It’s Time To Ensure You Get More Claps On Medium
Learn how to maximize your claps with 6 winning strategies
Okay, I realize I’m not exactly the best guy to answer the question “how to get more claps on Medium?” (Psst! Check my other Medium stories).
So, Let’s get something straight right off the bat: I don’t have a lot of writing experience; I am still new to blogging on Medium. Heck, I don’t even think I’m that good a writer, and I sure as hell have no idea how to get more claps on Medium.
Awful way to start a story, I know, but hear me out. If you checked my last story, you’d know what I’m doing here.
I am more the “write as you learn” kind of person. So, this story is an experiment.
As a writer, you must test things out occasionally to see what works and what doesn’t.
What I’m about to share with you here are the strategies and techniques I gathered while spending hours devouring dozens of online articles about articles going viral.
Here is my checklist:
Rank high on SERP (search engine results page) by implementing SEO and writing a lengthy story.
Get at least more claps than this story I wrote a few months ago.
Check if the techniques (I’m about to share) work by applying them myself.
Promote this story when it goes live.
So, without further ado, let’s get right on it.
Build an online real estate
Build as much online presence as you can. Make sure you are active on other platforms before growing a following and blogging on Medium.
It takes work and time, but it’s well worth it. You’ll get more claps as your content gets more visibility.
Here are some steps you can take to do that:
1- Get your posts in front of the right audience
If you’re answering a question in your Medium post (how to get more claps 😉), share it on online platforms like Quora, forums, Reddit, and Q&A sites.
Lots of readers hang out there to find content and get their questions answered.
But you don’t want to be spammy. That’s going to do more harm than good. Instead, write a suitable answer that makes you look like you know what you’re talking about. Then, put a link for people to click on if they want to learn more.
Medium Publications
The best way to narrow down your search for a great audience is to submit to Medium publications with an already established following.
Here are 5 of the best Medium publications in 2020:
1- Start it up
2- Mission.org
3- Personal Growth
4- The economist
5- Startup Grind
2- Use Facebook groups
Facebook has amazing groups for writers and freelancers. There is nothing more powerful than to be among those groups of people who share similar goals and will help each other grow.
Using this strategy consistently will increase your claps. Better yet, it will expose your writing and expand your audience.
Each one of these groups has thousands of members. All you need to do is follow their guidelines and promote accordingly.
Here are my favorite groups:
Be active and create as much interaction as you can to leave a good impression. There are many, MANY more groups like these. If you want to take it a step further, explore other groups and join the ones most suitable for you.
3- Have an optimized author bio
The more active you are on social media platforms, the more people will check you out. They’re going to do that by looking at your author’s bio.
So, whether you are guest posting, self-publishing, or tweeting, you need a good author bio that showcases what you write about and the services you offer. Additionally, you can include a link to your latest post (or one you want to promote).
Make your author bio on Medium similar across all other platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.). You need to sync them all together and make them cohesive.
Remember, before doing this, you need to be super active first, i.e. set a time to post, comment, and add value to your readers.
Consistency always pays off
One of the best things you can do, especially if you’re thinking about monetizing your writing, is to think of it as a proper business.
To do that, you need to:
- Set up a writing schedule
- Batch your tasks (one day for writing; another for editing, and another for promoting…)
- Be consistent
“Getting an audience is hard. Sustaining an audience is hard. It demands consistency of thought, of purpose and of action over a long period of time”. — Bruce Springsteen.
You might not see results right away, but daily repeated actions over long periods will pay off one way or another. Eventually, your content will reach more audiences thanks to this consistent process.
More readers = more followers = more claps.
Create your group
Why not start your group and maximize your claps from your best supporters?
Start with your network. Create a group and invite people (writers if possible) to join it.
You want to copy what other successful groups (like the ones I mentioned earlier) are doing. Add a personal touch to it to make it unique: set a group schedule, or share each other’s posts.
- Start by recruiting 5 to 10 people at first.
- Add a link to your Facebook group in your author bio across your social media platforms.
- Comment, like, and clap other people’s articles and posts. Help each other write and do better.
Send your posts to your email list
I don’t have an email list (a topic I want to write about in a future post), but I am on many writers’ email lists, and I can see why it’s so effective.
Every day I read many articles sent to me in my inbox. An email list is truly a powerful strategy to promote Medium stories.
If you don’t have an email list, the first thing you want to do is build one by creating a quick landing page using Mailchimp or ConvertKit.
Create the best content
Of course, let’s not forget about the writing itself; you must be good at it
Everything you’ve read so far is inapplicable if you ignore the quality of your writing. Honing it and improving your craft will draw in more readers and will get you more claps.
The best ways to improve your writing are:
- Reading books: Everybody writes By Ann Handley, The elements of style by E.B. white, On writing by Stephen King
- Writing every day (500–1000 words).
- Hand-copying famous writing pieces
To get more claps on Medium requires you to be deserving of it, right?
It needs to be organic and genuine rather than always having to request people to do it for you.
Your writing is your product; no matter how good you are at promoting it, if the product is bad, it will not sell.
Use personal stories
We’re down to the last tip: include your personal stories when possible.
We LOVE storytelling; it’s as old as humanity. Why not use 1 or 2 stories in your writing? They’re going to set you apart because they are YOUR stories.
Tim Denning is superb at this. He incorporates storytelling in everything he posts, and almost all his stories do well. Learn from him.
The number 1 mistake I’ve been making since I joined Medium is doing nothing after hitting that publish button. I thought everything would work out. My writing is good enough. It took me a while before I realized that writing is only half the job. What you do before and after writing, before and after publishing, matters just as much. I wrote thousands and thousands of words, day in and day out, oblivious to other aspects of writing that are important: getting out there, promoting, building an audience, etc.
Lesson learned.
“Whenever I finished filming a movie, I felt my job was only half done. Every film had to be nurtured in the marketplace. You can have the greatest movie in the world, but if you don’t get it out there, if people don’t know about it, you have nothing,” — Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I can think of the same thing for writing on medium, more so if you’re thinking about having more claps, more followers, and better results.
Takeaways
I know I’ve covered a lot. Let’s break it down into 6 steps:
1- Build a strong online presence
2- Have a consistent writing schedule
3- Create your group of writers
4- Send your stories to your email list
5- Create quality content
6- Use personal stories
If there are any other strategies you are familiar with, please let me know in the comments.
Tom Kuegler has a collab posting strategy you can check out on YouTube that’ll get you more views and claps on Medium. I’m stealing that one.
Conclusion
Well, there you have it. As you can see, there is no shortcut to getting more claps on Medium. It’s a mix of combined effort and hard work every writer needs to accept for genuine success.
We are not just in the business of writing, we’re also in the business of sales and marketing.
Now, here’s what I would love to do next: I’m going to implement most of the ideas I shared with you here, and then I’ll write another story where I’ll cover everything from views, claps, to how effective these strategies were.
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