The Anatomy of a $650+ Medium Post
A compelling headline, strong hook, and social sharing are the key drivers of Medium success
I’ve been contributing articles to Medium for a bit less than two months, and it’s been a lot of fun.
I’ve worked with IBM, photographed my dog’s feet with a thermal camera, run my grandpa’s war photos through Faceapp, placed a virtual vacuum cleaner on my rug, been contacted by one of my heroes, Matt Farley (we’re working on an interview), eaten foraged seaweed, and written way too many words about cryptocurrency mining.
Lots of my posts have been finding an audience here, and I’m grateful for that. But one post has especially stood out. It talks about Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) — the technology behind Deepfakes — and the social and legal implications of fake people.
I’ve been blown away by the response — the post has racked up over 17,000 views in a little less than two months, earning $659 so far from the Medium Partner Program.
Clearly, this is a pattern I’d like to repeat. And I’m betting that if you write for Medium, you’d like to write more posts like this as well!
Let’s dive into the post, and look at some of the factors I think contributed to its reach and earnings — and what Medium writers can do to leverage these in their own posts.
A Compelling (and Anxiety Provoking) Title and Photo
Titles are important on Medium. Actually, titles are important everywhere.
They’re what grabs a reader’s attention in their email digest, on a publication page, on the Medium homepage, etc., and compels them to click through to your post. People glance at headlines for a few milliseconds (long enough to read about six words) and decide if they want to learn more. So your headline needs to really drag people in and convince them your story is worth a click.
What I’ve found is that my most successful headlines on Medium include a compelling concept, but also a little taste of anxiety or concern.
The headline on my Fake People post was “This Is Not a Person. But She is a Threat.” This was accompanied by the smiling face of a…
