Ever thought about writing on Medium? If you’re reading this, I guess maybe you have! 😊

Medium is a fantastic platform for digital marketers like me. I wrote my first story last week, so I’m now clearly a seasoned expert 🤭

Here are some of the most important things I’ve learned so far, which I hope will help you get started too.

Medium is the Perfect Place to Grow a Targeted Audience

Medium has a huge, engaged audience, who are rather lovely, unlike the bunch of obnoxious trolls you might encounter on certain other social networks! 👹

And you don’t hear crickets every time you post — you’ll likely get a much higher number of visitors than you’d get on your own blog. I don’t know about you, but mine is dead as a dodo!🐔 (Yeah, I know that’s a chicken — use your imagination).

Medium Can Provide Highly Targeted Leads

You can think of Medium as a content marketing funnel.

Writing relevant, helpful articles on digital marketing strategies can showcase your expertise in your niche, which will attract your ideal audience.

The comment section allows you to engage in conversations with your readers to nurture the relationship.

It’s a win-win! Not only is this a fun way to connect with your audience, it also gives you a great way to get their feedback. This helps you to help them solve their problems. They start to know you, like you, and trust you in return. It’s the perfect foundation for growing superfans and making repeat sales 😄

Take advantage of the comment section

You can use the comment section to build a network of other Medium writers who support each other by engaging with each other’s stories.

Follow people who comment or clap on your stories (assuming they’re in the same niche) and comment and clap their stories too.

Geek Tip 🤓

A seemingly little-known fact is that you can clap a story up to 50 times

Yep, not once, not twice, but fifty times 🤯

Medium doesn’t tell you that for some reason — Britt Malka 🦊 told me — And now I’m telling you because it’s really useful to know. Thanks Britt! 🙌

And clapping 50 times is a great way to show your appreciation for other people’s stories! It certainly gets their attention too! Hehe!

Make sure you add a call to action at the end of every post to direct your readers to your opt-in page to join your email list.

The block quote formatting option is ideal for this.

Fantastic SEO Benefits

Part of the reason that you’ll get more targeted visitors and views is because Medium has high domain authority. This means it ranks well in search engines, so your stories have a much higher chance of being seen.

You can even get backlinks to your own sites, which increases their visibility in the search engines too.

Geek Tip 🤓

Before publishing, remember to go to story settings and fill in the SEO Title and SEO Description.

No idea how to write an SEO-friendly title and description? No problem…

Go to ChatGPT, paste in your story, and ask it:
“In 40 to 50 characters, please write an SEO title for the article”

Then ask it:

“In 140–156 characters, please write an SEO title for the article”

If it gives you too many characters, just ask it to reduce the length — or there are often words you can remove yourself.

Then just take the output and paste it into the SEO settings.

ChatGPT is also great for:

• Writing the title and subtitle for your story
• Brainstorming ideas for stories
• Checking your grammar
• Formatting your finished story
• You can even use it to help write short social media posts and emails to promote your stories.

Tips to Consider When Writing Your Stories

Make Your Posts Stand Out 👀

• Add a striking image at the top of your post and make sure it’s selected as the featured image in the settings (see image).
• Images can be added by:
  – Clicking on the ‘+’ to the left of a new line and selecting image
  – Dragging and dropping from your laptop
  – Copying and pasting
• The settings menu can be found by clicking on the 3 dots in the top right when you’re editing your story.

Change Topics

While we’re in the menu, let’s remember to add some topics of interest for your story. You can pick 5 of the topics most relevant to your story.

Use the Hello World tag as a topic for your first story to (supposedly) gain extra traction from Medium. No idea if it works but it seems daft not to try.

Make Your Story Stand Out by Formatting It

• Add a few images throughout. You can get great images from sites like Unsplash, Pixabay or create your own with Canva. They’re all free!
• Add formatting — make use of the limited formatting options, especially:
  — Bold
  — Italics
  — Headings and Subheadings
  — Block Quotes

Just select the text you want to format and click the option you want to use from the toolbar that pops up.

• Use the odd emoji or gif too if that’s your thing. Just make them relevant.
• Also add a few section breaks to add more white space.
  – You can do this by clicking on the three dots symbol on the far right of the toolbar that pops up when you click the ‘+’ to the left of a new line.
  – Or you can hit CTRL-Enter on Windows as I just discovered!

The key is to make your story very easy to read.

Conclusion: Dive In and Have Fun!

So there you have it! Medium is not just a platform but a playground for digital marketers. Whether you’re here to grow your audience, generate leads, or simply share your expertise, Medium offers the tools and community to help you succeed 🤩

Remember, writing on Medium should be fun. Experiment with your content, engage with your readers, and don’t be afraid to show a little personality 🤪 The more you enjoy the process, the more your audience will too.

Happy writing, and may your claps be plentiful and your trolls non-existent! 😊

And here’s a terrible joke:

What do you call a writer who doesn’t follow the rules of sentence structure?

A rebel without a clause.

Want to learn how ChatGPT can help you write irresistible lead magnets, emails, sales pages, social media posts and more whilst sounding just like you?

Check out my new guide “AI Content Creator — Taming ChatGPT’s Robotic Ramblings”.

👉 Download the Free Report and elevate your content game today!