From the Coffee Times editing team

Why Should I Add a Shoutout To Another Writer? What’s In It For Me?

Glad you asked. How to do it and why you should make it a habit

. . . and how to start looking forward to doing it

In the Submission Guidelines at Coffee Times — you know, the one with the photo of the donuts, coffee and flowers — which every writer should definitely read, one of the mandatory things to do is:

add a shoutout to another writer in your post

This simply means tagging another writer and adding a link to a post they wrote — preferably one you enjoyed reading.

I do this all the time, so it is not ambiguous to me. Almost in every post I write, I tag a few writers with links to their posts.

However, while monitoring draft submissions on Fridays and Saturdays here at Coffee Times, when I check for the addition of the Coffee Times Movement and other appropriate tags and look for the shoutout, I often find one or both missing.

Now, being the nice people we are as editors of Coffee Times, we go ahead and add the CTM tag. We also check the grammar and punctuation with Grammarly and fine-tune your posts.

Then, we send the writer a private note requesting them to add the shoutout.

Some instantly do it and apologize for missing it.

There are some writers who question this guideline and argue about it. Then, 20 private notes later, they are still arguing.

This post is for those writers ❤

Why should I add a shoutout to another writer? What’s in it for me?

I am glad you asked. Think about it. When you write an article here on Medium, you want lots of people to visit, read, clap, comment, mention you, share your post on social media, and so on. You dream of your post going “viral”.

Now my question to you is:

how do you expect all of that to happen if you are not equally supportive of other writers?

When you add the shoutout, the writer you tag appreciates you. Perhaps even connects with you, subscribes to your posts if they like what you are writing, and who knows, it may be the start of a great friendship.

Also, showing kindness within the community never hurts anyone.

Now take a moment to visualize this:

You added the shoutout. Tagged another writer with a link to their post.

They get alerted that you tagged them and come right over. They clap. They comment. They share your post on social media. They tag you in a future post.

And suddenly there is a surge in your post’s readership because they have a large and engaged audience.

How does it feel?

(tell me in the comments)

Let me show you how to do the shoutout the right way

Translated, it means to your benefit.

Look at these examples and tell me which one you find the most attractive and why.

1. Shoutout to J L Wallace for Quiet please. (Sure, your reader sees it and maybe clicks through to read).
2. I enjoyed this post by J L Wallace titled Quiet Please (Same as #1)
3. Oh, you should read J. L Wallace’s insightful story about introverts and extroverts and how to know if you are either. Here’s the link: (J L Wallace now knows about it and comes over to see, appreciate, clap, comment, share)

Did you like #1, #2 or #3?

Technically they are all correct by way of shoutouts.

However, when you do the shoutout like #1 and #2, (BORING!) unless the writer stumbles upon your post, they’ll never know you recommended them.

With #3, the writer gets an alert about the mention and chances are very good that they’ll come over, read and acknowledge the tag. And share your post with their own audience. And? Perhaps tag you in their future posts. Also, the embedded link looks visually pleasing.

Isn’t that nice?

How to do the shoutout 📢

To tag a writer, use the @ symbol and type their name. You’ll get options. Choose the name you want. To check if you tagged the right person, hover on the tagged name to see if their profile pops up.

Say you want to tag Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles

Do this:

Then, copy the link to one of her posts that you liked and paste it into your post. For example,

https://readmedium.com/dear-writers-at-coffee-times-1e3387dc8aa3

To embed it, hit “enter” after pasting the link, and this is what you will see:

Nice, eh? Okay, pretty links are not mandatory, but please do tag the writer so that they know you have mentioned them.

Some great examples of people who do the shoutout beautifully and lovingly

B.R. Shenoy — some of her entire posts are shoutouts to other writers and their posts. Here’s an example: The power of a solid support system

Tamil — in her post Jokes about you bring out your best and Take your inspiration to the next level. The second post is a short one and yet she manages to mention two other writers and their posts.

Sarah Lyall-Neal — in her post A simple Thanksgiving

Nancy Blackman — in her post The Audacity of Being Grateful During Periods of Colossal Grief — she just weaves in the shoutout and it flows naturally in her writing.

Dr. Preeti Singh’s post: Cat And Dog Living In Harmony By Love Energies easily refers to five other writers’ posts.

Why, my weekly roundups — both at Coffee Times and my personal ones are basically shoutout posts mentioning a whole bunch of people and their posts.

It really doesn’t take much to highlight another writer. In fact, most of the publications I write for do not have the shoutout rule but the writers practice it anyway. Such is the value of community.

I believe I grew as a blogger and became well-known ONLY because I was always promoting others.

I could go on and on.

But here’s my loving message to you:

I urge you to please make it a habit to add a shoutout to another writer with a link to their posts. Guess who wins? YOU. Your kindness shines through. YOU’RE the cool kid!

Thank you for reading!

Please refer to these clear and detailed posts by Winston

Here’s a handy checklist from me:

With love and best wishes from the editing team.

Winston, Dr. Preeti Singh, Drashti Shroff, Sharing Randomly, Marrisa W., Yana Bostongirl and Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles

Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles ❤ Did you smile today?

I love Medium and the wonderful writers I engage with. One of the reasons I write is to support underprivileged children. Currently, the Medium Partner Program is not open to writers based in India. Would you consider buying me a cup of coffee? ☕ Thank you so much!