Medium Publication Followers
How to increase the number of followers of your Medium publication
In October 2019, I posted an update mentioning that I had reached 1,000 followers for my Medium publication, Medium Blogging Guide.
This milestone took well over a year of consistent writing to reach, so I was pleasantly surprised when today, less than 4 months later, I received another exciting update:
I was ecstatic!
Not only because it is nice to receive some small token of recognition from Medium, but because I had increased the rate of new publication followers, when comparing the time it took for me to go from 1–1,000 followers to the time it took to go from 1,001–2000 followers.
Medium makes it fairly easy to track most of your stats. But there is no built in data analytics tool which tracks publication followers over time.
Luckily, I’ve kept track of my publication followers manually. This data is useful because it helps see the growth trajectory of a Medium publication, in terms of followers:
Why Do Publication Followers Matter?
Some writers only focus on increasing their personal followers. And I am not suggesting that boosting your profile followers isn’t useful — because it is.
But Medium publication followers are unique from your individual profile followers in a number of ways:
- Medium publication followers can be reached directly via the publication letters function.
- Publication followers have demonstrated interest in a specific niche that you write about. Since most authors cover several niches, it is useful to understand why someone is following you and what type of content of yours keeps them coming back.
- Publications that readers follow are one of the metrics Medium uses to help suggest recommended content.
For example, readers viewing my article Passive Income Ideas for 2020, will typically see content recommendations from the same publication, Escaping The 9 to 5:
Tips for Increasing Your Medium Publication Followers
1. Mention your publication in your Medium profile. Your Medium profile is one of the best ways to promote your Medium publication. Make sure that you include a URL linking directly to your publication.
2. 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.
3. 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! The Startup does this well:
4. 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.
5. Include a CTA at the end of your articles. Even if your article is about an unrelated topic, readers are typically curious about the other projects writers are involved with. Here is an example from one of my CTAs:
6. Make sure that you fill out all of the relevant search tags, under your publication settings. These tags play a major role in helping viewers discover your publication in internal Medium search results.
If readers can’t find a publication, chances are they won’t follow it.
For example, for my publication, Digital Marketing Lab, I utilize the following five search tags: Digital Marketing, Strategic Communication, Social Media Marketing, Email Marketing, and Branding.
You want to make sure your publication tags are broad enough that readers will search for them (digital marketing is broad enough) but not too broad where your publication will have to compete against larger publications (marketing may be too competitive of a tag to make it worthwhile for this publication).
7. 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.
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 following his Medium publication, Blogging Guide.