I love reading articles on <a href="https://medium.com/">Medium</a>, they provides me with useful information. On a deeper level, they (good writers) also show how a (good) long-copy format is still as consumable as a few seconds video format.Here are <a href="https://medium.com/free-code-camp/how-to-write-medium-stories-people-will-actually-read-92e58a27c8d8">some tips</a> for new writers on Medium who are trying to build an audience base. (Yes, that includes me)

Medium is the message, pun intended.

You can write a great title with a powerful clickbait, but if your content is not as good as your title, you'll have to face angry comments from readers who just lost 5 minutes of their precious times.Like a great advertisement with disappointing product performance. You can write great content; a compelling story with a unique point of view that gives meaningful information to your audience. But if your title is too weak to drive click, then your great content will be sink in the sea of cruel algorithm.Like a great products with low awareness.

The importance of Title and Content; each has their own roles. Just like Product and Marketing.

Learn from <a href="https://deepstash.com/article/144276/quantifying-the-clickbait-and-linkbait-in-buzzfeed-article-titles">how BuzzFeed creates compelling headlines.</a>Inject hyperbole and fear-of-missing-out.Here are some types of headlines that work well on Medium:<ul><li>grand pronouncements like “X is over”, “X is broken”, or “X is bull****”</li><li>Headlines that use negative words like “stop”, “never”, and “don’t ever ____ again”</li><li>The “I _____ and it was _____” pattern (for example: “I ate pizza for breakfast and it was glorious”)</li></ul>

Killer Headline

HubSpot <a href="http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/seo-social-media-study#sm.00000z83pnwr7kdwxvrrsinzxyr7l">analyzed</a> 6,000 blog posts and found that stories with 8 to 14-word headlines get more social media shares.

Your headline should have the right length

The more emotional (positive or negative) a headline is, the more likely people will click it.The <a href="https://coschedule.com/headline-analyzer">headline analyzer</a> provides a tool to help you balance the length and sentiment of your headlines.

Evoke the right emotion with your headline

Your opening image on Medium will serve as your story’s ambassador everywhere: social media news feeds, Reddit, Google News — even RSS readers.The opening image in <a href="https://medium.com/free-code-camp/how-to-write-medium-stories-people-will-actually-read-92e58a27c8d8">this article</a> the writer chose an image of Emma Stone portraying an aspiring journalist at her typewriter in the 1960s. It’s from the popular 2011 period movie “The Help.”A stock photo of someone sitting at their laptop would have looked too generic. Our news feeds are already filled with these pictures.The images are there to visually reinforce each story’s message, while lending them flavor.

Arresting opening images

Once your reader clicks through to your story, the trial begins. Keep in mind that your readers are looking for any excuse to jump back to their news feed. Reading requires a lot more effort than scrolling through cat photos.Don’t waste time with intros or updates — start making points and telling your story immediately.

Start your content with a strong lead

Figure out a way to establish your credibility within the first few paragraphs. If you are a top expert in your field, say so. Don’t assume that people are going to take the time to google you.Are you writing about health as a non-physician? Are you writing about personal finance as a non-millionaire? You’ll need to overcome any skepticism readers may have about your credibility.Reinforce your credibility throughout your story. Support your arguments with data. Use inline links to (non-paywalled) research.This isn’t the New England Journal of Medicine. This is Medium. So don’t use footnotes.

Establish Credibility

Good writing is hard. Like any skill, it takes practice. There are no shortcuts to becoming a strong writer.Do yourself a favor: write what you know.Have you ever heard the term “writers block?” Writer’s block happens when you don’t know enough about a topic to write about it. The antidote is research. Learning. Going out into the field.Good Medium stories don’t come naturally. For every minute of story length, expect to spend at least an hour writing, re-writing, and editing your story.

Write smart. Write what you know.

Medium’s data scientists found that 7 minutes is the optimal length for a Medium story.In practice, a story should be as long as it needs to be, and no longer.If you can’t come up with at least 5 minutes worth of thoughts, rethink the premise of your story.

Medium readers prefer longer stories.

Paste your story into the <a href="https://hemingwayapp.com/">Hemingway Editor.</a> This will highlight dense sentences, adverbs, passive voice, and other style issues. It will also assign a grade level to your overall writing.Despite what you may have learned in English composition class, people prefer short paragraphs to “walls of text.”There’s nothing wrong with single-sentence paragraphs.

Tighten up your prose. Keep it simple.

It gives tangible tips on how to write Medium stories that people will actually read.

More than 30 million people use Medium each month. They come here in search of something worth reading. Something substantial. And you can give it to them. Medium’s algorithms put you on a level…

writing

Reading & Writing

communication

Communication

How to write Medium stories people will actually read

"Creating a listicle" does not guarantee clickbait. If we want to create a headline that drives shares, we need to understand which are the powerful elements from a listicle we can utilize further.Thankfully Max Woolf has taken the time to do a deep dive analytical <a href="https://medium.com/free-code-camp/how-to-write-medium-stories-people-will-actually-read-92e58a27c8d8">research</a> on how BuzzFeed's approach in using listicle has been successful in driving the article share-ability.

"Listicle" is not the core idea of a story, it's a vehicle to tell a story.

The headline usually begins with [X] as a numeral element. Including [X] reasons, [X] books, [X] movies, etc, where [X] is any 1 or 2-digit numeral. The size of [X] can be varies. The distribution of listicle in BuzzFeed is centered at the median of 19 entries. Surprisingly, the bigger the size of [X] is, the more shares it drives. A 30-size listicles receive more shares than a 10-size listicles.

Powerful element of a listicle #1: Numeral or [X]

BuzzFeed go-to listicle phrases has changed over the year.In 2012, BuzzFeed most used listicle began with the [X], while in 2014, they began with [X] things. The "the" is technically redundant. The intention might be to make the listicle schema cleaner and less formal, thus it's possible that the listicle began with [X] things performs better than the [X].

Powerful element of a listicle #2: The phrase that goes with [X]

Listicle using [X] things does indeed  perform slightly better than the [X] on average. Emotional words which you would never find in a more serious journalistic publication such as 'insanely', 'awesome', and 'probably' are some of the key driver of shares.

Powerful element of a listicle #3: The types of listicles

BuzzFeed tends to write more frequently towards then-current events. For example, there were many articles about 2012 election during 2012, while April 2013 consisted of many articles about the Boston Marathon bombings.There is more uncertainty in the accuracy of the average on keywords, especially with #1 word, career.There is a strong focus on nostalgia, with toys, childhood, and 80s. Certain brands like disney and potter fits the nostalgia too.Words such as which and character are likely caused by <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/quizzes">BuzzFeed quizzes</a>, which have been incredibly popular.

Powerful element of a listicle #4: Key keywords

3-Word phrases (trigrams) provided more helpful information than phrases of other lengths. 'Character are you', a frequent phrase in quizzes, is what leads to the most virality. These performs 3-4 times better than the best listicles on average.'Things you probably don't know', 'things you never did', 'things you don't' - these phrases seems redundant but they refer to a bigger theme.There is a frequent appeal on 'you', the reader, with 'you'/'your'/'you’re' appearing in about half of the top phrases.

Powerful element of a listicle headline #5: 3-Word Phrases

A deeper understanding of what makes listicle a powerful to help articles share-ability. 

You probably do not know that the 3 most interesting things I found will blow your mind.

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

problemsolving

Problem Solving

Quantifying the Clickbait and Linkbait in BuzzFeed Article Titles

”I read it” and “I understand it” are not the same. To help us understand what we are reading, try to note these down while you read: <ul><li>Your own understanding on the matter (in your own words, not copy paste)</li><li>Your own questions </li><li>Your own thoughts from combining what you have read with other related topics emerge in your mind. Tips: try to connect the dot by defining what the relationship is between those two.</li></ul>

Reading is not enough

Analytical thinking

When you find your reason of being; a full alignment between;<ul><li>What you love</li><li>What you are good at</li><li>What you can be paid for</li><li>What the world need</li></ul>

Ikigai in one sentence

Los Angeles Times bestseller • More than 1.5 million copies sold “Workers looking for more fulfilling positions should start by identifying their ikigai.” ―Business Insider “One of the unintended—yet positive—consequences of the [pandemic] is that it is forcing people to reevaluate their jobs, careers, and lives. Use this time wisely, find your personal ikigai, and live your best life.” ―Forbes *And from the same authors, don’t miss The Book of Ichigo Ichie—about making the most of every moment in your life.* * * * Find your ikigai (pronounced ee-key-guy) and bring meaning and joy to all your days. “Only staying active will make you want to live a hundred years.” —Japanese proverb According to the Japanese, everyone has an ikigai—a reason for living. And according to the residents of the Japanese village with the world’s longest-living people, finding it is the key to a happier and longer life. Having a strong sense of ikigai—where what you love, what you’re good at, what you can get paid for, and what the world needs all overlap—means that each day is infused with meaning. It’s the reason we get up in the morning. It’s also the reason many Japanese never really retire (in fact there’s no word in Japanese that means retire in the sense it does in English): They remain active and work at what they enjoy, because they’ve found a real purpose in life—the happiness of always being busy. In researching this book, the authors interviewed the residents of the Japanese village with the highest percentage of 100-year-olds—one of the world’s Blue Zones. Ikigai reveals the secrets to their longevity and happiness: how they eat, how they move, how they work, how they foster collaboration and community, and—their best-kept secret—how they find the ikigai that brings satisfaction to their lives. And it provides practical tools to help you discover your own ikigai. Because who doesn’t want to find happiness in every day? A PENGUIN LIFE TITLE

books

Books

Ikigai

It starts from CURIOSITY, leads to ENLIGHTEMENT, ended with COMMITMENT.

How relationship evolves

Can we as a person/ product/ brand help them to survive and thrive?

How to spark curiousity from our costumers

It’s interesting to know how our relationship with customers evolving reflects how our relationship in life evolves too.

This guide from New York Times bestselling author Donald Miller, is a must-have for any marketing professional or small business owner who wants grow their business. It will teach you how to create and implement a sales funnel that will increase traffic and drive sales. Every day, your company is losing sales simply because you do not have a clear path to attract new customers. You’re not alone. Based on proven principles from Building a StoryBrand , this 5-part checklist is the ultimate resource for marketing professionals and business owners as they cultivate a sales funnel that flows across key customer touchpoints to effectively develop, strengthen, and communicate their brand’s story to the marketplace. In this book, you will learn: The three stages of customer relationships. How to create and implement the one marketing plan you will never regret. How to develop a sales funnel that attracts the right customers to your business. The power of email and how to create campaigns that result in customer traffic and a growth in brand awareness. The keys to wireframing a website that commands attention and generates conversions. The inability to attract and convert new customers is costing business owners valuable opportunities to grow their brand. This prevents companies, both big and small, from making the sales that are crucial to their survival. With Marketing Made Simple, you will learn everything you need to know to take your business to the next level.

Marketing Made Simple

These patterns are showing structures and relationships of information.Audience retains visualized information longer and misunderstandings are reduces because it expresses the essential message directly.Start with placing words and phrases on paper and visualize their relationships with circles and lines.

Few example of visualize relationships

These are patterns to show structures and relationships of information. If you feel it difficult to draw pictu...

strategy

Strategy

education

Learning & Education

teamwork

Teamwork

meditation

Meditation

RELATIONSHIPS (Voynetch) | Voynetch

In the marketing world, everyone wants to be the next Apple, thus “innovation” is the sexy thing. Whilst the very best&nbsp;marketing strategy to implement may not revolve around doing something&nbsp;new, but it always revolves around doing something well. Innovation is still an important aspect of effective marketing.

Doing something new vs doing something well

﻿Innovation for the sake of innovation is often counterproductive. An emphasis on mastering best practices is where you get the highest ROI.Many marketers are so focused on coming up with newer, splashier methods of delivery that they forget to analyze what established leaders in their field are already doing. But doesn't it make sense to take some cues from those best-in-class brands? After all, they're leading the field for a reason.

Counter the counterproductive 

The innovator is usually not the one to create a lot of shareholder value for a company. It's not always a matter of being first to market. The key is being the best in the market, and that usually means coming in second, analyzing the best practices and missteps of your predecessor, and then optimizing your processes accordingly. (Remember <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/10-first-to-market-companies-that-lost-out-to-latecomers-2009-11#friendster-1">Friendster </a>?)Market pioneers tend to have very limited rewards, whereas firms that enter much later than pioneers tend to dominate markets.

Noobs beat pioneer 

Even though Facebook, Instagram's parent company, is not known for its innovative approach, it has profited from stealing ideas from other companies. That's where Instagram Stories came from — a <a href="https://mashable.com/article/kevin-systrom-instagram-stories-snapchat/">blatant rip-off </a> of Snapchat. Once again, the latecomer dominates the market.

The latecomer dominates

Jobs is the classic example of a corporate leader held up as an innovator in his field. In the vast majority of cases, innovation is less about creating something out of thin air, and more about borrowing (or stealing) good ideas from the competition, and then transforming those ideas into something even better.&nbsp;

Borrow, Steal, Transform

Jobs adopted a concept from another company and then tweaked into something amazing: the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/graphical-user-interface">Graphical User Interface </a>(GUI). Even though the Xerox computers with the <a href="https://crm.org/articles/xerox-parc-and-the-origins-of-gui">PARC-developed GUI </a>were way ahead of their time, Xerox couldn't see the potential from their company's new invention. Jobs had the ability to recognize a great idea from someone else and then adopt it (with some changes) as his own. He wasn't the first to market with the GUI, but he was the best at harnessing its potential by far.

"Good artists copy, great artists steal."

On the Adweek podcast series, CMO Moves , Lowe's EVP, CBO and CMO <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-204678039/cmo-moves-marisa-thalberg">Marisa Thalberg </a>put it this way: "We need to look to our own category for information, but we need to look outside of our category for inspiration."

Look both ours and outside category 

Between marketing innovation and optimization, this is the sweet spot highlight:On one hand, you need to know the score in terms of what your competitors are doing — what's working for them and what challenges they're facing. On the other hand, you can combine that marketing intelligence with inspiration from other brands or industries. What are the commonalities between industries, and how can they be leveraged to inform a killer marketing strategy?

The sweet spot

Instacart is a great example of what can happen when marketing intelligence and creativity (read: innovation) are aligned. The company combined two great ideas: food delivery and a user-friendly mobile app. Its core marketing message was "Grocery shopping simplified." Instacart borrowed and combined several ideas from industry-adjacent companies like Uber into a unified marketing strategy and was handsomely rewarded for its efforts.

Mix and match

The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. Innovation is important, but only when you combine it with marketing intelligence you lock the creative magic. Keep your eyes open. Look at your competition. Acknowledge their strengths and analyze their weaknesses. See which best practices you can make your own and which ones you can make better.

Second mouse gets the cheese too

The world's best brands (from a marketing perspective) aren't necessarily the most innovative.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

Council Post: One Of The Best Strategies That Marketers Overlook

The red ocean is where you and your competition currently compete to solve consumers’ problems. The pink ocean is the space where you do not currently have offerings, but your competitors compete with each other. The blue ocean is the space where your competencies allow you to solve consumers’ problems that your competition either cannot solve or is not currently addressing.Finding blue oceans provide you the consumer needs that were previously ignored, unknown, or unmet.

Blue Ocean strategy in diagram

In their 2005 best-selling book Blue Ocean Strategy W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne explicate two types of market growth strategies: red ocean strategy and blue ocean strategy. Unlike other classification approaches, that subdivide growth strategies on the basis of which tactic is to be used (e.g., pricing, promotion, distribution, product) [...]

Using Consumer Problems To Find Blue Oceans

A canvas used in design thinking to help you to understand your consumer better.

Empathy Map

Applied Innovation Design Thinking. Empathy Mapping is a simple but 
effective tool used to visualize user/consumer/ target market attitudes and 
behaviors.

creativity

Creativity

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

Empathy Mapping in Design Thinking. Charles Leon

You are an office building manager. Your tenants have been complaining that the elevator is old, making them wait too long. They demand you to fix the problem, or they will abandon their lease.This problem statement mislead you to a quick solution of changing the old and slow elevator with a new one.Another effective solution will be putting a mirror so people will forget about the slow wait since they will be too busy admiring their own reflection.Reframe your problem.

The power of reframing for problem solving, told in story of a slow elevator

"The author makes a compelling case that we often start solving a problem before thinking deeply about whether we are solving the right problem. If you want the superpower of solving better problems, read this book." -- Eric Schmidt, former CEO, Google Are you solving the right problems? Have you or your colleagues ever worked hard on something, only to find out you were focusing on the wrong problem entirely? Most people have. In a survey, 85 percent of companies said they often struggle to solve the right problems. The consequences are severe: Leaders fight the wrong strategic battles. Teams spend their energy on low-impact work. Startups build products that nobody wants. Organizations implement "solutions" that somehow make things worse, not better. Everywhere you look, the waste is staggering. As Peter Drucker pointed out, there's nothing more dangerous than the right answer to the wrong question. There is a way to do better. The key is reframing, a crucial, underutilized skill that you can master with the help of this book. Using real-world stories and unforgettable examples like "the slow elevator problem," author Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg offers a simple, three-step method - Frame, Reframe, Move Forward - that anyone can use to start solving the right problems. Reframing is not difficult to learn. It can be used on everyday challenges and on the biggest, trickiest problems you face. In this visually engaging, deeply researched book, you’ll learn from leaders at large companies, from entrepreneurs, consultants, nonprofit leaders, and many other breakthrough thinkers. It's time for everyone to stop barking up the wrong trees. Teach yourself and your team to reframe, and growth and success will follow.

How to write Medium stories people will actually read

Quantifying the Clickbait and Linkbait in BuzzFeed Article Titles

Analytical thinking

Ikigai

Marketing Made Simple

Alfa Aphrodita