Medium is an untapped traffic goldmine for your content brand. While some people simply copy and paste their blog posts into Medium, others have gone as far as shifting their entire blogs onto Medium.
I don’t recommend that kind of shift because your blog is your only true home on the web (after your article, Medium recommends other articles that keep people on their site, even if those articles aren’t yours), but when combined with your blog, you can see some really good results from Medium.
That’s why Gary Vaynerchuk frequently publishes content from his blog onto the Medium platform. It works. However, it’s not just for the big players like Gary.
One blogger went from 0 Medium visitors to over 30,000 monthly Medium visitors in just five months. And it’s amazing how simple the formula was:
Just publish 2-3 really good blog posts every week.
This blogger didn’t provide a detailed marketing strategy. Just publish epic content and Medium helps to spread the word.
Medium also has a cool rule that you can find all of your Twitter followers, Facebook friends, etc., and if they have a Medium account when you connect your social networks, they become your Medium followers. That’s why I gained 14,000 Medium followers on the day I created my account. That’s how many of my Twitter followers used Medium at the time, and that number only grows as more of my Twitter followers sign up for Medium.
Republishing Your Blog Posts On Medium
The most amazing thing about Medium is how easy it is for bloggers to publish content on Medium. No one’s asking you to perform a herculean task. You literally copy and paste your preexisting content into the Medium dashboard.
Then you watch the traffic roll in.
It helps if you promote your Medium articles on your social networks, but based on the case studies I’ve read, Medium does a great job at bringing the traffic to you as long as you consistently and frequently provide valuable content on the site.
If you have a WordPress blog and don’t like manually copying and pasting, this plugin puts your content on Medium for you.
However, I would go back and gradually put all of your past content on Medium. That post you wrote two years ago that is still valuable? Most people have probably forgotten about it or never seen it. Medium gives people a second chance at seeing that level of value.
Building your list with Medium
The one thing that keeps people away from putting all of their content on a place like Medium is that Medium can change their rules at any time.
Brands saw the full power of rule changes when Facebook made it increasingly hard to play an organic growth game without putting a penny down. Now Facebook wants a lot more than your penny, but only if you want to grow your audience.
Medium isn’t like that right now, and I don’t see Medium taking that path for a long time. In fact, they’re against advertisements which is good for all of us. At this point, two thoughts are in my head:
- Just in case…
- I don’t own the traffic
Without a strategy in place to grow your email list, you’re like me when I started to see massive traffic coming to this blog. Out of my first 150,000 visitors, only 300 of them subscribed. No need to take out the calculator. Just know that it’s a very horrible rate because I literally had nothing set up (welcome mat, pop-up, landing page, etc.) except for that sidebar opt-in that WordPress provides you.
So I had a very basic (pretty much nonexistent) strategy for growing my email list. And I left a lot of money on the table.
Don’t do the same thing with Medium. Even if your Medium articles get hot, it won’t matter if you’re not growing your email list.
At the end of your Medium article, include a call-to-action where you ask people to subscribe to your email list in exchange for a free offer. It can be an eBook, a webinar, or anything you’d like. Just make sure you offer something that leads people back to a landing page.
Why You Still Need A Blog Outside Of Medium
Some Medium lovers have decided to use Medium as their main blog instead of using something like WordPress to create the blog. I definitely see the advantage of Medium. It’s 100% free, and you don’t pay for hosting or other expenses associated with a blog like this one.
However, this blog is much more optimized at helping my content brand grow than my Medium blog. On this blog, I have a welcome mat, several landing pages, a sidebar opt-in, and much more. There are plenty of contact points where I ask people in my audience if they want to join my email list.
On Medium, I only get to use that CTA at the end of the post. While my Medium followers may still view my content, it’s more difficult to grow your email list with Medium than a traditional blog. Granted, it seems easier to get traffic with Medium, but if you can’t convert that traffic, than it doesn’t matter.
Medium shouldn’t act as a substitute to having your own blog, but rather, Medium should complement what you already have.
In Conclusion
In a world dominated by how-to articles for Facebook and Twitter, some social networks like Medium fall completely under the radar. These are the gold mines for blog traffic that can have a significant impact on your brand.
And out of all of the social networks, Medium involves the least amount of work. You are literally copying and pasting your existing blog posts. Even if that’s too much work for you, there’s a WordPress plugin that does it for you.
Medium presents the easiest, time efficient approach to spreading your message and content to an entirely new audience.
Do you republish your blog posts on Medium? Do you have any tips on growing your Medium presence and your email list in the process? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.
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