1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:00,210 Hello. 2 00:00:00,509 --> 00:00:04,170 And welcome back to day nine of the Oren Cohen podcast. 3 00:00:04,750 --> 00:00:05,080 Wow. 4 00:00:05,290 --> 00:00:11,500 This is actually progressing into the 30 days that I planned in the beginning. 5 00:00:12,160 --> 00:00:16,240 And it's really amazing to see this actually gain some momentum. 6 00:00:16,919 --> 00:00:20,819 As I said yesterday, today, we're talking about medium and 7 00:00:20,819 --> 00:00:22,679 some best practices to publish. 8 00:00:23,080 --> 00:00:23,320 Okay. 9 00:00:23,320 --> 00:00:26,260 So there are five points I want to make in today's episode. 10 00:00:26,709 --> 00:00:27,429 They are. 11 00:00:27,909 --> 00:00:28,510 Your profile. 12 00:00:28,510 --> 00:00:29,589 Solo posts. 13 00:00:30,070 --> 00:00:32,589 Publications, email and engagement. 14 00:00:32,980 --> 00:00:35,140 So let's start with the first one, which is your profile. 15 00:00:35,140 --> 00:00:40,149 In the same way that on Twitter or Instagram, they tell you that 16 00:00:40,149 --> 00:00:42,429 you need to optimize your profile. 17 00:00:42,789 --> 00:00:44,259 For example, Instagram. 18 00:00:45,159 --> 00:00:50,140 Is very, very guilty of this because you can't put links 19 00:00:50,290 --> 00:00:52,450 anywhere other than your bio. 20 00:00:52,840 --> 00:00:55,870 So they say, okay, you need to really, really optimize your 21 00:00:55,870 --> 00:01:00,400 profile so that when people click through a post to your profile. 22 00:01:00,699 --> 00:01:01,870 They know what to do next. 23 00:01:02,540 --> 00:01:07,220 Medium is very similar in that vein that many times when people 24 00:01:07,220 --> 00:01:09,370 see a post of yours On their feed. 25 00:01:09,880 --> 00:01:12,010 They might click through to your profile. 26 00:01:12,340 --> 00:01:15,190 Not always, but they might click through to your profile. 27 00:01:15,820 --> 00:01:16,330 And. 28 00:01:16,870 --> 00:01:21,910 You don't just want to have your bio optimized for them, like to understand. 29 00:01:22,359 --> 00:01:24,729 Instantly who you are and what you do. 30 00:01:25,630 --> 00:01:29,169 But you also want to have a pinned "about me" post. 31 00:01:30,009 --> 00:01:31,570 And that is a trick. 32 00:01:31,900 --> 00:01:35,620 That I learned from various creators on medium over the years. 33 00:01:36,400 --> 00:01:40,900 Where you create a post, a regular post, but you don't make it in 34 00:01:40,900 --> 00:01:42,310 the intention of getting it. 35 00:01:42,400 --> 00:01:44,140 Boosted or distributed. 36 00:01:44,710 --> 00:01:47,920 It's just an about me post you click. 37 00:01:48,360 --> 00:01:49,080 You write. 38 00:01:49,890 --> 00:01:53,910 About "your name" and then you write everything. 39 00:01:53,910 --> 00:01:57,660 You want people who are visiting your profile to know about you, whether it 40 00:01:57,660 --> 00:02:03,510 is what you do, your email list, your courses, your podcast, whatever it 41 00:02:03,510 --> 00:02:05,100 is that you want to share on medium. 42 00:02:06,270 --> 00:02:08,910 Put that in that about me post. 43 00:02:09,510 --> 00:02:14,160 And then through your profile, you have the ability to check. 44 00:02:14,900 --> 00:02:18,340 that specific post and pin it to your bio. 45 00:02:18,340 --> 00:02:21,260 That feature did not exist when I started on medium. 46 00:02:21,780 --> 00:02:24,030 But it is definitely very useful. 47 00:02:24,110 --> 00:02:27,530 Something that you want to use whenever you get the opportunity. 48 00:02:28,010 --> 00:02:34,160 And it is an essential part of optimizing your profile when people do visit 49 00:02:34,160 --> 00:02:36,170 it and people on medium do visit it. 50 00:02:36,320 --> 00:02:37,010 There is. 51 00:02:37,820 --> 00:02:41,690 A lot more connection on medium that other platforms. 52 00:02:42,020 --> 00:02:43,370 When people read you. 53 00:02:43,850 --> 00:02:47,930 And they spend a whole time of reading from start to finish. 54 00:02:48,590 --> 00:02:53,630 They are interested in who wrote to the post as opposed to searching for something 55 00:02:53,630 --> 00:02:59,040 on Google and just getting the answer they wanted to their Google query. 56 00:02:59,620 --> 00:03:00,040 Here. 57 00:03:00,310 --> 00:03:02,590 There is a connection because people find you. 58 00:03:02,920 --> 00:03:05,560 Mostly through the recommendation system. 59 00:03:06,310 --> 00:03:07,300 On their homepage. 60 00:03:07,900 --> 00:03:09,610 And when they click through. 61 00:03:09,910 --> 00:03:12,580 It's because the title enticed them, they read through they 62 00:03:12,580 --> 00:03:13,840 liked it, or didn't like it. 63 00:03:14,420 --> 00:03:18,500 But if they did like it, they are interested in who wrote it and seeing 64 00:03:18,500 --> 00:03:21,230 where to find more, where that came from. 65 00:03:21,890 --> 00:03:24,860 And that is where your profile optimization is very important. 66 00:03:25,400 --> 00:03:28,970 Okay, the next thing is solo posts. 67 00:03:29,540 --> 00:03:33,350 You don't want someone who stumbles upon your profile to find an empty profile. 68 00:03:33,690 --> 00:03:37,530 There are publications on medium, which is something we'll talk about 69 00:03:37,560 --> 00:03:39,450 in the next point after this one. 70 00:03:40,080 --> 00:03:40,740 But. 71 00:03:41,910 --> 00:03:44,550 You don't want to start by publishing for publications. 72 00:03:44,580 --> 00:03:47,940 You want to start by publishing for you, which means that you 73 00:03:47,940 --> 00:03:49,950 are going to publish solo posts. 74 00:03:50,370 --> 00:03:53,970 And those are posts that you just publish on your own profile. 75 00:03:54,480 --> 00:03:57,570 If you want to create your own publication, that's also doable. 76 00:03:57,930 --> 00:04:01,020 I don't see why you would need that in the beginning when you're just 77 00:04:01,050 --> 00:04:03,660 finding your voice and start writing. 78 00:04:04,350 --> 00:04:06,450 But if you are. 79 00:04:07,350 --> 00:04:10,570 Trying to put your voice out there. 80 00:04:11,040 --> 00:04:12,780 You just need to start writing. 81 00:04:13,230 --> 00:04:17,910 And then afterwards you can start optimizing for tags for 82 00:04:17,970 --> 00:04:21,330 topics and all that, but that's irrelevant at the beginning because. 83 00:04:22,110 --> 00:04:25,140 Probably your first a hundred posts are going to be crap. 84 00:04:25,820 --> 00:04:27,800 But you need to get to a hundred posts. 85 00:04:28,160 --> 00:04:34,820 I think I am standing at about 300 posts currently on medium because I'm not. 86 00:04:35,360 --> 00:04:37,910 Writing there at the pace that I used to. 87 00:04:37,909 --> 00:04:41,239 And I'm also guilty of not crossposting to medium. 88 00:04:41,299 --> 00:04:42,020 A lot of my. 89 00:04:42,590 --> 00:04:45,289 Content on my actual geek blog. 90 00:04:45,929 --> 00:04:52,049 So you want to actually start writing and have maybe at least five posts 91 00:04:52,109 --> 00:04:53,999 that you spent time and sweat on. 92 00:04:54,569 --> 00:04:57,569 And then you can start writing on publications. 93 00:04:57,569 --> 00:04:59,009 So let's talk about that next. 94 00:04:59,639 --> 00:05:02,399 Okay, so writing for publications. 95 00:05:02,879 --> 00:05:08,399 Medium has a lot of publications which serve as actual magazines. 96 00:05:08,789 --> 00:05:13,780 One of my favorites is the startup, which I wrote for many times, it 97 00:05:13,809 --> 00:05:15,940 is a publication with, I think. 98 00:05:16,390 --> 00:05:21,190 The last time I checked around 700,000 subscribers. 99 00:05:21,460 --> 00:05:24,850 It might be more now because I haven't been on medium for quite a while. 100 00:05:25,539 --> 00:05:28,719 The funny thing is that sometimes publications find you. 101 00:05:29,109 --> 00:05:33,639 Which means that Sometimes an editor for a publication would see that 102 00:05:33,639 --> 00:05:38,559 not all of the posting to queue are actually good enough to publish. 103 00:05:38,949 --> 00:05:40,169 And they reject some. 104 00:05:40,549 --> 00:05:43,069 They still need to fill in the quota of. 105 00:05:43,299 --> 00:05:44,319 Daily posts. 106 00:05:44,559 --> 00:05:51,399 So what they'll do, they'll actually go to a different kind of a tag pages on medium. 107 00:05:51,819 --> 00:05:55,119 And then start finding posts that might be relevant. 108 00:05:55,749 --> 00:06:00,849 From your end, it would seem like you suddenly got a private message. 109 00:06:01,569 --> 00:06:06,189 On one of your posts, which is a feature of medium, people can actually highlight. 110 00:06:06,669 --> 00:06:12,400 One of your sentences and then send you a private message about it on the article 111 00:06:12,400 --> 00:06:16,980 itself, which is good for editing, because it means like maybe you have a typo there. 112 00:06:17,219 --> 00:06:21,529 So instead of publishing it publicly where everyone could see that you have a typo. 113 00:06:22,200 --> 00:06:26,040 Only you and the person who made the private message know that you have a typo, 114 00:06:26,100 --> 00:06:30,720 then you can fix it and also thank them in the thread of the private message. 115 00:06:31,400 --> 00:06:35,090 What publications sometimes will do, they'll go into those tag pages, 116 00:06:35,150 --> 00:06:39,679 find people and then leave a private message that they are interested 117 00:06:39,679 --> 00:06:43,189 in the article and they added you as a writer for the publication. 118 00:06:43,249 --> 00:06:45,020 And you can just submit it to them. 119 00:06:45,419 --> 00:06:48,449 By actually publishing more solo posts. 120 00:06:48,479 --> 00:06:49,619 What we talked about earlier. 121 00:06:49,889 --> 00:06:54,879 You're giving yourself a higher chance of getting discovered through publications. 122 00:06:55,179 --> 00:06:57,279 But don't just leave it at that. 123 00:06:57,839 --> 00:06:59,579 Don't just wait until you're invited. 124 00:06:59,969 --> 00:07:02,969 Each publication that respect itself on medium has opposed to with 125 00:07:02,969 --> 00:07:07,499 submission guidelines and you can actually take that post, read it. 126 00:07:08,179 --> 00:07:12,209 digest what it means, and then prepare your article accordingly. 127 00:07:12,689 --> 00:07:15,329 And submit it as a candidate for publication. 128 00:07:15,929 --> 00:07:20,519 And usually the first time you're starting to write for a publication, 129 00:07:20,879 --> 00:07:24,299 it will be a little tougher because you are not a writer for them. 130 00:07:24,929 --> 00:07:27,719 But after you got accepted one time. 131 00:07:28,439 --> 00:07:31,739 You are still a writer for the publication and sometimes it will 132 00:07:31,739 --> 00:07:33,749 be easier to submit new articles. 133 00:07:34,269 --> 00:07:38,539 So find more publications adhere to their submission guidelines, and 134 00:07:38,539 --> 00:07:40,849 start publishing more on publications. 135 00:07:41,429 --> 00:07:44,399 Usually the timeframe is waiting for about a week. 136 00:07:44,429 --> 00:07:48,699 If you don't hear back from a publication for about a week, you can disregard 137 00:07:48,729 --> 00:07:53,739 the submission and publish it on your own, unless stated otherwise in their 138 00:07:53,739 --> 00:07:59,209 submission guidelines, if they say we return all of the submission requests 139 00:07:59,689 --> 00:08:03,769 In about two weeks, then wait the two weeks adhere to the guidelines. 140 00:08:04,279 --> 00:08:06,289 But after that time has passed. 141 00:08:06,649 --> 00:08:09,669 You're not obligated to keep the posts in the queue. 142 00:08:10,059 --> 00:08:14,249 And you can actually start posting it on your own profile or submit 143 00:08:14,249 --> 00:08:15,629 it to a different publication. 144 00:08:16,259 --> 00:08:18,539 The next thing I want to talk about is email. 145 00:08:19,219 --> 00:08:21,859 Medium is a little bit strange with this. 146 00:08:22,199 --> 00:08:25,439 They didn't have the ability to curate email addresses from your 147 00:08:25,439 --> 00:08:29,629 readers in the early days, but it is a feature that they included. 148 00:08:29,929 --> 00:08:31,369 I think about two years ago. 149 00:08:32,659 --> 00:08:33,889 And what you want to do. 150 00:08:34,339 --> 00:08:39,109 Is you want to enable that in your medium settings, that people 151 00:08:39,109 --> 00:08:40,849 can sign up to your email list? 152 00:08:41,359 --> 00:08:45,019 And you have an actual email list on medium that you can export. 153 00:08:45,889 --> 00:08:48,829 I, you wouldn't rely on that solely. 154 00:08:49,099 --> 00:08:52,399 I would actually include your own little snippet at the end that 155 00:08:52,399 --> 00:08:57,709 invites them to join your email list instead of moving through medium. 156 00:08:58,099 --> 00:09:01,828 But if you don't have an email hosting provider and you don't want 157 00:09:01,828 --> 00:09:03,628 the headache of setting up one. 158 00:09:03,958 --> 00:09:05,848 But you will need to do at some point. 159 00:09:06,358 --> 00:09:09,628 Then just start with medium and then you can export your list. 160 00:09:09,718 --> 00:09:14,418 And he import it into one of those different email hosting providers. 161 00:09:15,088 --> 00:09:19,198 And the final thing that I want to include in this episode is about engagement. 162 00:09:19,708 --> 00:09:22,768 Sometimes, you'll see people are responding and 163 00:09:22,768 --> 00:09:25,138 engaging with your articles. 164 00:09:25,408 --> 00:09:27,178 It could be by publishing. 165 00:09:27,838 --> 00:09:30,598 Comments, and it could be by clapping. 166 00:09:31,158 --> 00:09:35,328 Either of these engagements are super important to follow up with. 167 00:09:35,778 --> 00:09:40,228 What I mean is in the same way that you want to Comment back 168 00:09:40,228 --> 00:09:44,238 on someone responding to you on Twitter and make that relationship. 169 00:09:44,478 --> 00:09:48,348 You want to do the same When someone responds to your article on medium. 170 00:09:48,888 --> 00:09:51,948 You can go to their profile, start reading their stuff, and 171 00:09:51,948 --> 00:09:53,298 then comment on their stuff. 172 00:09:53,718 --> 00:09:57,108 But I wouldn't just react to engagement. 173 00:09:57,378 --> 00:10:03,648 You can also start engagement yourself by starting to read more 174 00:10:03,648 --> 00:10:06,348 things in the topics that you write. 175 00:10:06,348 --> 00:10:06,618 In. 176 00:10:06,648 --> 00:10:11,208 For example, if you write about TV shows, go to the tough DV tag page. 177 00:10:11,658 --> 00:10:13,068 And start reading articles there. 178 00:10:13,398 --> 00:10:14,478 And start responding. 179 00:10:15,288 --> 00:10:16,398 I noticed that. 180 00:10:16,968 --> 00:10:21,918 Sometimes a lot of views for other stuff come From writing a well 181 00:10:22,158 --> 00:10:26,988 thought out comment on someone else's post, which is currently trending. 182 00:10:27,018 --> 00:10:28,668 People can find you very easily. 183 00:10:28,668 --> 00:10:29,778 People read the comments. 184 00:10:30,198 --> 00:10:30,828 On medium. 185 00:10:31,168 --> 00:10:32,128 Very religiously. 186 00:10:32,708 --> 00:10:36,008 And by actually being engaging. 187 00:10:36,668 --> 00:10:39,118 And writing and starting a discussion. 188 00:10:39,568 --> 00:10:42,938 Like not just posting something like good job. 189 00:10:42,968 --> 00:10:44,048 A really great article. 190 00:10:44,078 --> 00:10:45,978 No, engage with the content. 191 00:10:46,038 --> 00:10:48,018 What do you think about what was said? 192 00:10:48,308 --> 00:10:52,218 Answered the question the person who wrote to the article asked in the body 193 00:10:52,218 --> 00:10:56,178 of the article, Sometimes people would say, what do you think about nanana? 194 00:10:56,538 --> 00:10:57,348 Comment below. 195 00:10:57,528 --> 00:10:59,268 So comment below do that. 196 00:10:59,598 --> 00:11:05,688 And then in the same way that you comment, people are more inclined to reciprocate. 197 00:11:06,468 --> 00:11:09,528 And go back to your profile and read your stuff. 198 00:11:09,898 --> 00:11:14,128 So that's all I wanted to include in this episode as a general recap. 199 00:11:14,558 --> 00:11:15,728 Optimize your profile. 200 00:11:15,728 --> 00:11:18,578 Enable email collection on your settings. 201 00:11:18,658 --> 00:11:21,808 Have at least a few solo episodes published. 202 00:11:22,078 --> 00:11:24,658 So people don't come to an empty profile. 203 00:11:25,948 --> 00:11:28,558 Submit to publications when you feel. 204 00:11:29,818 --> 00:11:32,578 An article would benefit from being in a publication. 205 00:11:33,058 --> 00:11:35,698 And engage, engage, engage. 206 00:11:36,198 --> 00:11:42,018 So those are the things that are important for a great time on medium. 207 00:11:42,778 --> 00:11:44,698 For a final thing that I want to say. 208 00:11:45,238 --> 00:11:50,338 Don't interact with all of the making money on medium stuff. 209 00:11:50,638 --> 00:11:53,878 If you notice I did not talk about money at all. 210 00:11:54,238 --> 00:11:56,158 And a lot of people on medium. 211 00:11:56,938 --> 00:12:01,538 Like to curate engagement by making posts about how much 212 00:12:01,568 --> 00:12:02,948 they made and all that stuff. 213 00:12:03,438 --> 00:12:05,718 If you want to actually have a sustainable. 214 00:12:06,018 --> 00:12:10,878 Time on medium, don't interact with those posts or don't write those posts. 215 00:12:11,028 --> 00:12:15,898 You can read it, but don't Integrate yourself into that culture of. 216 00:12:16,528 --> 00:12:21,868 Engagement about money-making on medium, actually focus on value, focus on topics. 217 00:12:22,198 --> 00:12:25,108 Focus on the things you want to say without regards to money. 218 00:12:25,108 --> 00:12:28,798 And you'll start actually building a community and an audience. 219 00:12:29,168 --> 00:12:31,298 Which is what you want to do on medium. 220 00:12:31,358 --> 00:12:35,228 When you start writing out, do you want to find your voice and share it with people? 221 00:12:35,768 --> 00:12:39,158 Thank you so much for listening or watching this episode. 222 00:12:39,428 --> 00:12:41,558 If you have any questions, let me know in the comments. 223 00:12:41,958 --> 00:12:45,168 If you want to read in-depth articles about content creation. 224 00:12:45,198 --> 00:12:48,468 I have a newsletter, which you can find in the description of the episode. 225 00:12:49,188 --> 00:12:51,018 And I'll see you in the next one. 226 00:12:51,558 --> 00:12:51,978 Bye for now.