Why Nobody Knows How To Use Tags To Go Viral

The wrong tags are putting a lot of stories behind the curtain

Tags should be used according to the number of FOLLOWERS they have, not the number of stories or writers that each one has.

The problem is that you can only see how many followers a tag has in the Medium App, this information is not available in the desktop version (IDK why).

For that reason, a lot of people are publishing their articles using tags that are popular among the WRITERS but not among the READERS.

Let me show why this is so critical:

The Worst Tag Ever

Let’s take, for example, the “SELF DEVELOPMENT” tag. This is the number of stories and writers that it has:

As you can see, it has 164k stories written and 53k writers. Apparently, a very good tag to use, as it has a large number of stories.

The problem is that it is a HORRIBLE tag to use.

Because when we open the Medium App, we can see how many followers does this tag have:

The “Self Development” tag only has 18.3K followers!! That means that the audience you can reach by using it is really small.

Now, let’s see a tag that has the same number of stories and writers, but has a much larger following.

A Great Tag

One of the best tags you can use is the tag “Psychology”. Let’s see how many stories and writers it has:

As you can see, it has more or less the same amount of stories and writers that the “Self Development” tag.

Now, let’s use the Medium App to check how many followers (and therefore, how many people is reaching) this tag has.

The “Psychology” tag, although it has the same number of stories as the “Self Development” tag, it has 1,400,000 followers!!

In other words, the “Psychology” tag has an audience 76 times bigger than the self-development one!!!

So, what should you do from now on?

Use the App And Check the Followers!

Before using a tag, go into the Medium App and check how many followers that tag has. If it has a large following (more than 100,000 people) I recommend you to use it.

Please don’t pay attention to how many stories and writers there are in each tag, as it is completely useless.

P.D. So you don’t have to do the hard work, I’ve already compiled the 29 most followed tags in Medium. In other words, the tags that more READERS are checking every day. Enjoy the list!

That’s all for today!

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