I just wrote a story about Medium’s boost and what’s better than boosting. It details what you can do to get more readers, drive more views, and increase your earnings on Medium.
What it doesn’t cover is the topics or styles you should avoid on Medium right now. So, here’s a short list:
- Personal blogging: In the past, I’ve done this a lot. Personal experiences and blogging about me. That’s cool stuff, I am awesome 😉, but it’s not really what Medium readers want to read. Unless you’re famous or super cool. I am not.
- Anything that was trending a year ago. Trends come and go. Avoid writing about past trends. Unless they’re on the rise again, this won’t help.
- Generic (or AI-written) blog content that anyone can find with a quick Google search or replicate with a single ChatGPT prompt. Obviously, this varies depending on the niches to some degree.
- Overly long stories. Some might disagree here, and for specific use cases it works, but in my experience length is an important criterion for Medium success. Short is okay, see the rise of shortform. Too long, however, will drive many readers away. Time is valuable. If a long story is jam-packed with value, that’s cool, but more often than not, long means a lot of fluff. Avoid that. It will only result in low read ratios. Again, this obviously varies depending on niches and topics.
Would you agree? What would you add?
