Proof That Most “Medium Tips” Aren’t True Or Helpful

A lie can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on. What an obnoxious little phrase, don’t you think?

You know what sucks?

It sucks to write your butt off and have no one read it.

It sucks to spend hours writing a story only to earn 87 cents.

It sucks to watch other people get reads and bonuses while you work your azz off, and can’t seem to get any traction.

But you know what sucks even more?

It sucks to question yourself. To wonder if you just suck as a writer, and maybe you’re no damn good at this, and maybe you should throw in the towel and just stop torturing yourself already.

That’s not the worst.

You know what sucks the absolute worst?

When you’re not ready to throw in the towel, so you go looking for help and advice and the crap people tell you does not help and just fuels the frustration and self doubt you’re already struggling with.

Because that’s a fact. Most of the “tips” out there are crap and I’m going to prove it to you with screencaps.

After that, I’ll give you some real tips. I learned them the hard way. Cause that’s how I do. (Don’t we all?)

“A lie keeps growing and growing until it’s as plain as the nose on your face.” — Pinocchio

1. You have to write daily/weekly/often because if you take a break, views will plummet!!

A whole lot of the tips here can be summed up as “write more” (MOAR!) because all kind of bad things happen if you stop writing. Some people say you have to write daily. Some say twice a day. Some say 3x per week.

It all amounts to the same thing. Frequency is the solution. You must stay in the feed. Must! Feeeeed me! And omg, you can not take a break because if you take a break, your views are going to plummet. In the toilet!

Sorry. No.

A) Work was nuts, no time to write. Views did not plummet.

I had a work deadline. No time to write. Views didn’t drop, so yay!

B) Writing my butt off. Views plummeted anyway

I’m watching them drop and writing my azz off. Nope. Didn’t matter.

C. Oh lookie... They went down and up all by themselves

In May I was so swamped I only wrote 4 stories. I still got the bonus.

Some hard truths about frequency…

Just because something happens “some” of the time doesn’t mean it happens “all” of the time. Sometimes your views drop if you don’t write. That doesn’t mean your views “always” drop if you don’t churn out content daily.

Truth #1: Views just plummet sometimes. It happens to everyone. Your stats are a rollercoaster. Get used to it.

Truth #2: Engagement is a factor. When Medium used that word, people lost their minds not knowing what it means. It’s simple. If people engage with your stories, you get more visibility. Show up more places. In the footer and the recommended reading. Algorithms don’t like duds.

Truth #3: You do not live and die based on your latest story. You have a whole catalog of work, right? And there are tens of thousands of people who have never read them. That’s what carries you.

You have to find the happy medium between quality and frequency.

Some people can write killer content 5 days a week. I’m not one of them. Odds are, you aren’t either. People who write every day of the week tend to end up writing weak. They burn out. Even if they didn’t start that way.

If you had to choose between 5 mediocre posts per week or 2 excellent ones, go for excellence. It’s more likely to get engagement. When people are engaging with your work and it’s being distributed, you can take a few days off and your views won’t take a nosedive.

2. Big publications are the way to get more views!!

It makes sense on the surface, right? I mean — is there even a point to submitting to a publication with 200 followers? lol. Why wouldn’t you brave up and submit to a publication with 200K followers?

Here’s a comparison of 2 stories, one in a big pub, one in a small.

— A pub with 121,000 followers got me 569 views and $23. — A pub with 237 followers got me 9.5K views and over $500.

Some hard truths about publications…

Size doesn’t matter. True with writing, as well.

Truth #1: Size of a publication does not give any indication of the response you’ll get. I mean, think about it — if you and one of the top writers posts at the same time, in the same “big” publication, you think you’re getting the reads? Only if your title is better. :)

Truth #2: Big publications tend to have a lot of submissions, which means even if you’re accepted, you scroll off the homepage pretty fast. So even people who do go to the pub page to read may not see your story.

It’s not about the size of the pub. It’s about the response you get.

Math is fun, right! How the heck could I get 9.5K views in a publication with only 237 readers? Easy. Engagement. When the “first” readers of your story are engaged, you tend to get more visibility across Medium.

3. You need to “seo” your posts to get more views.

You hear this one all the time. You need to “seo” your posts. Because then you get more views. And make more money. Hahaha. No. Not always. I show...

A) Page 1 of Google. 35K views. 82 cents.

B) But, wait… what the le feck just happened…?

Some hard truths about SEO and external views…

Look, if you own a little wordpress site or a shopify store, you want your pages in Google. That’s where 60% of your traffic will come from. If you’re on Vocal, you want Google traffic, because you get paid for non-member reads.

But if you’re on Medium? It’s more like standing in front of the giant wheel at the casino and hoping it lands on your number. Pray hard.

Truth #1: We don’t get paid for external views on Medium. So if you get your post ranked on Google and get a ton of views, they won’t earn you much. At least, not directly. Getting 82 cents for 35K reads kind of sucks.

Truth #2: There is some kind of possibility that external reads will pay. Medium says that “if” people find you in Google, and “if” they become paying members, and “if” that all happens inside 30 days or less, there is some kind of compensation. How much? No idea. It’s not very clear.

Truth #3: It is remotely possible that “enough” external traffic can translate to internal traffic. That happened to me last December. I saw my post hit page one of Google. Then another external site featured it and drove 5K views in a couple of hours. Literally. I watched my stats in shock. Then it got the coveted “popular” status on Medium, which drove internal views. It can happen. Just like spinning the wheel at a casino and having it land on your number can happen. It just doesn’t happen very often.

SEO isn’t a “hot tip” that will help you

Look, if you want to “seo” your posts — have at it. But it’s not a deal maker or a deal breaker. Most of the time, you don’t get paid for those reads. Maybe once in a blue moon, you get lucky. It’s possible. Just not likely. But if you’re not good at it or you can’t be bothered — whatever. Don’t sweat it.

4. You MUST promote your posts… promote, promote, promote. Your job isn’t just writing!

Lots of people tell you that. There’s entire posts with “places” to promote your Medium stories. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. How to promote on Pinterest, How to promote on Instagram. *sigh*

Yay, 4.7K hits from FB. Boo — they didn’t earn me anything

Some hard truths about “promoting” your posts…

If someone tells you that you’re “failing” because you’re not promoting your posts, you can safely ignore them. Go read the seo section again. Same applies to all external sites.

Truth #1: They are external views. You won’t get paid for them. Yay, me. I got almost 5,000 views from Facebook. Know how many of them I got paid for? None. Because they’re in the “external” views.

Truth #2: Unless you don’t care about earnings and just want the views. Because Facebook groups can be helpful in getting views. But they’re external views. Which means you don’t get paid for them.

It’s not about promoting your posts, it’s about finding readers

Yes, you can do that on Facebook. Maybe some of the “free reads” you get on FB will follow you on Medium. Maybe they are paid members so their reads count. But commenting does the same thing. As long as you’re not being a jerk and linking to your posts in comments. That’s bad form. The entire point of “promoting” is to find readers. You can do that right on the platform and know they are already readers here. :)

5. Yay tags. Tags are the shiz.

Medium recently updated the tags page, so advice givers are hopping on the bandwagon. Problem is, the most common “tips” aren’t terribly helpful.

Some hard truths about using tags…

Tags are important. They’re Medium’s version of keywords. Using tags correctly can help you get more visibility. But a lot of the advice about tags is not very helpful. Unless you’re Tim or Jessica and don’t need the help. lol.

Truth #1: People tell you to look at the number in brackets, as if it’s a follower count. It’s not. It’s the number of stories that use the tag. For example, 338K stories are tagged with “writing” because it’s a top writer tag. Only 45K are tagged with “Writing tips.” Pair them up for better mileage.

Truth #2: People tell you to click the top menu when you’re writing a story and enter your tags. But you’ll get more information if you wait and do that on the submission page.

Truth #3: People tell you to strive for “top writer” tags, because you’ll get more visibility if you’re a top writer. I don’t know if that’s true. Only Medium knows. What I do know is that not all tags have the same amount of competition. Or the same faces at the top.

I know which hill I’m not going to die on. Do you?

There are plenty of niches that are not brutally competitive. Maybe that’s the smart way to use tags? Or even pairing them up. If you can get that elusive “top writer” designation on a less competitive tag, perhaps it will help you with the more competitive tags. Worth a shot, isn’t it?

Summary:

There are 1,385,000 new articles posted on Medium every month.

— 47,000 posts every day. — 1,958 new posts every hour. — 32 new posts every minute.

And you want to stand out?

You don’t do that by following the same lame advice everyone else is trying to follow. You do not do that by trying to “outwrite” everyone. Can’t be done. Not when there’s almost two thousand posts going up every hour.

You can not “quantity” your way to the top. You can only “quality” your way to the top.

Incidentally, those numbers were as of last September. I’m sure it’s much more by now. In the 10 minutes it took you to read this, 320 more posts went up.

You can not “quantity” your way to the top. You can only “quality” your way to the top.

I don’t think you can do that writing twice a day. Or even once a day.

There are a limited number of ways to gain visibility. They all start with engagement. You’re a writer. You can probably write on any topic. But you can’t write engagingly on any topic. That is a promise.

So here’s the only 4 tips that will help you grow…

1. Write better titles.

If the title isn’t compelling, you don’t get the click. End of story. Do what you must to learn. Use formulas. Learn from the top stories. Most people who are struggling would have less struggle if they had better titles.

2. Don’t write the same crap everyone else does.

Look, I get that “self improvement” and “money” are popular topics. Look at the top writers in those categories. Are you a glutton for punishment? If you can not bring more to the table that they do, you are going to struggle. Badly. It’s not about writing what’s popular. It’s about finding a space you can own.

Pick 7 topics you “can” write about. If you don’t know shat about psychology, don’t write about it. Pick topics you’ve never written about before. Stretch a little. Alternate between those for a month. Watch your payment dashboard to see which rise to the top. You might really surprise yourself. I know I did.

3. Experiment with publications

Even small ones. Because it’s not about size. It’s about engagement. If you can get initial engagement on a story, you will end up getting more visibility. That’s how I got almost 10K views from a publication with 237 followers. They engaged. I got visibility. It took off from there.

“Apparently, they say, a lie can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on. What an obnoxious little phrase, don’t you think? “— Terry Pratchett, The Truth