How To Transform Your Stories Into Forums and Build An Engaged Community
With this content strategy, you can increase read time, expand the life of your story, and build an engaging community by transforming your stories into active forums. We are continuing the Truth to Power series. Join me in this deep dive.
Truth: An engaged community is how you build a steady platform on Medium. Without an engaged community, you will hustle for reads and followers daily.
Now, what's the power?
Forums are the power. Forums excite audiences. Forums build engaging communities. Active forums trigger social media algorithms.
Bear with me for a moment. I'm about to sound like a commercial.
Are you experiencing poor average read time, stories expiring within a week, very few comments, sucky viewer read ratio, and low earnings? If this sounds like just one of your stories, it may not be your story's fault. It may be your lack of response management.
Okay, commercial over. Back to our regularly scheduled program.😁👏
Response Management is our second most important job as writers and creators on Medium.
Now, if you've never heard of Response Management on Medium, don't roll your eyes at me and think I'm just making things up.🙄
Take a look for yourself. (Desktop instructions)
- Click on the comment icon on one of your stories.
- When the comment section appears on the right side of your screen
- Click on the three dots (…) at the very top.
- Choose "manage responses."
Here you can see a Response Story (more on this later) shared between Aza Y. Alam and me.
Our first job is writing engaging stories. But to turn these engaging stories into great content, we have a second job. Our second job is to transform our stories into powerful conversations that build threads.
We call these powerful conversations that build threads, Forums.
Forums are:
a place, meeting, or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged. — Oxford Languages
Can you see the correlation here?
Forums are essential to your readers' experience (user experience). Remember, Medium is a social media platform designed for readers. On this platform, writers can partner with Medium to tell insightful stories and connect with readers and other writers.
We can make it a wonderful experience, or we can make it a chore.
Let me make it clear. Your first job is to write an inspiring and insightful story. I discuss this here:
After you've written an insightful story, you should prepare to create a discussion around your story.
Inspire Great Discussions
Each story on Medium should provoke Discussion or a Conversation. The discussion happens in what we call the comment section. Without it, we have no way to communicate with our readers, and we can only connect with other writers through private messages (that would suck).
Here on Medium, comments are responses. Our responses to stories and our responses to responses are treated like "Stories" on the platform.
And though these Response Stories (referred to herein) don't earn you money directly, they have value.
Okay, before you say, "well, what's the point," know that Response Stories are important because response stories turn your stories into "Forums."
Why Should I Care If My Stories Become Forums?
I know there are 10 dozen articles and stories about "comments don't do anything." That's because you only consider it "just a comment."
The comment section many writers and creators ignore about two hours after they've posted their story and never return is going to play a more significant role down the line here on Medium. It started in August and September of 2021 and will continue to be important as the algorithm changes continue.
Those of us playing a long game have officially entered the Creator/Passion Economy. Many of us have heard of the Creator economy, but what's the Passion Economy? Forbes describes the Passion Economy as,
…the passion economy presents a new way to capitalise on creativity by connecting these creators with genuine, engaged communities who share their passions. For consumers, it means they can expect to see greater variety and access to creative products and services from these creators. Ultimately, they can expect to see forums and marketplaces that emphasise the individuality of people on both sides of the equation.
The passion economy was largely born out of the waning interest put in the attention economy. Today’s consumers have few illusions about how social media giants are profiting from their attention, and the practices are beginning to tire them. — Benjamin Vaughan, The Rise of the Passion Economy and Why We Should Care
Stories and Creators that keep readers engaged also keep those readers on the Medium platform. Writers and creators who can accomplish engagement regularly reap the rewards for it. If there is high engagement with your stories and you've often written on that topic, you get Top Writer Status (more on achieving Top Writer Status here).
And there are great benefits to being a Top Writer on Medium (don't let the gripers fool ya).
But just as crucial as Top Writer Status, transforming your stories to forums through Response Management can increase the life span of your story.
Do you Want to Build a Platform for Your Stories or Collect a Few Dollars Every Month?
Come on, you know it is pretty frustrating to write a story, and it does well for about two weeks, then month after month, the story starts earning 2 pennies.
It's devastating, and it will take forever to build a strong platform and grow your earnings on Medium. It is one of the reasons why you have writers and creators with 10,000 followers but barely in the 100-dollar club.
And what happens? They get frustrated and leave.
Unless it is a trendy or time-based story, your stories should continue to earn you money. It's no fun when an evergreen story was doing so well for about 60 days and then drops to 6 pennies a month. That means only a few people are reading the story (Full disclosure: I've had it happen 😡).
It's not cool.
When you've written 30, 50, 100, or 1,500 stories, you've built a Library of stories (thanks to Warren "Storyteller" Brown for opening my eyes to the idea that we are building a library of stories, he has over 1500 stories here on Medium).
With an extensive library of stories, you want readers to find, read, and discuss these stories for as long as they are on Medium.
That's why it is essential to spark conversation among your readers. There should be a party going on in your comments. Nevertheless, remember, you are the host. Bad host. Bad party.
Okay, maybe not like that, but you get the idea.
Let's Get The Party Started and Build Community
To build community, start with creating a forum for each story. Here's how:
1Write an engaging and insightful story. Controversial stories will also work, but be prepared for arguments and back and forth comments.
2 Prompt the reader to leave a meaningful comment. A meaningful comment is a response that adds to the conversation. A question can prompt a discussion at the end of your story. And yes, it can be encouraged by a controversial stance in your story.
3 Respond to each comment through "Manage Responses. Follow the steps I have outlined above.
4While in the "Manage Responses" area of your story, add tags. Add tags to each response you give to a thoughtful comment, and click publish.
Adding tags to responses that only say "great article" or some simple two-word response is a waste of time, but those that leave good, thoughtful comments are where you add the tags.
The tags should relate to the story as well as the Response Story.
5 As a bonus, share these Response Stories on Social Media. If you have a Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn presence, you can share these Response Stories as if they were regular stories on Medium.
You may add images to your social media posts to represent the story.
Winner, Winner
Now the win-win is set up. Your reader gets an engaging experience, and your readers, who are also writers, are connected with you and your story through a Response Story.
In this win-win for writers, both of you share this tag. The Response Story has become a searchable story on the Medium Platform.
And while you can't monetize, a Response Story creates an "Entanglement" between two writers under the tags used. It is as if you have co-authored a story together.
I know you've seen these Response Stories pop up when you've used search on Medium. Some of these Response Stories go as far back as 2016.
But ultimately, it's a thread. The more lines going out from your story, the more avenues lead back to the story. And tags make that happen.
These additional avenues expand the story's life and get you more Fans (fans are the people who clap on your story. Fans also get you in more feeds. Learn about followers, subscribers, reads, and earnings by clicking on the story below.
Additionally, it's a great strategy to respond to some of the responses to your older stories and breathe life back into them.
What additional avenues can you create through transforming your story into a forum?
Well, friends, Medium has that side-feed running alongside every story. A good story title or image often grabs a reader's attention.
But how did those stories make it to the side-feed? The story is in the side-feed because the reader has engaged with the author or the tag/topic.
When you transform your story into a forum, you set up your store to be invited to more side feeds. As I said before:
Feed Medium and Medium will feed you.
And what does Medium feed you? Medium feeds you more reach.
But Carmellita, the high earners here on Medium, rarely respond to their comments.
I know. And that's because top earners have had everyone else creating their forum for them for years and years. Some of these top earners have been on the platform for 3, 5, 7, and 9 years.
Everyone who comments and comments on comments with hopes that top earners on Medium will respond to them is transforming the story into a forum for them.
But those top earners are not connecting with the average Medium Creator.
Through years and years of creating content on Medium, top earners have many readers and followers and couldn't possibly respond to all of their new and old comments. As many of us grow, we find it more complex.
The most significant benefit you will receive from their comments section is responding to other readers in the comments and answering questions, and making connections.
Friends, let me add that you shouldn't be ashamed or feel like a sell-out because you want to connect with people who are at the top of your selected genre or niche.
It is good to network with those at the top of their game in your niche. Duh?
Still, don’t chase.
If you are a writer here and your favorite best-selling author said, "Hey would you like to be a part of my network," would you say no? Stop playing. You'd say yes so fast!
Get Some Authority
Still, let's be honest here, the top creators and writers in your niche won't be networking with you on Medium or even responding to your comments until you have "authority" (some social media platforms refer to this as clout).
And what's authority? You have authority on Medium when you create a community of engaged readers. Authority means you are making an impact.
Genuine Engaged Communities are gold now. It's a tribe, but no one's the chief. Everyone is on equal footing.
So, instead of chasing a top earner who doesn't clap on your response, concentrate on building a community of engaged readers.
Give that love to your tribe.
Again, we are in the Passion/Creator Economy. Be the outstanding writer, creator, and innovator your gifts and talents have endowed you to be. Don't let fear or complacency hold you back.
Fam, I'm curious. As a reader, do you enjoy stories that have great discussions in the comment section? Are you active in the comments? If you are a writer and reader here on Medium, do you respond to comments on old stories?
A Special thanks to Sahil Patel for publishing The Truth to Power series on Reciprocal. Reciprocal encourages engagement and fosters community here on Medium.
