How To Use Story Highlights To Your Advantage.
Have you given some thoughts on the highlights of your stories? I didn’t, until much recently. I was fiddling with my stories, looking for ways to write Short Forms for further story distribution. And then I found out what we can do with highlights.
I love to highlight sentences on physical books and Medium stories. The ideas presented anchor into my mind when I highlight them. It could be the way something is written. It could be a brilliant idea.
In this story, it could be a method for distributing our stories further.
Before I proceed any further, let me explain how to perform a highlight on the stories you are reading.
When accessing Medium using a laptop: -
- Hold on to your left-click button and mouse-over the sentences you adore.
- A pop-up will appear.
- Select the icon that looks like a pen.
The paragraph will be highlighted, and the author will receive a notification message.
When accessing Medium using a smartphone: -
- Tap on any part of the sentences you adore.
- The entire sentence will be shaded.
- A pop-up will appear.
- Select the icon that looks like a pen.
The paragraph will be highlighted, and the author will receive a notification message.
I never gave much thought to Medium story highlights until one evening. I received a notification message that my story was highlighted. This is that story.
I was curious. I logged into the Medium webpage to see what was highlighted. I saw one paragraph that was highlighted by ILLUMINATION-Curated. And then something happened.
I accidentally clicked on the section that was highlighted (I was working on my laptop). This was what I saw. It was a pop-up prompting for further action.
Quite interesting, I thought. I decided to fiddle along. I clicked on the Twitter icon. You know, the one that looks like a bird.
The feature is the same as sharing the entire story on Twitter, with a twist. This time, only highlighted sentences are grabbed from Medium to appear on the text of the tweet.
This is different from sharing the entire story on Twitter, where the story headlines are grabbed. The 2 consecutive images illustrate the difference.
The usual features are present, where the link to the Medium story is provided at the bottom of the tweet.
I distributed my highlighted sentences into Twitter without much thinking. After all, it is just a push of a button.
Then, I started wondering. Is it the same as the smartphone?
The answer is no. This is what I see when I tweet the story highlights using my smartphone Medium application.
The highlighted text is grabbed into the tweet, and an image (instead of a hyperlink) is presented. It captures the part of the story highlighted. The publication is presented on the image as well.
This is getting fun. Ideas started popping into my head. These are practical takeaways that we can use as writers.
1. We Can Share The Entire Story or The Highlighted Sentences.
We have a variety of tools to rely on attracting readers to our story via social media. This is especially so if we think our headlines aren’t strong enough to garner interest.
If sharing the entire story on Twitter is not funneling in readers (because it grabs the weak headlines), we can tweet the sentences that have been highlighted by existing readers to attract more readers. Proof of good writing is evident from these highlights.
2. We Can Expose The Key Ideas Presented In Our Stories Via Highlights.
Headlines are the spirit of the story. Highlighted sentences are the specificities of the stories that can be presented individually as trailers.
When we share our entire stories via headlines, we don’t get to read snippets of the story. When we share the highlighted sentences, they expose the actual ideas that we present within the story body to the readers.
3. Use Our Laptop And Smartphones To Distribute Highlights Interchangeably.
I prefer using the smartphone to tweet the highlighted sentences. Somehow. the image presented is less busy and makes the entire tweet easier to read.
Also, it helps to promote the publication that publishes our story. This is a way to advertise their presence.
Which option attracts more attention? The discretion is yours.
The important message is this. Features are built in to support our writing endeavors. We will never know the effectiveness of these features until we experiment.
When in doubt, have fun!
A Simple Highlight Goes A Long Way?
Aldric
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About the Author:
As a content contributor, I write my observations from daily life and my business exposure.
Because our life experience is the bedrock of our unique perspectives.
As a Consultant by training, I believe in making the complex simple.
Because simplicity adds value.
And with clarity — We grow.
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