present my holistic health findings from research, personal observations, and unique experiences. Below are links to these articles for easy access.

Metabolic Syndrome, Type II Diabetes, Fatty Liver Disease, Heart Disease, Strokes, Obesity, Liver Cancer, Autoimmune Disorders, Homocysteine, Lungs Health, Pancreas Health, Kidneys Health, NCDs, Infectious Diseases, Brain Health, Dementia, Depression, Brain Atrophy, Neonatal Disorders, Skin Health, Dental Health, Bone Health, Leaky Gut, Leaky Brain, Brain Fog, Chronic Inflammation, Insulin Resistance, Elevated Cortisol, Leptin Resistance, Anabolic Resistance, Cholesterol, High Triglycerides, Metabolic Disorders, Gastrointestinal Disorders, Thyroid Disorders, Anemia, Dysautonomia, cardiac output, and major disorders.

I also wrote about valuable nutrients. Here are the links for easy access:

Lutein/Zeaxanthin, Phosphatidylserine, Boron, Urolithin, taurine, citrulline malate, biotin, lithium orotate, alpha-lipoic acid, n-acetyl-cysteine, acetyl-l-carnitine, CoQ10, PQQ, NADH, TMG, creatine, choline, digestive enzymes, magnesium, zinc, hydrolyzed collagen, nootropics, pure nicotine, activated charcoal, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B1, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine, Cod Liver Oil, and other nutrients to improve metabolism and mental health.

Disclaimer: Please note that my posts do not include professional or health advice. I document my reviews, observations, experience, and perspectives only to provide information and create awareness.

I publish my lifestyle, health, and well-being stories on EUPHORIA. My focus is on metabolic, cellular, mitochondrial, and mental health. Here is my collection of Insightful Life Lessons from Personal Stories.

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