By \ December 14, 2015
The perks of Medium are pretty obvious. The channel is free to use, has a built in audience, and it provides content creators with tagging options that push blogs towards targeted readers. Thought even
Here are three different approaches to using Medium as a marketing and communications platform:
Three Approaches
As we see it there are three approaches a business could take to posting articles on Medium: Your team of coworkers can each create an account and write individually (mentioning the organization they represent in their bios), you can make one account that represents the whole organization, or you can create a Publication, which will feature different writers that may or may not all be from your organization. These approaches are not mutually exclusive, but they each have their pros and cons.
- Single account: Having one account named after your organization is the simplest way to write and post articles. You don’t need to manage other writers, and all the followers you accrue stay on one account. Running a single account also works well to promote your business and brand, but on a space catering to average writers, there are some benefits to individual accounts too.
- Individual writers: Having a team of individual writers, while difficult to manage, can attract more followers and readers than a single account. Also, individuals can guest write on other Medium accounts, and will have more credibility when they comment on posts. Still, while you can mention the business in your bio, that brand promotion won’t be as strong.
- Publication: Managing a Medium Publication is time consuming but can have a big impact. I’ll start with the former. First, you need a team of individual writers, each with a Medium account, as well as writers that aren’t a part of your organization. Also more is expected of a publication in terms of design. While Medium’s inherent blog layout, fonts and image display creates a very sweet look for average writers, publications should have a logo and unique images for each post. But if done right, like the Education publication Bright, the opportunity to attract readers, promote your organization and establish yourself as a thought leader is huge. Most importantly, Medium is a relatively young site, which means if you start a publication now, your industry specific publication could be the most popular on the site.
What it really comes down to is the number writers you have that can commit to writing. If you have an impressive collection of thought leaders that you are able to mobilize to write a few times a month, you may want to go with the individual writers approach. If you are the lone content marketer, then a single account will make the most sense. If you have the capability and desire to collaborate with others in your industry then you should start a publication.
Call to Action
We’re not done yet.
While you want to stay away from being overly salesy on Medium (many people see it as a platform for agenda-free writing), you still want there to be a goal. No matter what approach you choose, you need to give each article a call to action to track your success.
Call to actions options:
- Visit our website.
- Visit our blog.
- Check out our product/service.
- Check out an event, tool, program (or whatever).
- Sign up for our email list.
- Be mine.
Tracking
When you know the goal of each article, as well as your marketing effort as a whole, you need to be able to track it.
If your call to action for a particular article was to check out a product or service you offer, use your analytics to track the amount of traffic that came from Medium to that link. In general, with a link to your site in your bio (and on each post) you should use UTM parameters to track which articles are sending the most traffic back to your site.
You can also measure how well particular blogs are doing in terms of readership by using Medium’s Stats tab, which shows you how many people clicked on your blog, who recommended or commented on it and how many people read it.
The growth of Medium, as well as its marketing use, is tough to predict. Like most new channels these days, it was built without advertising in mind, but for now it’s a free to use space, and experimenting with new channels is how you building a strong content marketing strategy.
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