I was doing Medium wrong. Do this instead to grow your readers…
Before I changed this one thing about how I engaged with my Medium readers, my growth stalled.
Zero.
But since I started doing this, both my readers and earnings have doubled for each article I write.
What did I change, and how did I do it? 🤷♂️
Easy. Let me show you.
But you might not like it.
This is what I used to do to get more readers on Medium:
- Panic write an article to publish.
- Submit and then check in on my writer friends to engage with them.
- Look at earnings stats and cry.
What I do now and why it’s changed my life.
I used this new method of getting more Medium readers when…
I wrote my best article so far called:Why You Can’t Win Medium Alone: And how to make money on Medium instead of sucking your thumb alone in a dark pit of despair.
Over the course of one week, I:
- Read and study 10 interesting articles from my friends feed
- Take notes and remember who gave me the tips
- Leave a comment, highlight and clap
- Put all the notes into one document
- Homogenize the document into an article crediting the authors’ insights.
- Read 10 new writers work and give them some encouragement through engagement.
- Publish an article in a publication.
Using this method, it usually takes me 5–7 days to write and publish an article, and I create 4–6 articles a month.
For example, today, I am writing about getting more Medium readers. In my research about doing this I stumbled across “Engaging backwards.”
Engaging backwards is engaging before you publish your article instead of after. This is a tip I read from John Delavera.
I also have one more tip for increasing your Medium readers below. I’m saving it for last. It’s from Tyler Lubben BBA.
This last tip is so easy, and it only takes one “HIT” for you to get a ton of new readers in a flash.
This sounds slow and boring but it works.
See, a little while ago I realized I was staying busy on Medium but I wasn’t making progress.
I was running around doing everything in a panic but I wasn’t pulling the BIG LEVERS.
Staying busy on stupid shit is like grabbing a chunk of metal and throwing at a tree to get firewood. You get dents but the tree still stands.
Sharpen your writer’s axe and save effort by doing only what REALLY matters.
Pulling the big levers is learning to make an axe handle, then forging an axe head, and finally sharpening it. It sounds slow, painful and like a ton of work.
And it is.
At first…
But the second way gets you more readers to your articles
I know it feels great to get started immediately. I used to crank out a bunch of articles so I could physically see something, and feel like I was making progress.
Leaving 30 comments is supposedly the way, but it’s exhausting, and the comments are trashy, trite, and taste of bile. Admit it. I did it, hated it and wrote about it here.
And a year later, I was still throwing a hunk of metal at a tree.
The second way seemed like the slower way to get more Medium readers. But it’s only slow until
I was holding THE razor-sharp axe.
And once you have that axe, you can get as much firewood as you want. Any time you want.
Being efficient on Medium
We have to use Medium as efficiently as possible.
We need all the available time we can for enjoying life!
So let’s go 80/20 here and only do the most productive things.
Remember: It’s not only the top talent that rises… it’s the well marketed 🙂
Oh, and that last tip from Tyler…
In his article “Demystifying the Medium Algorithm: How to Get Your Writing Noticed” he writes how sharing a fellow author’s article on X helps them gain more readers.
Yes, and…
We know the law of reciprocity means that when you help someone out, they tend to do the same for you. Like Yana did when she gave a testimonial for my How To Make Money Off Medium ebook.
So the next time you highlight a part of an article you like, try also clicking that share button. It’s the little “X” you see in the picture below.
It’s a simple action that signals to a person that you are a helper, not a taker.
And that’s what happened to me on Medium this week…
How about yourself?