How To Use Medium To Promote Your Writing And Books

Medium is a terrific platform to help you promote your writing and is ideal for authors and content writers.

You can share your writing with more dedicated readers than you might find on other social media platforms such as Twitter (X), Facebook, or Instagram.

It’s a little like a social network because you need to connect with readers.

But it’s worth the effort because, unlike other social platforms,  it’s ideal for publishing stories, long-form articles, and almost any form of creative writing.

Medium is easy to use

I have used Medium to promote my writing for a long time now.

It is a terrific platform for cross-promoting my writing and gaining extra traffic to my site.

Like other networks, you need to build your following, but it’s relatively easy. Start by following other users, be patient, and wait for some to follow you back.

I’ve managed to attract 10,000 followers without much effort at all.

Creating an account takes only a few minutes. You have multiple options. You can log in with Google, Facebook, or your email address.

Once you set up your account, creating your profile takes just a few minutes.

https://justpublishingadvice.com/popular-types-of-articles/Once you’ve registered, take a quick tour and read the FAQs, and you are ready to publish your first article.

Your content should be long-form articles that are highly informative.

It is not a publishing platform suited to short and obvious promotional posts.

But I have learned a few things. These tips might help you get a head start on achieving the best results for your writing.

Tips for using Medium

The most popular articles are generally quite long reads.

Every article has a reading time indicator. Articles above a 5-minute read seem to work best.

One important point is that you don’t always need to write original content.

You can choose a few of your best long-form blog posts or articles and re-publish them.

Think of it as extending the reach of your blog.

People can comment on your articles, which is a great way to build your author brand.

Readers can also reward your articles with a ‘Clap.’ It is similar to a ‘Like’ on Facebook.

You can keep track of your progress from your Stats page.

At a glance, you can see your page views and reads by a monthly graph or table with every story you publish.

As my stats above show, you can definitely find new readers if you publish great content.

Here are a few tips to help you get the best results.

Use original images

Posts need an image, like most sites where you want to grab attention.

So it’s absolutely vital.

Preferably, you should use an original image.

Copying an image from Google Images will likely get you an image used by thousands of others, or you may infringe on copyright.

But you don’t need to go out and spend hours taking photos.

I use Canva, a free online app to create original images.

Try to use large images that are at least 900px wide because smaller images don’t tend to attract as much attention.

Import or write stories

One key feature is that you can choose to write a new story or import articles directly from your blog.

It only takes a couple of minutes to import a post from your blog. Then, you can make a few edits if necessary and check your formatting options before hitting publish.

You might be concerned about creating duplicate content.

However, most SEO experts seem to agree that posting your already published articles does not cause Google to penalize you for duplicate content in search results.

In my case, publishing some of my existing articles has not caused any problems.

However, I often edit, change, or add extra content to my articles before publishing them. The readers are a different audience from those who find my blog via Google Search or social media.

The most significant factor to consider is the quality of your stories.

A well-written, long-form story can only enhance your writing reputation because people actually read on this platform.

Connecting with readers

Medium makes it easy to share your story if you have a Twitter account.

When you register, all your Twitter followers using Medium will automatically follow you. So, you will start with a solid following.

My tip is to follow back anyone who subsequently follows you, as this helps you build your following.

Also, reply and engage with readers who comment on your articles. It is, by a long way, one of the best ways to build your author brand.

Forget about promoting your books

Using Medium to promote your writing or as an author is a great tool. But it is definitely not a place to hard-sell your books.

But as I said, it is a great place to work on building your author profile and sharing your writing and blog posts.

You can add a byline at the end of your articles. You can also add an embedded link to your website or blog in your profile and about page.

I use a couple of different links and get reasonable traffic to my website and blog with them.

You can view one of my articles on Medium to see how I use my byline and blog link.

Getting lucky

Don’t expect millions of readers as soon as you start writing and publishing.

But after a few weeks, you should start to see a steady flow of new readers on your stats page for your stories.

But you can get lucky, as has happened to me a few times.

If the platform’s algorithm selects one of your articles for the homepage feed, you can expect many more readers.

Conclusion

I can almost hear you saying the last thing you need is a new social media platform.

But I can honestly say that it’s very much worth the little extra time investment to boost your author and writer brand.

You can use the import facility from your blog to save a lot of time. Or, if you find reasonable success, invest a little more time writing original articles from time to time to try to engage with your new readers.

This quick review is for the free version. However, like other platforms, there is a premium membership option. It might be attractive for you, but I’ve been quite content with the options available with the free version.

Oh, by the way. You are, of course, very welcome to follow me on Medium.

Related reading: Publish A PDF Article Online For Free Without A Blog