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David Perlmutter's avatar

I know you're talking about Medium here, but a lot of this also applies to Substack.

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Walter Rhein's avatar

Ah! That's good to know! I guess some good practices are universal! I'm still finding my way on Substack, but I'm enjoying it!

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Marie Drouvin's avatar

Ah yeah, those tags are also hella annoying for those on the receiving end of it. There was even a publication who was doing that for a while, it was maddening because the tags were buried in a super long article too.

Honestly finding Medium (and any form of online writing) hella frustrating at the moment. But you’re helping Walter.

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Walter Rhein's avatar

I'm glad I'm helping! I think it took about 3 months before I started gaining momentum on Medium, so it's a little while. Hopefully I can speed up your progress by telling you what not to do :)

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Marie Drouvin's avatar

Oh yeah, I’ve been on Medium for a year and a half ahah got some traction but it feels like the online writing world is shifting big time and I’m having issues catching up. Will figure it out again :)

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Walter Rhein's avatar

This must be your profile: https://medium.com/@circecreates I followed you!

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Marie Drouvin's avatar

Yes! Merci Walter :)

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Walter Rhein's avatar

Thank you!

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Linda Caroll's avatar

The link dropping thing boggles my mind. I have often followed people because of a thoughtful comment. Read the comment and think wow, who is this person? Go look. Follow. Read some of their stuff. I have never once gone to look at a link drop. Technology changes. People, not so much.

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Walter Rhein's avatar

Yeah, when it's just blatant it's a major turn off. I do appreciate it when people leave a link to something that actually makes sense, but it's off-putting when it's just "I read yours, now here's mine." Now I can respond to those comments by linking to this post :)

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Linda Caroll's avatar

lol. Indeed you can. Good one

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Stephen Davenport's avatar

The writer tag thing is annoying, if I am being tagged and I click the link and cannot easily find my name, I immediately close it. I have never mass tagged writers before and probably will not in the future. I may link a writer if I am talking about a niche, they are in but never a mass writer tag. Nice article Walter :)

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Walter Rhein's avatar

Yes, that's a better practice. I sincerely appreciate it when somebody tags me and it's relevant to the story. If it's just a big tag cloud, that's a disappointment. Thanks for the comment!

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Isabel Lugo Jarboe's avatar

Thanks for this valuable information, Walter. I'm fairly new to Medium and it's important to me to follow the rules and avoid costly mistakes.

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Walter Rhein's avatar

These mistakes aren't devastating, but you do perform better if you avoid such things. Ultimately, the best advice I can give you is to write the story you're most famous for telling at parties or other social gatherings. Let me know if you have other questions!

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