Homepage The Startup HOMEWRITE FOR USGET SMARTER AT BUILDING STARTUPS Go to the profile of Stephen Cognetta Stephen Cognetta Ex-product @Google, Princeton CS. I help PMs get their dream job @ https://www.pmlesson.com. More about me: http://www.stephencognetta.com Jun 25 Not Sharing Your Articles? You’re Doing Medium Wrong. Here’s a Checklist. For better or worse, properly sharing your medium article is just as important as writing good content. Here’s a checklist. So, you’ve finally done it. You’ve written your next Medium article! The next day, you check your Medium stats. But, they look something like this… There’s nothing wrong with writing to a small audience. But like many nascent Medium bloggers, you were hoping for a broader reach. Unfortunately, blogging isn’t just about writing good content and a catchy title and hoping others will find your content. It’s equally about sharing your article to a targeted audience that will benefit from your piece. I’ve created the list below that outlines the various outlets I generally consider for distribution every time I write a new blog article. This list is not comprehensive, but hopefully serves as a great starting point. Please remember: this blog post isn’t about how to spam your article to as many communities as possible. Always be respectful and intentional about how you share content. Is this something that will benefit the recipients? Would you mind if someone shared a similar article on your platforms? 1. Medium Publications Of course, you’re a Medium blogger, so let’s start on the platform itself. Medium doesn’t give much capability for writers to boost their articles on the platform except for Medium Publications. Medium Publications are the best way to get visibility on your articles within the Medium platform. Think of them like topic-based, editor-approved content communities. Many Medium publications are open for anyone to contribute — most have sign-up forms for submitting content in their about pages (here’s an example for Hacker Noon). I’m a huge fan of what AMI Publications has done with Medium — they own Hacker Noon as well as several other publications that distribute great community-created content. Here’s a list of Medium Publications — find the relevant ones and check their “about” page to see how to submit. Or you can try sites Smedian. 2. Twitter Twitter can be a confusing community for newcomers. In general, I always tweet when I write a new article. There are a few key edits to your tweets that can amplify your blog posts: Hashtags. Make sure your post is hashtagged easily so others can find it. This works better for niche topics like #tostitos versus vague topics like #technology. Mentions. Twitter is an awesome community because you can reach out to famous people. Heck, even Elon Musk responds to complete strangers! Use the “@” symbol to tag relevant influencers on Twitter that might be interested in liking or retweeting your content. Likes. Did you know Medium has an easy way to see every single tweet that mentions your article? Click “referrers” on your article’s stats page, and then click the “twitter.com” title. This automatically links to a page that filters just for your article’s mentions. Go crazy and hit “like” for all those tweets! 3. Facebook Of course, you can post every article to your news feed, but after a while your friends might be frustrated by spam. I personally only post articles to my Facebook profile if the content is relevant to my friends. Otherwise I individually message the article to those I think would benefit from the content. Instead, focus on the Facebook Groups features. Find Facebook Groups relevant to your blogging topics. For example, if you blog about minimalism, just Facebook search for “minimalism” and you’ll see several local minimalist meet-up groups. IMPORTANT: Facebook Groups, as many of these platforms I’ll mention below, are communities. Think about it this way. You wouldn’t approach your friends, tell them all of your thoughts, and then leave without listening and participating in the conversation. In online communities, it’s important to be a contributor to the community. Please do not just use communities as places for you to spam your articles. 4. LinkedIn In LinkedIn’s culture, it’s generally acceptable to post your articles frequently to your profile, as it is with Twitter. LinkedIn is especially great for topics related to your company or industry — add this context to the posts you publish to personalize. LinkedIn also has a very similar LinkedIn Groups feature, where you can join and post your articles to topic-based communities. 5. Reddit Now you’re getting the hang of sharing your article and might be thinking, well, what about Reddit? Reddit is awesome because of the many topic-based subreddits, where your article can target a very specific set of users. In reality, the Reddit community detests self-promotion. It makes sense. Without proper community guidelines, Reddit would just be a dump of useless links posted by marketers fighting for eyeballs on their content. If you do choose to post on the few subreddits that allow self-promotion, carefully read the guidelines posted for each subreddit, be respectful, and actively participate in the community. 6. Other Online Communities Of course, for each topic, there are sometimes unique community platforms. A short list of some major others includes Slack, Hacker News, Metafilter, Digg, and Google Plus. Each platform has its own set of topics, rules, and interaction models. 7. Press Usually, Medium blog articles don’t get covered in the press. However, I’ve had a few of my articles get reposted into the press, especially when I do something particularly newsworthy. My most popular HQ Trivia hacking article was featured in Time, The Verge, NY Mag, and many others. My other news-published articles include my Lyft tip analysis article, which was republished in CityLab, and my Clipper Card wearable hack, which was featured in SFGate. You can try to tip your favorite press sites (e.g. Mashable), but I’ve found that press sites will usually find out about your article on their own (especially if you spread it out via the above methods). 8. Organization/Influencer Reach-out Yep, this is real. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/880240049677357057?lang=en Sometimes, your blog post might be of interest to a VIP or organization. Perhaps you’ve written about some gifts that minimalists could buy, and one of the gifts is sold by a company with a large following. Or maybe you’ve done an interview with a professor at a local university, and the university’s twitter page would want to retweet. In many cases, your blog article will mention entities that have private email distributions or public social media followings. Send a well-worded cold email to ask if the organization or individual is interested in reading your article or sharing to their communities. Who knows, they might love it and share to the press! 9. Email Newsletter As you continue to blog, it’s also very beneficial to build out an email newsletter. Not everyone logs into Medium; email is still the best way to reach people. These subscribers are your dedicated fans. Logistically speaking, I use Upscribe for the easy Medium integration. I send a monthly newsletter to my subscribers that recaps the articles I’ve posted that month. If you’re curious to see what I send out, subscribe in the footer below. 10. The Footer And lastly, the most important part of a Medium article — the footer. At the end of each article is an opportunity to request an action from the user. If they enjoyed your article, they can clap it, share it, tweet it, subscribe to your blog, etc. At the footer, it’s also a great opportunity to link to more of your great content. I typically link to three other related Medium posts. In fact, the 6th highest source of traffic to my articles are from links in my other articles! Need an example of a good footer? Check out the one below. 😉 Found this article useful? Follow me (Stephen Cognetta) on Medium and check out my most popular articles below! Please 👏 this article to share it! I Hacked HQ Trivia But Here’s How They Can Stop Me How I Live With 115 Items My Financial System In One Infographic This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by 338,320+ people. Subscribe to receive our top stories here. Thanks to Pranav Badami. BloggingMarketingSocial Media MarketingWritingArticles Go to the profile of Stephen Cognetta Stephen Cognetta Medium member since May 2018 Ex-product @Google, Princeton CS. I help PMs get their dream job @ https://www.pmlesson.com. More about me: http://www.stephencognetta.com The Startup The Startup Medium's largest publication for makers. Subscribe to receive our top stories here → https://goo.gl/zHcLJi More from The Startup How wasting time at work (properly) increases productivity Go to the profile of Aytekin Tank Aytekin Tank More from The Startup Why your productivity tools are making you less productive Go to the profile of Aytekin Tank Aytekin Tank More from The Startup Six science-backed techniques to help you make hard decisions Go to the profile of Aytekin Tank Aytekin Tank Responses Applause from Stephen Cognetta (author) Go to the profile of Halona Black Halona Black Jun 26 Finally! A Brief Guide to Winning on Medium! Thanks for the link to the list of Medium publications. I am just starting to incorporate this platform into my marketing routine and this gives some great suggestions. Conversation between Patrick Downs and Stephen Cognetta. Go to the profile of Patrick Downs Patrick Downs Oct 20 This is amazing advice, Stephen. I’ve halfheartedly implemented 1/5 of this and I’m already seeing results. Keep up the good work! Go to the profile of Stephen Cognetta Stephen Cognetta Oct 20 That’s fantastic Patrick Downs! Would love to hear your story and help along the way :) The Startup Never miss a story from The Startup, when you sign up for Medium. Learn more