This blog post is to be used as a reference and a checklist to best utilize a Medium profile for your small, medium, or large business’ benefit. But first, what is Medium? Why should you use it? And, what’s the best way to start out?
Medium launched 6 years ago this August and is now one of the fastest growing social media outlets on the internet. It’s built for everyone and anyone. Politics, AI, sports, culture, design, and entrepreneurship are some of the numerous sections Medium bloggers write about.
Due to its rise in popularity among those in, virtually every industry, Medium has become a popular place for those who are already bloggers on their own, to be part of a community of writers. In addition, you can even get paid for your original content through the Medium Partner Program.
Our marketing team at Inside Sales Solutions has been striving to create valuable content for our brand new Medium profile. Thus far, we have seen a fantastic amount of praise from our Medium readers, both through our increased traffic on our website and those who share our Medium posts on Twitter and Facebook.
In order to jump-start your Medium profile and reach an audience who’s aligned with your content. We recommend searching and applying to be a Writer for one of Medium’s many Publications.
A Medium Publication is defined as “a way to group stories together by many writers or by one writer around a common theme or topic.” Essentially, they are their own blogs with their own editors, writers, readers, and subscribers.
Inside Sales Solutions is an approved writer for three different Medium Publications; this has significantly benefited our content’s SEO as well as allowing us to target readers who are specifically interested in learning about sales, marketing and growing their revenue as a whole.
Posted below is a consistently updated checklist that we, at Inside Sales Solutions, have constructed. This is not from Medium’s help page, nor is it guaranteed any success for you and your business, rather it is simply a helpful guideline based on what has worked for us:
First, When Syndicating Your Blog Post…
- Import article from your own blog to https://medium.com/p/import
- Sometimes the initial attempt to import the article doesn’t work — THIS IS OKAY — just refresh the page and import it again, it almost always works on the second try
- After importing the article, scan the post to make sure all of the images/any other media transferred over
- Sometimes some of the photos do not transfer over from your post — THIS IS OKAY — just save the image/graph/whatever it is to your PC and then manually upload it on Medium by going to the section where you want to upload the piece of media and press enter → then click the + icon → then select one of the options available (just hover over each icon and Medium will provide a description) [check the images below to see what this looks like]
- The Plus Icon to upload Media
- The 5 different icons for a new section
It’s in the details
- Not required, but recommended: Add even more media in your Medium posts
- Best practices recommend using intriguing media such as gifs in your posts [which are perfectly safe if you caption the gifs from wherever you get them, such as “Via Giphy”
- Check some of our posts and you’ll see these Gifs, add them by copying and pasting them under the “video” icon [the one that looks like a “play button” in the selection of 5 icons]
- Best practices recommend using intriguing media such as gifs in your posts [which are perfectly safe if you caption the gifs from wherever you get them, such as “Via Giphy”
- Not required, but recommended: Add a line spacing in between each section
- This is another best practice as it makes your Medium post easier for the viewer on both desktops and mobile devices
- Do this by pressing “enter” after a section of text and clicking the + icon [the one in the photo above] and then click the “- -” icon to add a line break [this effect is shown in the image below]
- An example of a line break in Medium
Understand Medium’s Persona
- Make your headlines and body text as conversational as possible
- People on Medium are NOT looking to be sold something. What they are looking for is insight, or to discover something new
- When you have finished editing your text and are ready to Publish, click the 3 dots to the right of the “Publish” icon and to the left of the bell notification icon [this is shown below]
- Select the three dots icon and edit the licensing of the post based on what you deem necessary
- The following images and instructions are what we use at Inside Sales Solutions when editing our licensing:
- Click “some rights reserved” → then select “attribution, non-commercial, share alike” [the selection that is the bottom of the list] → then click save
- The following images and instructions are what we use at Inside Sales Solutions when editing our licensing:
Optimizing Your Titles/Subtitles
- How to edit your subtitle and description
- Select the three dots → select “customize title/subtitle” → select “custom” → Edit Title, subtitle, description → save it
- If your content is typically very formal, consider editing your title to something more laid back and engaging; something that tells the “why” someone should read your post, instead of the “what” or “how”
- Your subtitle summarizes and justifies to the reader why they should spend time on your article. This is an important part of your publish.
Tagging: the Do’s and Don’ts
- Add tags to your post to enhance your post’s SEO and to let Medium know who you’re trying to target
- A best practice for tagging is to use more specific, long-tail keywords. If you use basic tags such as “sales,” then it’s going to be very difficult for anyone to find your post when they search “sales tips.”
- How to add tags: Select the down-facing arrow next to “Publish” and add 5 tags [long-tail keyword type of tags] that relate to your article
Embrace Medium’s Publications Feature
- As mentioned at the start of this post, applying to be a writer for a publication is arguably the best way to reach the most people who’re interested in that specific topic
- A great way to discover what publications you should apply for is by creating a free account through Smedian; here you can discover the Top 100 most popular publications and apply to some of them directly through the website.
- Once you are approved as a writer for a publication, this is how you can upload your article to a publication [The images below show the publications we are approved to write for]
- Select the three dots (circled in the picture) → Click “Add to publication” → select the publication
- It can take anywhere from an hour to a couple of days for the draft to get approved. [if it does get approved and posted at all]
Check out some of our content on the massive Medium Publication Marketing and Growth Hacking.
