Medium Publications
How to Grow a Medium Publication From 0 to 1,000+ Followers
Lessons learned from growing a small but successful publication
I started my first Medium publication, Blogging Guide, a little over a year ago.
The idea behind the publication was to create a Medium publication dedicated to answering the questions I saw writers asking. I also had written a few successful articles which were curated and went viral, so I figured a few people might find Medium-specific advice useful.
I’ve consistently added new content, redesigned my publication layout more than a dozen times, integrated an email marketing campaign, and created an associated Facebook group.
My goal was to create a truly comprehensive publication. I didn’t do it for the money. I did it because I love writing informational content and have found that taking the time to understand a large platform’s algorithm (Medium, Amazon, Google, etc.) is one of the most rewarding puzzles to solve.
Follower growth was extremely slow.
In fact, until about 7 months ago, I could probably name each follower of my publication because there were so few and because I paid a lot of attention to the readers who took the time to follow Blogging Guide.
So I was thrilled to receive an email from Medium, commemorating my passing of a milestone, that had once seemed impossible:
Blogging Guide had officially reached 1,000 followers!
It may sound like a small victory when there are publications with more than 500,000 followers, but I was proud. Not only because 1,000 followers was a nice round number but because I understood how few publications created after June 2018 achieved that type of growth.
There are many reasons that almost all of the top 100 publications on Medium were founded in 2015 or earlier, but here are a few:
- First mover advantage — The first-mover advantage refers to an advantage gained by a company that first introduces a product or service to the market. The first-mover advantage allows a company to establish strong brand recognition and product loyalty before other entrants. Pointing this out is not meant to diminish the risk/substantial reward these early publications experienced — but rather meant to highlight that current writers who are growing a publication should not expect to see such exponential growth.
- Medium For Publishers — In 2016, publishers on Medium had the ability to charge a monthly subscription fee for offering members-only content and other perks. This made free publications comparatively seem more valuable to readers.
As an article in Forbes from 2016 explains:
Publishers on Medium now have the ability to charge a monthly subscription fee for offering members-only content and other perks, the site announced on Tuesday. Through the program, called “Medium For Publishers,” publications can set their own price. The online publishing startup is also expanding advertising offerings on the site, giving publishers another way to opt-in to make money through “Promoted Posts,” ads housed within Medium articles. For example, a brand’s promoted post could be visible at the bottom of a story on The Awl and link to the brand’s site. Medium will take a cut of both subscription and brand post revenue, with publications taking the majority, the company said. Some of the companies that will be buying sponsored posts on Medium include Nest, SoFi, Bose , Intel, and Volpi Foods. Medium plans to accept more companies by application.
- Bots, Fake Followers, Spammers — Although Medium has stepped up its efforts to combat spammers and bot accounts that auto follow people, this was not the case in the platform’s first few years. There are also many inactive accounts following these early platforms.
Tips for Creating A Successful Medium Publication
So what does it take to create a successful Medium publication? Below are some tips learned from creating a number of publications:
- Pick a well defined niche — Aiming to become your own mini “Medium within Medium” is not a good strategy. Pick a niche. Something that you are passionate about and have the desire to explore. State in your description what types of topics you cover, and which topics you don’t.
- Utilize all of the custom features offered by Medium publications — Some of the biggest advantages of creating your own Medium publication is the ability to write letters, customize your homepage promo section, and the ability to link to an external site in your publication’s navigation bar. If you are not making use of these functions, you are missing out on the opportunity to connect better with your readers, organize your publication’s content, and improve your publication’s graphic design.
- Do not send too many letters to your publication followers — I have seen many publications do this. Just because you can reach all of your followers with ease is not a reason to send excessive messages. After all, followers can choose to stop receiving your letters (while still remaining followers) or they could choose to unfollow your publication altogether. I would generally suggest not sending more than 1 letter per week.
- Market your publication shamelessly — getting people to actively follow a Medium publication is surprisingly difficult. One of the biggest reasons is because many readers are confused by Medium’s overly complex layout. Readers might think they are following your publication when they follow your profile, but this is not true. Similarly, their is no way to add readers as followers to your publication. This means that even a reader who opts into a writer’s external newsletter or mailing list would have to separately follow a publication. So make sure you ask readers to follow your publication specifically!
- Decide early on if you want your publication to be a collection of your own writing or if you want to effectively replicate the structure of a magazine, with an owner, editors, and writers — Blogging Guide is a collection of articles that I wrote. I chose this structure not because other writers didn’t have valuable insight into Medium, but because I wanted to maintain a specific level of quality and ensure uniform branding. I recently started a publication, FAANG, which virtually anyone can write for (click here to learn more). In this publication I try to feature other writer’s work over my own and act primarily as an editor. The reason this structure works is that I am not tricking writers into submitting their content, only to feature my own content. I write a once-per-week column. As a result, we have already had dozens of submissions! Cultivating a good relationship with writers is key to making a multi author publication successful.
- Make sure that your publication is listed in all the essential aggregated lists for Medium publications — Some places you can list your publication are directly on Smedian, on the comments of related niche content (outside of Medium), and on social media pages that help readers become writers for your publication.
- Understand the distinction between the three types of roles in a Medium publication: owner, editors, and writers — Each publication is owned by a single user account — the publication’s owner. The owner account has full rights to manage the publication and can add other users as publication editors and writers. Editors can review, edit and publish stories submitted by writers, as well as add their own stories and modify the publication’s layout. Editors basically have the same access as the publication owner, but they are unable to delete the publication. Writers are regular contributors who can submit their stories to the publication. These users have been added by an editor or owner, manually, and once approved, can submit drafts to a publication. This does not mean that there work is auto-approved. An editor or owner must make the final publishing decision.
- Medium has several unlisted restrictions on publication names — For example, publication names cannot match a reader/writer’s handle on the platform, cannot contain the word Medium, and cannot contain many words which are also curated topics. Additionally, many topics which are not curated topics, but are perceived as high value domain extensions, are not allowed. You can only find out for sure whether a name is available by trying to create a new publication. You could search to see if anything comes up when you search your publication name in the following two formats:
Publication URL Format
Medium Username Format
However, as noted above, some special one or two word combinations are not allowed, meaning that while neither extension is taken, this is due to Medium’s own restrictions, and does not mean it is available.
Notes About Medium Publications
- Medium allows each user to create a maximum of 7 publications.
- Publication owners and editors receive a notification when a writer removes a post.
- There can only be one owner of a Medium publication.
Thanks for reading this article! Leave a comment below if you have any questions. Be sure to sign up for the Blogging Guide newsletter, to get the latest tips, tricks, and news about writing on Medium and to join our Facebook group, Medium Writing, to share your latest Medium posts and connect with other writers.
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Casey Botticello is a partner at Black Edge Consulting. Black Edge Consulting is a strategic communications firm, specializing in online reputation management, digital marketing, and crisis management. Prior to founding Black Edge Consulting, he worked for BGR Group, a bipartisan lobbying and strategic communications firm.
Casey is the founder of the Cryptocurrency Alliance, a Super PAC dedicated to cryptocurrency and blockchain advocacy. He is a graduate of The University of Pennsylvania, where he received his B.A. in Urban Studies.
You can connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or by visiting his website, Blogging Guide.
