Read This Before Writing Your First Medium Story

Summary

The article provides strategic advice for new Medium users on how to build a following and gain traction for their writing by engaging with the community and leveraging popular content.

Abstract

The author of the article offers a set of best practices for new writers on Medium, emphasizing the importance of joining the Medium Partnership Program and engaging with other writers' content. The strategy includes tracking interactions on a spreadsheet, actively clapping for articles, and supporting both popular and less noticed writers. The article suggests that by building relationships through support, a writer can establish a following that will reciprocate engagement when the writer publishes their own content. The author also advises publishing well-crafted responses to viral articles to gain visibility, while ensuring that these responses add value and adhere to curation guidelines. The article concludes by cautioning that while these tactics can be effective, they may lose efficacy once they become widely known.

Opinions

The author believes that new Medium writers should proactively engage with the platform by joining the Partnership Program and subscribing to read all articles.
There is an emphasis on documenting engagement to identify patterns in reciprocal support, such as who follows back or provides feedback.
The article suggests that clapping for others' work, especially for those who are not already popular, can lead to mutual support and increased visibility.
The author advises waiting to publish original content until a supportive network is established, ensuring that the first published piece adheres to curation guidelines.
Responding to viral content is seen as a way to gain traction, provided the response is substantive and not merely self-promotional.
The author acknowledges that these strategies are essentially hacks that may become less effective once they are widely adopted by the Medium community.

Please Read This Before Writing Your First Medium Story

Thank you for taking the time to read my short note. I hope you find it worthy of your time.

Below are the best practices I wish someone would have shared with me to reduce wastes of time, boredom, and frustration.

First, become a part of the Medium Partnership Program and buy a subscription to read all of the site’s articles.

Second, document your engagement on a spreadsheet, so you can notice people’s patterns like who follows back, who gives 50 claps back, who leaves helpful feedback, and the prize who gives you more than you gave.

Spend however long you want clapping 50 times for every piece you find interesting. Look for these in the top writers, editors picks, latest in the tags archives, etc., since you do not have an article for others to clap back, those who are building large followership of new fans will most likely choose to follow you to acknowledge your acknowledgment.

Don’t just clap for those everyone is clapping for — support the people who are their fans and may not get love. If you don’t have time to clap for all the fans of the pieces going viral, become fans of the ones who write responses. They will most likely follow you since they cannot give you a clap-back or respond to you.

When you have your desired amount of followers that you’ve built relationships of support with, publish your first piece of the pieces you’ve been writing but not publishing. Make sure it follows the current curation guidelines.

When you have enough traction, publish a response as good as a post (with pictures, videos, links, etc. ) on a piece going viral in the topic you wrote about. Make sure it adds value to the article and is not just self-promotion.

Then, begin to follow the people who paid attention to you when they didn’t know you had a strategy.

You can do this process for as long as you want.

However, beware this hack will only work until it is Medium mainstream like all short cuts.

So, I know you heard me, leave your draft link as a comment below.

If you have already published a piece but think this was a good notion, please post a friend link to your most recent or featured article in the comments section.

Please Read This Before Writing Your First Medium Story

Don’t Do It ’Cause I Told You To

Have you ever read a seductive title to an article guaranteeing “more” only to be confronted by the mundane things…