Going Viral: How I Got 40k+ Views on Medium in Just 72 Hours
50k+ views in a week. 60k+ views in 15 days. $1000 two weeks in—and this is how I did it
It all started a couple of months back when I was in the midst of figuring my passion, one day I came across Youtube recommendations of Shelby Church's video “Making Money Online Writing for Medium… Is It Worth Your Time?”. And being a seeker of passion, I clicked on that video.
And oh man I glad I did.
Inspired by her video, I started writing on Medium. Before I read a couple of Medium stories but didn’t start publishing stories until February. You can say, I jumped into the deep sea of content writing without having a single clue of how to swim and survive.
I created a medium account in February and published my first post on Feb 24. But that post only got 63 views so far in a week.
My second post got fewer views than the first one i.e. 26 views. Definitely not great. I mean my views should be increasing but things were going exactly opposite.
March 2nd, the day I published my 3rd post, and that’s when all hell broke loose.
My story “The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century Isn’t ‘Sexy’ Anymore” got only 400 views the very first day. And on the very sixth day i.e. on 7 March, my stats number went highly up. It got 21K+ views that day. In just 24 hours. I was like wow! It performed well on ILLUMINATION.
Throughout the next few weeks, I couldn’t help but check my stats a few times to see if my views are still increasing. And every time, the numbers just went up, up, up.
40k+ in 72 hours
50k+ in a week
60k+ in 15 days
And here comes the best part, you’ve been waiting for: My Earnings
Yep, I made $1000 from one story. One single freaking story.
Totally insane right? I never thought that I could earn that much amount with a few thousand words. But turns out I did.
I’m going to share that process to make your content viral, along with what I’ve learned about the platform so that you can replicate this kind of success for yourself
What Kind of Content Does Well On Medium?
I still remember the first post I ever read on Medium. It was last year Shelby Church wrote about “This Is How Much YouTube Paid Me for My 1,000,000 Viewed Video.” As a YouTuber she shared how much youtube paid her for 1 million views, describing other factors such as people watching time, that affected her earnings. It was based on technology, earning, Youtube experience, and online hustle.
I was in the 3rd semester of my college and was trying to figure out how to hustle side by side to earn money.
How could I not like that post?
How could I not want to read more stories like that?
After that, I was hooked. Another story which I read trended on medium for days, it was Chrissy teigen’s “Hi”. It was raw, vulnerable, and emotional.
How could I not want to share it?
After that, I was hooked. I read Medium articles most of the time. Especially, the articles that included earning money through online hustle. I studied many different types of stories in-depth and wrote more than 45 stories and that was enough to give me an idea about how things work on Medium.
There is definitely something different about the stories that were being published and shared on Medium vs. other media outlets (and other blogs for that matter).
When you dissect the stories that are successful on Medium — most of them have similar qualities:
- Story: The writer tells a story, or shares how they accomplished something that would be useful to others, and it’s usually from personal experience
- Controversy: The writer takes a different stance on something that’s trending in the news
- Technology: The story is about daily life technology and its interesting facts. The writer shares trending tech careers, tech gadgets, or controversy about big tech companies.
- Freelancing & Online Hustles: The story involves tips and ways to survive in the freelancing world — content marketing, affiliate marketing, or content creation. It shares different ways to earn money other than full-time jobs.
- Emotion: The story invokes some kind of emotion from the reader. That emotion might be positive, inspiring, uplifting, or create sadness. You might feel for the writer and can relate to their story, or the post invokes anger and you want to share it because you’re incredibly pissed off.
To see what I mean, here are some examples of good Medium articles that are literally getting readers hooked:
Bitcoin Hitting $100,000 Doesn’t Matter. Many People Have Missed the Point.
6 Free MacOS Apps I never Close
For a Happier, Healthier 2021, Ditch These 6 Habits
7 things people who are good with money never buy
My Husband is Useless and Does Nothing
Why Literally Everyone Can Benefit From Therapy
Did you notice anything common in all of them?
- Most of them have short headlines.
- A lot of the stories that did really well are how-to’s, questioning why, stories about personal experiences, tech, and financial advice.
- They are simple. Unlike other platforms, Medium doesn’t believe in clickbaity. No fanciness. No glamour. Just plain, simple, and honest.
Now that you’ve got an idea of how things work on Medium, here are few strategies that I followed to write good content, and as you can see I got the results.
1. Read Before You Write
Okay, now I am confused. Shouldn’t I suppose to write instead of reading? But Wait! Stay with me here.
Now that I have your attention. Can I be blunt on this subject?
“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that,” says Stephen King.
Let's keep it this way: You can’t jump in the sea without knowing how to swim. In order to survive, you must learn to swim. That’s how things work for writers.
If you want to write, then you must read first. As Stephen King in his excellent book On Writing adds, “You must be a reader first, a writer second.”
Unlike other platforms, Medium is more of a hub of simple, honest, and personal stories. Try reading as much as Medium stories as possible. Check their headlines, formattings, and the way they have written content. See what kind of articles trended and which get more praised by the audience.
The more you’ll read, the more you’ll expose yourself to the range of possibilities for your writing. Reading not only expands your imagination, vocabulary, and empathy but also your ability to reshape your writing in unexpected ways.
2. Write Consistently
When it comes to writing content, people usually prefer to generate quality posts rather than quantity posts. But we tend to forget that when it comes to writing good quality content, writing in more amount leads you there.
Psychologist Dean Simonton summed it up the best:
“The odds of producing influential or successful ideas are a positive function of total number of ideas generated.”
If you want to rapidly improve your writing, try writing more often. Writing more often and trying out many variations increases the odds of your content going viral, you may never know which post will be praised by the audience and may go viral.
The more pieces of content you publish, the more you’ll get better at it. The more you’ll get better at it, the more your work will be praised.
4. Keep It Plain And Simple
There is no denying in the fact that content is the king and if your king isn’t good enough, no matter how much power aura of sexiness you radiate with your title and subtitle, it’s very unlikely that the reader will stay at your story feed for more than 30 seconds.
Medium is home for personal stories, emotional, vulnerability, life advice, self-help, productivity and so much more…all plain and simple. Remember the more plain and simple you’ll keep your article the more highly it will get appreciated by the people.
Unline other platform Medium doesn’t believe in clickbaity. No bragging. No glamour. No showoff. Just honest, plain and simple.
4. Submit To Right Publication
Medium publications are just like a mini-magazine that features stories about a certain topic. In order to get your article more views, it’s important to submit it to the right publication.
So, if I don’t submit it to publication, my article wouldn’t get many views?
Hey, I am not saying that. You can self-publish it as well. There are many people whose self-publish articles have gotten n-number of views but submitting to a publication gives you access to a large audience. If your story starts to take off, then the publication promotes it to its existing audience.
But keep one thing in mind: How popular a particular publication is, doesn’t matter at all — what matters is that you find the right home for your story. The goal is to share it with the people who believe what you believe.
One last note, I would like to say don’t lose your hope. If your article isn’t getting any views now, doesn’t mean it isn’t going to get any in the future.
What I want to say is that: Don’t lose your hope. You can have anything you want only if you put up with challenges.
Just keep going!