12 | A simple yet powerful call to action: add a footer to your stories

Now that you’ve got your readers attention… invite them to take the next step in getting to know you. Add a footer note to all of your stories, preferably with these elements:

A short bio Links to your other Medium stories Links to your social media accounts Link to your website, book or other project References or sources of the content

(AVOID) Add Newsletter Signup Forms to Each Story

Medium does a fantastic job in building your own audience (more about it in the next section), but it does not provide you with email addresses of the people that follow you. That impedes you from developing email campaigns to your followers. As your followship grows, this limitation becomes ever more painful, without any quick solution to it.

The solution is to build up an email list over time. One way to accomplish it is to add a newsletter form to each of your stories. They are usually placed at the bottom, with a proper call to action. The most pervasive free tool is Upscribe; their paid plans allow to fully customize the form.

Update May 2019

It appears that Medium decided to curb the “list building” behavior in the members-only stories:

Do not ask for claps or include other calls to action, including GIFs of clapping, requests for donations, or other links or embeds for the purpose of capturing user information or soliciting money. Ad-free zone Members are paying for an ad-free experience, so do not ask for claps or include other calls to action, requests for donations, email list sign-ups, or other links or embeds for the purpose of capturing user information or soliciting money.

Beware: that behavior is not limited in regular stories, but I have collected evidence in the past month of Medium removing accounts of writers that included Upscribe in their stories submitted to the Partner Program.

13 | Grow your followers: connect Medium with your Twitter and Facebook profiles

Medium is an excellent traction channel. It allows the user to link their Medium profiles to their Twitter and Facebook channels for a very specific reason: all of your connections on those platforms that have a Medium profile automatically become followers to your Medium profile. Likewise, you automatically become their followers.

This is solid follower acquisition strategy: it cuts both ways leveraging pre-existing, validated connections that are also likely active Medium users.

This is also solid content traction strategy: as soon as one of your connections post a new story on Medium, notifications go out via all the connected platforms, maximizing the chances that a particular story is seen by people that already have a connection with you… which maximizes not only clicks, but also readership.

14 | Schedule your posts to maximize audience

Even though the data scientist at Medium already analyzed the best time to post on the platform and guaranteed that there’s no difference when you are posting great content… there’s still a practical reason to schedule your posts.

If you connected Medium to your Twitter and Facebook profiles as I suggested in a previous tip, now is the time to take advantage of that connection to gain traction on your posts.

Both Twitter and Facebook command prime time hours in which your audience is much more active and likely to consume your content. Several tools, including Buffer, develop a custom model for each of your profiles, and attempt at posting pre-scheduled or queued posts at that time.

My suggestion: learn which times your audience is most active in those platforms and schedule your Medium post to be published at the overlapping range on both Twitter and Facebook. More eyeballs, more likes, more engagement. 💥 BOOM! That simple.

15 | Amplify your stories via publications

Another way to get new audiences is to publish your stories in different publications. It’s a symbiotic relationship: writers need publications to showcase their content to varied audiences; publications need great stories to feed their followers’ thirst and stimulate growth. Well played, Medium!

Please note you can only post a story to one publication at a time, but you can share different stories with different publications.

16 | Join the Medium Partner Program

In October 2017, Medium announced a program to reward its content creators (writers) with cash payments for the success of their stories within the platform. Stories published within the program would be under the subscription paywall established by the website (“Medium Membership”). While fully available to all members, stories submitted as such have limited accessibility to non-members (3 stories per month, since the program’s launch).

There are multiple answers on Quora to the debate whether it’s worth participating in the program, mostly geared at creating realistic expectations.

If you want to apply to join the program, or simply want more information, read the Join the Program article.

For ongoing updates on the program, consider following Medium Writers Team and 3 Min Read, the Medium’s official blog.

17 | Submit your stories to Medium Editorial Team

New March 2019

In 2019, Medium has launched a few publications

OneZero, covering tech and science;

Human Parts, publishing personal essays;

ZORA, which is by, for, and about women of color;

Elemental, which offers a scientific approach to health and wellness;

Modus, on UX/UI design;

GEN on politics, power, and culture;

and Forge on personal development.

There are more publications on the way.

This is an opportunity for writers to work more closely with our editorial team and reach a larger readership through these publications. However, the editorial team has a set of minimum requirements for each story to comply in order to be accepted into their publications. Here’s the full version of those curation guidelines, and a summary for a quick skim.

Here are the instructions on how to submit stories to each of them. 💥 BOOM! Good luck! Keep me posted on your progress.

BONUS: Embed cool content in your stories

Medium team has been working to give us some cool functionalities. That includes the ability to embed other content in stories:

Tweets

Slideshare presentations

📄 PDFs

🎦 YouTube videos

📶 Soundcloud or podcast audio

📝 Other Medium stories

<> Code snippets

To embed these and other elements to your stories, simply paste a link to the content and press ENTER.

💥BOOM! Medium leads the content and embeds in the story.

Conclusion

I guarantee that even experienced Medium writers will have found two or three fresh tips to assist them in improving their presence.