What are Your Medium Writing Goals for 2020?

And a look at some of mine.

As we approach the end of 2019, I know lots of us productivity junkies are trying to establish goals for next year.

Medium has undergone a lot of changes during the past year:

• Medium has clarified many of its guidelines, such as what renders an article ineligible for curation:

• Medium Partner Program top earner payouts have dramatically increased:

• And probably most notably, Medium changed its primary compensation system to consider member reading time as opposed to claps.

All these changes have taken a lot of effort for Medium writers to adapt to. So for many, the end of this year will feel like they are playing catch up.

But once you do feel caught up:

What are your Medium Writing goals for 2020?

If you are looking for “inspiration” here are a few goals, that will almost certainly boost your success:

Increase you curation rate (or get out of curation jail).

Post something on a daily basis.

Become a top writer in at least one topic.

Set aside time to apply to Medium publications.

Create your own Medium publication.

I’ve already received some messages on my Facebook group, asking what my 2020 Medium goals are, as I tend to plan content out relatively far in advance. Here are some of the goals I have for Medium in 2020:

• Average more than one post per day. Two posts per day is probably too ambitious, but I want to make sure that I am averaging more than one per day to help expand my reach on Medium.
• Establish a proper email response system for the 5 Medium publications that I have, which I plan to update with new content. I have some form of email management system in place for two of my publications. Now that I have experimented a bit, I am trying to expand this automation to the other 5 publications.
• Finish the backlog of Medium Blogging Guide ideas/formatting content that I have planned. I have about 10 articles I want to add to my Medium Article Formatting section of my publication and about 5 articles for the Publication Format section. I also have some miscellaneous Medium topics that I have been meaning to write about, which I think will be valuable to readers. That is not to say I won’t write about Medium once this is complete, but I feel that after these 25 articles or so, I will have covered all the major points that I set out to with Blogging Guide.

• Write at least three in depth articles observing trends in Medium's algorithm or earnings system. These will depend partially upon how the new compensation system goes.
• Finish the design of all 7 of my Medium publications. I have some design elements in all of my publications, but they vary widely in quality.
• Update all of my old or outdated content. Make sure old bios and CTAs are updated.
• Write at least three Medium posts that rank in highly competitive Google searches (for topics unrelated to Medium). I have a few topics that I think would serve as evergreen content despite being part of a larger and more popular key word search. I want to write these articles anyway so I’d like to see how long/if I can get them to index highly in Google.
• Increase the size of my Medium Facebook group by 100%. We currently have 1,265 members. However, I want to have at least 2,500 by the end of 2020. I feel that this is a good amount of active members and will ensure that everyone articles will get adequate reads.

• Write at least three articles specifically for large (but not Medium owned) publications.
• Get one story published in an in-house Medium publication. This seems like a long-shot but it would be nice!
• Increase my responses/platform engagement. It's important to take the time to make sure I keep replying to the readers who take the time to comment on my writing.

• Find a way to help other Medium writers succeed beyond writing useful articles, but without selling a $500 course. The last thing Medium needs is another overpriced course. But beyond my standard posts, I am working on a couple of ideas that I think could help a broader Medium audience, without costing an arm and a leg! A cheaper course would be great, but I’d like to couple that with other awesome custom products for Medium writers.
• Collaborate with at least on Medium writer on some new project. If you have any ideas, hit me up!
• Surpass 5,000 followers. Follower count means very little by itself, but my followers have been extremely engaged, so hitting 5,000 seems like the maximum I could realistically expect to accumulate over this period of time.
• Have one article break $1,000 in earnings. After writing about all the successful individual articles on Medium, I’m ready for a one-off success of my own!

How about you guys? What are your Medium writing goals for 2020? Let me know if I can help you in anyway achieve those goals!

— Casey Botticello

Thanks for reading this article! Leave a comment below if you have any questions. Be sure to sign up for the Blogging Guide newsletter, to get the latest tips, tricks, and news about writing on Medium and to join our Facebook group, Medium Writing, to share your latest Medium posts and connect with other writers.

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Casey Botticello is a partner at Black Edge Consulting. Black Edge Consulting is a strategic communications firm, specializing in online reputation management, digital marketing, and crisis management. Prior to founding Black Edge Consulting, he worked for BGR Group, a bipartisan lobbying and strategic communications firm.

Casey is the founder of the Cryptocurrency Alliance, a Super PAC dedicated to cryptocurrency and blockchain advocacy. He is a graduate of The University of Pennsylvania, where he received his B.A. in Urban Studies.

You can connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or by following his Medium publication, Blogging Guide.