Writing on Medium: Is It the Right Platform for You?

If your content marketing goals include establishing thought leadership in your industry, building an engaged audience, or earning money from content creation, Medium could be an incredibly powerful tool. This publishing platform comes with a built-in audience of 100 million monthly users, who you can reach through both Medium’s algorithmic and editorial distribution. Here’s how to start publishing on Medium and tips to get the most out of the platform.

What is Medium?

Medium is an online publishing platform where writers publish stories and essays, discover readers through recommendations and publications, and can monetize through its Partner Program. It emphasizes high-quality, human writing and community interaction across a wide range of topics.

Founded in 2012 by Twitter co-founder Ev Williams, Medium supports independent writers and high-quality, medium to long-form content, often including personal stories and essays. Medium’s ethos emphasizes building community, and hosts millions of users across different disciplines and backgrounds.

The platform has been through several iterations since its launch. Previously, it supported owned-and-operated publications that ran on the platform. It also previously offered suites of tools for brands, including paid distribution through native advertising. But today, the platform is tailored to individual writers and readers. It offers writers a path to monetization through its Partner Program.

Anyone can start publishing on Medium—all you need to do is create an account and start writing. Once you publish your first articles, readers can discover your writing through the site’s recommendations feed, search tool, and newsletter, and people can choose to follow you, much like on social media. 

How does Medium work?

Medium doesn’t sell member data or display ads in its membership content. Instead, it charges a membership fee for access to ad-free, unlimited stories for $5 a month. There is also a free subscription option to read three free articles a month that may include ads, but you can’t access member-only content with the free subscription.

If you have a Medium membership, you can also create a Medium publication, which functions like a blog or online magazine, allowing you to create a home for your written content. Medium publications can host multiple writers, feature a thematic collection of articles, and even send a newsletter. You can also connect a Medium publication to a custom domain or subdomain—for instance, to use Medium for your company blog.

Medium shares revenue with writers via its Partner Program. If approved for the program, writers earn money through writing paywalled articles exclusively available to members. Payout metrics include member reading time, claps, replies, highlights, and follows. Boosted member-only stories earn at a higher rate and earn a distribution payout.

Pros and cons of blogging on Medium

So what are the pros and cons of using Medium versus establishing a traditional blog or using another platform? Here’s a breakdown: 

Pros of writing on Medium

• Built-in audience and distribution potential. Medium’s built-in social network allows contributors—even those without large followings—to have their content discovered through both algorithmic recommendations and editorial curation.

• Thought leadership and credibility. Medium is an avenue for authentic, human, and authoritative content. If you publish regularly on Medium, you can build your reputation as a trusted expert—which might also help you build awareness for your brand. 

• Monetization potential. Medium’s Partner Program pays writers for their work based on reader engagement, making it possible to turn that content creation into an additional income stream.

Cons of blogging on Medium

• Limited analytics and marketing tools. Medium reports basic metrics, like views, reads, and reading time, but you can’t integrate tools like Google Analytics or email capture systems. A lack of in-depth reporting could make it more difficult for you to refine your content strategy on the platform.

• Limited branding and design flexibility. There are limited options to control the look and feel of your blog through things like sidebars or widgets, even if you create a publication.

• Content and audience. If you’re writing content to build an audience, that audience lives on Medium, not on your website. 

• Monetization restrictions. If you are publishing content through the Partner Program, you can’t integrate display ads or create sponsored content. 

How to start writing on Medium

• Create a free account
• Become a Medium Member
• Create a publication
• Publish your first article
• Add tags

Medium makes it easy to sign up and share your ideas with its members. Here’s a step-by-step guide to getting started:

Create a free account

The first step is creating a Medium account. Medium allows you to sign up using your Google, Apple, or email login. A free account user can still build their own blog, write stories, follow writers, and engage with the community.

Become a Medium Member

Once you have an account, upgrade to a Medium membership to access publication features. Becoming a Medium Member costs $5 a month or $50 per year. Becoming a Friend of Medium costs $15 per month or $150 a year.

Medium membership will allow you to create a publication and link to a custom domain (like a company URL). Friend of Medium membership allows readers to share articles with non-members and support their favorite writers with a four-times higher giving rate.

Create a publication

You don’t have to create a publication to write on Medium, but if you want to build a blog or online magazine with multiple contributing writers, you’ll need to create your publication before you publish your first article. Once you have your publication set up, you can link it to a custom domain, launch a newsletter, and access publication-level analytics.

Publish your first article

Once you’re logged in and you’re on your homepage, you can write your first article. Medium’s simple interface allows for basic formatting like adding images, highlighting, and adding headings and subheadings. After you hit Publish, your Medium story will hit your profile page and may get in front of potential readers via Medium’s algorithm or curation team.

Add tags

After you hit Publish, you’ll be able to add up to five tags per article. Tags are an important part of content discovery on Medium—they help boost views and followers by connecting users with your content, which can help bring in a new audience. On Medium’s back end, you can see the popularity of a tag or if it is trending.

Here’s how to find and add tags: 

• After you hit Publish, you can add topics (or tags) and preview your story. You can also add tags while a story is in drafts.

• Once you begin typing a potential tag, Medium will show you related options and the number of posts associated with each, which indicates popularity.

Tips for writing on Medium

• Leverage tagging
• Follow Medium’s best practices for story titles
• Write with authenticity
• Don’t use AI
• Use Medium’s formatting tools
• Engage with the Medium community

Medium has evolved into a platform that rewards content that fosters authentic interactions amongst its members. As long as your approach aligns with Medium’s distribution guidelines, a focus on high-quality writing and audience engagement will help you get the most out of the platform. Here are a few tips for writing on Medium:

Leverage tagging

Since Medium places value on industry expertise and thought leadership, tags can help you connect with users on very specific topics related to your business. Medium allows you to see which tags are trending. It also helps to research specific tags that might be more niche but active. Don’t just use tags because they’re popular; make sure they relate to your story.

Follow Medium’s best practices for story titles

Story titles matter too. Since Medium discourages users from producing clickbait, don’t use misleading headlines that might overpromise or rely on hyperbole. That’s an easy way to lose a reader’s trust. If your topic is specific, write a headline that reflects that. 

For example, one of the top posts in 2024 was titled, “The secret life of people with high self-control (it’s easier than you think).” The title is a little long, but it’s easy to understand and reflective of the article’s contents. 

Write with authenticity

Medium values personal essays, content that draws from the writer’s own personal experiences, and posts that are fresh or offer a new perspective. High-quality stories can get picked up by Medium’s human curation team, which selects stories that are then “boosted,” or prioritized for distribution, which means that they’re matched with more readers. Those editors give those particular posts more visibility across the Medium homepage and feature them in emails and on the app.

Don’t use AI

Medium—like many other content platforms—is having to deal with a deluge of content created by generative AI. Since Medium’s focus is on human storytelling, they are committed to ensuring that the articles recommended to its users are written by humans.

Although Medium doesn’t forbid members from making AI-generated content, it is banned from its Partner Program, unlikely to land in recommendations, and therefore cannot be monetized.

Use Medium’s formatting tools 

When publishing a post, use Medium’s formatting options, whether breaking up a post with headers and sections, or using high-quality images (make sure you think about usage rights and formatting).

Engage with the Medium community

One of the best parts of joining Medium is its built-in audience. But like other popular social media platforms, that audience can only deliver value if you engage with it. Take the time to follow, read, and engage with other people’s content on the platform. Those writers might then take the time to look at your content and engage with or follow you in return.