3 Common Bad Practices That Will Ruin Your Ability to Succeed on Medium

Swap these bad tactics out for proven strategies and watch your follower count begin to grow

Hello Everyone,

I often see writers apply “quick growth” strategies to Medium that just aren’t going to work. Remember, Medium is different than other online publishing platforms because it relies on human curators rather than an algorithm to distribute articles. Although the Boost program is the latest iteration in this idea, they’ve been experimenting with different ways to implement this approach for quite some time.

The difficulty lies in the fact that Medium likes to keep a “hands off” approach to what gets published. Obviously, there are regulations against publishing hate speech or anything illegal, but beyond these restrictions it’s a very open platform. The internet has shown you can’t have 100%, unregulated free speech because awful people move in and decent people pick up and go elsewhere. The phrase “free speech” sounds nice, but then you realize people use it to defend images of torture and whatnot.

As far as I’m concerned, Medium is about as free as you can get without having encroachments by lawless entities.

The result is that Medium can be something of a hodgepodge. There are some writers who are legitimately putting in the effort to craft memorable stories, and there are others who are simply trying to game the system for cash or clicks or who knows what?

For newbies, this can be confusing because the good stuff is mixed in with the bad. If you’re scrolling through the platform and you happen to see a standard internet listcicle or whatever, it’s easy to get the false impression that listcicles can succeed on Medium.

Maybe there are some people out there who can make them work, but I’m not among them.

I think the thing that makes Medium unique is that they’re very diligent about burying articles that use tired strategies. Today, Medium is on the lookout for quality work. Yes, you might come up with some new form of clever clickbait that will create a surge of interest, but ultimately you need to focus on more sustainable strategies.

Don’t waste your time with tricks. You’re much better off cultivating your writing skills.

Here are some things I see people doing that you just have to stop.

Don’t comment just to ask for a read

How many times have you seen this:

“Hey, great article, I wrote something similar, here’s the link.”

Now, let me be clear, it is okay to include a link in a comment under some circumstances. Some of my best readers have provided me with links, and I’ve provided links myself. The link isn’t the error here. The error is leaving a comment for the sole purpose of providing a self-promotional link.

Everyone who spends a significant portion of their time writing on the internet has learned to identify a fake comment. It’s as easy to spot as a sunburn. If people use positive words but they don’t show any interaction with your actual text, then they’re lying. They didn’t read the article, they’re just leaving a compliment and hoping that serves as sufficient collateral to get you to click on their link.

I get that people who are just starting out are really eager to get people to read their work. I was the same way. However, you end up alienating the whole platform if you spam everybody’s articles with links to your article.

What to do instead

The best way to generate a following on Medium is to sit down, read articles, and leave thoughtful comments. If your articles aren’t getting attention, then join the conversation in the ones that are. I’ve been on the platform for years and I still go to the “staff picks” articles to leave comments. It’s called “staff picks” because the staff selected them. So, go and read those articles to learn what the staff is looking for.

Duh.

If one of the staff pick articles goes viral, your comment is also going to go viral. I’ve had 10,000 views on a single comment. If it’s a good, sincere, thoughtful comment then that leads to followers.

If you just leave a link to one of your articles, people are just going to get annoyed with you. You might even have your account flagged for spamming, so don’t do it.

There aren’t shortcuts in Medium, you have to practice sincere engagement. It’s not a get rich quick scheme—it’s writing.

Don’t throw a massive writer tag cloud at the end of your story

Tag cloud:

Sometimes I’ll get a notification that says “So-and-so mentioned you in his story.” When that happens, I’ll click on the link and then I’ll scan through the article to see where I’m mentioned. At this point, I don’t know if it’s a positive mention or a negative mention. I’ve had both. If it’s a negative mention, I don’t want to give the author the benefit of a read so I try to find my name fast.

If I don’t see the section where I’m mentioned quickly, then I close the window with the article. Quite often, I find a massive tag cloud at the end of articles. This means the author has gone through his entire friend list and simply tagged every other writer on the platform he knows.

Don’t do this, it gets annoying fast.

What to do instead

Like everything else, there are appropriate ways to tag writers and inappropriate ways. I only tag writers when I want other people to follow them, or I want to get their attention for some legitimate reason. When I do it, I’ll offer a few sentences explaining why those authors are being mentioned. Usually, it’s a compliment or a show of appreciation.

The point is, you have to use the author tag to draw attention to the writer you’re tagging. You shouldn’t bury their name in a massive cloud of names. They get a notification when you tag them, so give them something nice to look at. Nobody likes having to go on a scavenger hunt for their name.

By the way, to tag an author in Medium, type @ followed by their user name. Like this:

Don’t be impersonal

I see a lot of writers bringing in writing strategies that have proven effective on other platforms. There are still plenty of articles with “paragraphs” that are only a sentence long, bullet points, etc. These aren’t really articles, these are brochures. Yes, they provide information in a way that’s easy to skim and digest. It’s just that Medium is moving away from that kind of content.

I know, I know, a lot of readers are perusing Medium from their cell phones and all writers are terrified that readers have the attention span of a squirrel. The thing is, readers have been feeding on bullet points for too long. They don’t make anyone excited anymore, instead we just jump off the article.

I know that you’ve been told to get straight to the point, but the orbit has come around and readers are awakening to the idea that they want some storytelling magic. These days, you have to be different. Give the readers something that they’re not used to seeing but that they’re secretly longing for.

What to do instead

Bring a personal element into every article. AI has been allowed to control what we read for too long. The audience is looking for something HUMAN. Give them a story. Give them a relatable experience that only a human being can tell.

Everybody’s stuck in the Matrix and they’ve forgotten how to make a human connection. If you provide a pathway to a human connection, it will be as captivating as a morning after a century of sunless days.

The personal story doesn’t have to be right at the beginning, but make sure it’s in there. There are lulls throughout an article where you lose readers. You have to develop a sense for those and then sprinkle that moment with magic dust. Tell a story only a human being can tell. If your readers believe you’re not a robot, they’ll stick around just because they are longing to communicate with a real person for a change.

Don’t worry, you can bounce back

If you’ve made one or more mistakes that I’ve listed in this article, don’t worry. Medium is very forgiving. If throwing a couple desperate links into a comment was enough to sink you then I wouldn’t have the following I do today.

The problem with unsustainable tactics is that they do create a mini traffic bump in the short term. When you stop using them, you might see your views go down before they recover. Hold steady! The only way you’re going to grow on the platform is by using sustainable tactics.

Don’t sit around trying to figure out new ways to capture readers on Medium. You’re much better off spending that time improving the quality of your writing. In the end, those skills will serve you on all platforms, not just Medium.