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You’re probably familiar with Medium, North America’s top blogging platform. There’s a fair chance you even have an account there.
It’s much less likely that you know everything you need to know to make Medium work for you. And that’s a shame.
As one of the most authoritative, heavily trafficked websites on the Web, Medium is a potential gold mine for your personal and corporate brand—if you know how to harness its power.
To that end…
…Start with These Six Medium “Musts”
1. Make the Most of Your (Very Short) Bio
Your 160-character Medium bio can’t possibly say everything you’d like about your professional life. What it can do is encapsulate one or two “must-knows” for those just tuning in. Make every word count.
2. Write About What You Know
The most successful Medium pages tend to focus on relatively narrow domains of expertise. This steel executive’s Medium page is a great example, lasered in as it is on trade policy and other steel-related topics. Use your personal blog for random musings; Medium is where the rubber hits the road.
3. Use Visuals, and Lots of Them
Medium encourages longform content, which is decidedly a double-edged sword. Fortunately, it also has intuitive multimedia functions that don’t require special expertise to operate. Use them to add colorful, uncluttered visuals that keep your audience engaged through longer, more detailed pieces. Memes are strongly recommended.
4. Don’t Be Afraid to Go Long
A longer Medium post could be your best chance to fully convey complex, detailed concepts to a lay audience. Don’t shy away from adding detail out of fear your audience won’t follow. Instead, use visuals (see above) and punch up your copy, removing excess verbiage and using direct analogies.
5. Publish Regularly on Medium
The advice immediately above may at times conflict with this directive. When it does, it’s okay to tighten things up a bit. Brevity is indeed the soul of wit, and it’s more important that you publish on a regular basis (the better to keep the crowd warm) than to allow weeks to pass between longform masterpieces.
6. Engage with Peers, Thought Leaders, and Committed Members of Your Audience
Medium is not just a publishing platform. It’s also a place to engage with peers, other thought leaders, and random folks interested in your area of expertise. Some Medium comments are just as informative as the original posts, if not more so. Reward those who take the time to respond to your takes.
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Find Your Happy Medium
Most thought leaders underestimate Medium’s potential. Although it’s never a good idea to expect any URL to land on the first search engine results page for terms associated with your name or organization, your Medium portal is very likely to do just that. This alone is worth the effort to create and maintain a vibrant, regularly updated presence on that platform.
Along with LinkedIn and domains associated directly with your personal and corporate brand, Medium is indispensable to your thought leadership designs. If you aspire to a position of intellectual influence within your field or industry, you need to meet those responsible for conferring that influence where they play. There are few better places to find them than Medium.
To get more ideas about building your brand, be sure to browse our blog.