MEDIUM
The Best Kickers for Medium Stories
To organize and present articles by topic, promote your stories, and gather engaged readership
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First, what is a ‘kicker’? According to the Open School of Journalism, a kicker has two purposes with regard to writing:
There are actually two uses for the term kicker in the journalism world. In the first sense, a kicker is the lead’s introduction, typically a few words or sentences leading into the main piece. It usually is formatted to stand out visually from the rest of the story, drawing in the reader’s attention much like the header does. Secondly, a kicker can be the paragraph that closes up the entire article, summarizing the important parts and closing the piece up. Both uses of the term are crucial to journalism and it is vital that journalists become familiar with them. — Open School of Journalism
For our purposes here on Medium, a kicker is defined more narrowly. It’s oddly missing from the Medium Glossary and you’ll find conflicting information on kickers, but I am with Casey Botticello on this one, “A kicker is one of the most underutilized title formatting options on Medium.” (From his article “Medium Kicker.”) (Emphasis mine.)
For Medium purposes, a kicker can be defined as a brief, usually 1–3 word, “subtitle” formatted blurb that goes in the space above your title. It is used to direct readers to article topic, narrow the scope of the title, and/or give a general category of the article.
When formatted properly a kicker looks like this:
For the kicker — you will use ALL CAPS, then highlight and use the small ‘t’ formatting, the same as you would for the subtitle.
The purpose of a kicker
A Medium kicker serves several purposes, hearkening back to the purpose of a kicker in journalism.
- A kicker captures the interest of would-be readers.
- For Medium readers, the appearance of the ALL CAPS KICKER gets attention in another way — it looks oddly reminiscent of the curated blocks/squares we look for on our stories. I can’t help but think this elevates the story in the eyes of the reader.
- It just looks more professional.
- It instantly tells the reader what kind of article they are about to read.
- It helps to categorize the types of articles you write for readers to navigate your work.
What makes a good kicker?
A kicker should have very succinct qualities, be immediately clear, and be directly related to your story. The best kickers should do the following:
- Clearly express in 1–3 words the subject of the story or the genre of writing (for example BUSINESS or FICTION)
- BE IN ALL CAPS (with no ending punctuation)
- Be in topics relevant to Medium readers.
Suggestions for good kicker topics
Welcome screen suggestions
Use the topics that Medium itself advertises to readers on the welcome screen. The publication topics will have an icon but the topics that may be more suitable for kickers have a # symbol. These are topics Medium has singled out to lure readers — perhaps this will work as well for you as well.
Use KICKERS based on the Top Writer tags
These are the current tags which feature a Top Writer status. Especially if you hold that Top Writer status, these topics would make for great kickers to alert your reader to articles in those topics — topics in which you excel as a writer.
- 2016 ELECTION
- ADVICE
- ARCHITECTURE
- ART
- ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (Alternatives: AI or A.I.)
- BEAUTY
- BITCOIN
- BLACK LIVES MATTER (Alternatives #BLM or #BLACKLIVESMATTER)
- BOOKS
- BUSINESS
- CLIMATE CHANGE
- COOKING
- CREATIVITY
- CULTURE
- DESIGN
- DIVERSITY
- ECONOMICS
- EDUCATION
- ENERGY
- ENTREPRENEURSHIP
- FASHION
- FEMINISM
- FICTION
- FINANCE
- FOOD
- FUTURE
- GAMING
- GOVERNMENT
- HEALTH
- HISTORY
- HUMOR
- IDEAS
- INNOVATION
- INSPIRATION
- INTERNET OF THINGS
- INVESTING
- JOURNALISM
- LEADERSHIP
- LIFE
- LIFE LESSONS
- LOVE
- LGBTQ (alternative LGBTQIA+)
- MENTAL HEALTH
- MOVIES
- MUSIC
- PARENTING
- PHOTOGRAPHY
- POETRY
- POLITICS
- PRIVACY
- PRODUCTIVITY
- PSYCHOLOGY
- RACISM
- READING
- RELATIONSHIPS
- SATIRE
- SCIENCE
- SELF DRIVING CARS
- SELF IMPROVEMENT (alternative option hyphenated)
- SHORT STORY
- SOCIAL MEDIA
- SPACE
- SPORTS
- STARTUP
- SUSTAINABILITY
- TECHNOLOGY (alternative TECH)
- TELEVISION
- THIS HAPPENED TO ME
- TRANSPORTATION
- TRAVEL
- VENTURE CAPITAL
- VIRTUAL REALITY
- WOMEN IN TECH
- WRITING
Kickers in the categories you most identify with your branding
You may want to use kickers to further your branding. For example, if you want to brand yourself as a parenting blogger, you may create your kickers as a way of sub-categorizing your parenting articles for your readers:
- CHILD DISCIPLINE
- PARENTING
- PREGNANCY
- TEENS
- BABY CARE
- POSTPARTUM
Keep your kicker topics basic
You may prefer to keep your kicker topics very basic and include any topic that you write about, regardless of Medium system of categorization.
- SELF-HELP
- RELATIONSHIP STRUGGLES
- LOSING YOUR MOM
- RURAL LIFE
- INDEPENDENT WOMEN
- THINGS PEOPLE DO
- WEIRD STUFF
- INAPPROPRIATE MEMES
- FUN TIMES
- LOTR
- NIGHTMARES
These topics are created by you, are very simple and straightforward, but narrow in on a specific reader who will most appreciate the article.
Use the kicker to promote yourself or your publications
If you really want to reiterate your name — go for it. If you want to use the publication who is publishing the article for you — go for it. However, understand the kicker is a directional piece of information for your reader.
Use the kicker to place a link
Yes, you can link your kicker. Whatever topic you choose to use, highlight it and pull up the editing options, choose the link option and place your link. Perhaps you want to place the link to another article on the same topic — but be clear that the verbiage of your kicker should be reader-focused and not appear to be overly self-serving. A linked kicker should be subtle.
For more information on formatting your Medium articles, check out the following:
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