MEDIUM BASICS

How to Tag Someone in Your Article on Medium?

There are two ways—know the subtle difference between the two

Welcome to this second story in the MEDIUM BASICS series. Refer to this list below if have not read the previous one and want to explore all that is going to be published in the future (in case you are reading this a month or so after its publication).

My primary aim with this series is to guide you through the foundations of Medium in case you are just starting out. That will make your journey a little easy.

So without wasting any more time, let’s get into tagging!

What is tagging and why it’s important?

On Medium, you can tag someone when you want your readers to take a look at their profiles or work. Or when you have used their work as a reference in your article. Giving due credits is highly appreciable.

It builds credibility and trust in the eyes of your readers (credibility because you’re quoting a knowledgeable person in the domain and trust because you’re not stealing someone else’s work/idea).

Let’s get tagging!

• The first type is where when you tag the person, they’ll get notified.

Most of the time, this is the type of tagging you should use. A thing that you should keep in mind is that this works when you are tagging someone who has a profile on Medium.

It’s easy: just press “@” and start writing the name (or username) of the person you want to tag.

From the drop-down that will appear as you write the name, choose their profile.

Like this:

• In case a person is not on Medium and you want your readers to check them (or their work) out, you can hyperlink their name.

It is best when you are borrowing someone else’s work as a reference in your article.

You can hyperlink their names to direct it to their website, blog or any social media handles.

For example, I reference Naval Ravikant a lot in my articles. I’m highly influenced by his ideas and, in one sense, I’m a fanboy of his wisdom.

But he doesn’t write on Medium. He is mostly active on Twitter. So whenever I quote him, I hyperlink his name to his Twitter profile or his website.

This way, if the readers want to know more about him, I’m providing an easy outlet for the same. Example:

“Understand that ethical wealth creation is possible. If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you” —Naval Ravikant

To hyperlink this way, just select the text and click the link icon and then paste the URL.

And you’re done! That text will be underlined and when the readers click it, they’ll be redirected to the URL you entered (here, Naval’s Twitter account).

By the way, that is how you can also link articles you referenced or that is relevant to your piece or if you want to direct your readers for more info. Here’s an example:

You may find this useful: Medium’s Distribution Standards: What Writers and Publications Need to Know

I hope you learnt this basic Medium functionality of how to properly tag someone in your article.

That’s it for this article, MUSERS! See you soon.