Casey’s Reviews

Reviewing Medium’s “Boost”

Feeling like “the chosen one” for a day or two

Last Sunday, I got the following email from Medium:

Subject: Congratulations! Your story has been Boosted on Medium

Hi Casey,

Your story, Vulva Phrenology and the GC Crusade, has been selected for a Boost. That means we’ll share it with even more readers across Medium.

Thank you for using Medium to share your stories and ideas with the world. We value thoughtful, nuanced, knowledgeable perspectives — and believe readers do too. We’re glad you’re here.

Liz, Medium Staff

The email also provided a link to Tony Stubblebine’s article, “A new Boost for top stories,” which introduced this new feature on Medium in February.

What is “Boost”?

In the times of yore, Medium used to have a system of “distribution” that determined how stories were shown across the platform. When a story was distributed, it might appear on Medium’s “Daily Digest” emails, topics, and “for you” pages, and therefore get readers. This could happen if your story was chosen either by a curator (a real person) or by an automated process.

If a curator chose the story to be “featured,” it would be distributed plus shared on Medium’s social media. It was possible to be distributed but not featured, featured long after distribution, or, in rare cases, featured without ever having been chosen for distribution (for example, stories that weren’t eligible for distribution).

Here’s what that looked like on your stats page:

After an update in September 2022, stories no longer got the “chosen for distribution” notification on their stats page.

The “Boost” system has effectively replaced these with a more exclusive and robust distribution of selected stories. Rather than Medium employees choosing stories to feature, publication editors nominate stories they think are worth a Boost, and those stories are then vetted by Medium curators before being given a push to readers via the algorithm.

In short, it’s a three-step process: “Suggested by your community, confirmed by humans, delivered by robots”.

Here’s an example of a Boosted story from Tony’s article:

Tony writes that the goal of Boost is to get the story “at least 500 extra views within the first week,” and the soft launch of the system revealed “boosts between 500 views and 100,000 views,” which is a huge margin. [source]

Does it actually work?

Now that I’ve had my own Boost, I can review how the feature works.

First of all, I think outsourcing the nomination process was very smart of Medium. Publication editors read more than anyone (take it from me, and my publication is tiny), and have a good sense of what content is of good quality and will appeal to readers.

I was very excited when my story was chosen for a Boost, and I was not disappointed by the results. In the week since I got the Boost, my story has gotten 4.3K views and earned $186. That’s a lot higher than most of my stories.

On the other hand, my Boosted story’s stat page doesn’t look like the screenshot Tony shared. It received a big spike on the first day of the Boost, and then trailed off very quickly. I’ve had similar experiences with stories that go “viral” on non-Medium platforms.

Compare the stats of these similar stories, published in An Injustice! within a month of each other:

Both these stories got over 3K views in their first few days. The main difference is that the Boosted story’s views are nearly all internal, and therefore eligible to earn money through the MPP. The other story got a big spike because it was featured on Flipboard, and those views didn’t necessarily translate into earnings.

I can say with a fair bit of confidence that at least 3,500 views were caused by the Boost. Similar stories of mine (that didn’t get an early “spike”) range anywhere from 100 to 600 views, and usually earn about $10.

“Vulva Phrenology and the GC Crusade” earned $90 the day after it was Boosted and continued to earn about $10/day for the next five days. While I’ve had stories earn over $100 before, that’s usually been over the course of a lifetime (weeks or months), not in a matter of hours.

Even though the Boost’s major effects seemed to wear off within about 48 hours, it definitely accomplished what it was meant to, and continued to provide residuals during the week.

Final Verdict

Normally I’m pretty skeptical of new Medium features, particularly those that change the way stories are distributed to readers. However, I think this new Boost system is not only very effective, it is also very transparent.

Writers on Medium are constantly trying to game the system and “hack” their way to success on the platform. You might be able to “hack” SEO, but you can’t “hack” a person. Having community leaders (publication editors) be the nominators of stories to Boost is a great plan, and will help quality stories reach more readers.

However, humans also have biases. Certain kinds of stories are probably going to be more likely to be Boosted — controversial ones, for example, or ones that align with the editor’s interests/values. If you want to get Boosted, right now the strategy might be to get the attention of an editor!

Take Away: Choosing the right publication to submit your story to is about to get far more important.

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