Medium Is A Great Platform To Express Yourself
Medium is a great platform for writers who want to write their heart out for what they really like to write about. But everyone can be a writer on this platform. Like on Quora too.
Medium is great as a diary, but also as writing articles about your subjects, subjects you love to write about and subjects you know more about than other people. You have to use a niche, but you know, I don’t have a niche at all, besides writing about experiences in my life, classical music (I love) and raising children.
How Medium works
Make an account on Medium. Use a username that fits with you, represents you and know who you are, and maybe your niche (what you want to write about). Think about where you want to write about as this is important to find followers and to be found by other writers. It can be anything: your life experiences, your work, your hobbies or anything else, you name it.
When you want to earn money with your stories (as they call them) then you have to be in their Partner Program. It will be on your dashboard. It helps to be visible for others too.
Follow other writers on this platform who you want to read stories from and is interesting for you and your stories. Highlight stories from other talented writers as well comment on their stories. As often as you do this, your visibility has more of a chance. People see your highlights and your comments. As with other social platforms, they click on your profile. Bam! They know you now.
What publications do for you
Start writing, just anything. Try a lot of stories, with a lot of subjects and different angles. Then, analyze what fits best for you and how much traffic you get from each story. What story did the best? Now continue to write about these subjects often.
Another thing on Medium is writing for publications. There are different publication in every niche. Choose publications in your niche as well as in other niches.
But first of all, you have to be the owner of one or two publications (I have seven). Make them look professional as much as possible.
Write also for smaller publications to have more traffic for your stories. They read your stories as they clap for your stories. When people clap for your stories, their followers see your stories in their feed as well.
When to write for other publications
Actually, you have to write in your own publications too (and a lot) and in other publications as much as possible. I believe you have to write on Medium every day. To be noticed. You have to write on Medium every day to be more successful on this site. You have to write at least one story per day. It is really hard work, but it is a fun game.
Write for bigger publications
There are big publications from great writers. They have more exposure than the smaller publications. Of course, the title of your story must be good, your story must be good as well, so these are one of the factors that help through your success on Medium.
When I wrote for The Ascent, one of the biggest publication on Medium, my exposure was much more than when I wrote for my own publications or for the smaller publications.
I believe you have to write for both: the bigger and the smaller ones and of course for your own.
You have to submit your work for bigger publications at least once or twice per week.
Then we have Medium owned publication. You can write to them too, but this is called curated. They have selected your work to be published in their publications.
Share your work on social media
When you have written your stories, look into Facebook groups to share your work as well post it on your own timeline. And don’t forget to use Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram.
Post each story an hour after you have published your story on Medium, so your story has time to land on Medium first. Post your stories within a few minutes on your channels because when you have the same followers on each platform, they’ll get crazy when they see the same story within the same minutes on their feed. So, try to post on social media at least after ten minutes.
What I feel about writing on Medium
I started writing on Medium in 2016. I wrote a few stories, but very often. I wrote now and then a story. But since last summer, I became more serious about writing for this platform as I love writing. This was — and still is — an opportunity for me to get started.
I write every day for at least one story. I’m not that far that I write for the bigger publications, but that is my goal for this year. I feel that this year I have to take chances I never thought I’d do it.
When I write on Medium, I feel some kind of freedom. Getting my wings open to tell what I want to tell, and show the world, that we live in a world that is not always beautiful as people think or have imagined in the first place. But we could have some hope by sharing our stories. And that we can make a more beautiful world as we are a part of the world too. We are there too when there is something we were involved with.
My future on Medium is writing every day, get the courage to go for the bigger publications and eventually be curated to get more exposure. More claps too. I hope I still write for Medium about five years.
Agnes Laurens is a writer. She writes for the local newspaper. Agnes lives in Bunnik, The Netherlands, with her husband and three daughters. Writing is — aside from playing the violin — one of her passions since childhood. She is on Twitter and Instagram.
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