Medium for your blog? Is this a no-no or a Taboo?

CryptoDavid

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I tried to search about this but didn't find much info on it.

What are your thoughts in regards to hosting most of your written content on a medium based publication?

Of course it can still link to your website, but personally the lighter I can keep my websites the easier it is.

I just don't want to host a blog, it's just another liability.

So, can I build my empire by writing content on Medium? If not why is it so different to posting content on Youtube?

I mean, most of you guys are not hosting your own video content either.


I open the arena for you beasts to discuss.
 
What if Medium shutdowns?

The likelihood of YouTube shutting down is minimal, BUT the benefit is YouTube.com has traffic already within it's site - that's a platform people go to. So you are leveraging YouTube's onsite traffic and can send it back to your brand and main site. That's a true platform. Twitter and Facebook - the same, people go to those platforms to entertain, educate, and stay informed, they are destinations where they can then find new info and your brand there.

On the other side, Medium - who the fuck is browsing Medium? The main traffic source of Medium is from Google. I've never in my life heard anyone say "I'm going to go read Medium." I've heard "I'm going to go watch YouTube videos", but Medium? No.
 
Medium allows for you to change canonicalisaton at any time. Along with dev.to and hackernoon. You could always transfer the content to your own site at a future date and change the canonical.
 
It depends, but the short version is that I'd say no, don't do that.

If you have the team together and want to "be everywhere at all times" then sure. But the only time I'd be posting to Medium is if I was also posting to Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Youtube, Vimeo, Bitchute, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, and everything else with more potential first.

Medium DOES offer domain and hosting services though. You can have it act as if it's your own site, complete with analytics and being exposed to whatever mediocre in-house exposure they can create for you. But having a blog on Medium is no less a liability than it is on your own setup. As a matter of fact, I don't think having a blog is ever a liability. It should be producing income. I make the large majority of my living on blogging. It's the opposite of a liability.

Medium as part of a huge marketing campaign? Sure.
Medium as your whole attempt at this game? Hell no.
 
JamaicanMoose said:
How is hosting a blog a liability? Why would you give your content for free to a 3rd party? If anyone links to those blog posts, your site doesn't get shit for juice
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Yeah, you are right on that front. We don't get much juice, maybe even not over the long term, but I got tired of using Wordpress and have been messing around with mostly static websites, where most dynamic content is based on embeds and I don't have to host it myself.

DanielS said:
What is it exactly that you do want to do?
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Just have a destination for my article based content.

CCarter said:
What if Medium shutdowns?

The likelihood of YouTube shutting down is minimal, BUT the benefit is YouTube.com has traffic already within it's site - that's a platform people go to. So you are leveraging YouTube's onsite traffic and can send it back to your brand and main site. That's a true platform. Twitter and Facebook - the same, people go to those platforms to entertain, educate, and stay informed, they are destinations where they can then find new info and your brand there.

On the other side, Medium - who the fuck is browsing Medium? The main traffic source of Medium is from Google. I've never in my life heard anyone say "I'm going to go read Medium." I've heard "I'm going to go watch YouTube videos", but Medium? No.
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You are right, Medium can shut down and it can shut ME down, or anyone. But the same goes for any other platform really.

Medium may not be as big as YouTube, but it is pretty much the YouTube of blogging.

And trust me, I really don't like Digital Sharecropping bullshit.

I hate being on the other guy's territory.

I get that by writing on Medium I am not actually BUILDING. I am more like... just writing.

But what if I have a more video based stategy?

Why should I worry about hosting my own blog anyway?

If my main content is Video, or Live Content, it's not like I'm going to self host that anyway.

Ryuzaki said:
It depends, but the short version is that I'd say no, don't do that.

If you have the team together and want to "be everywhere at all times" then sure. But the only time I'd be posting to Medium is if I was also posting to Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Youtube, Vimeo, Bitchute, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, and everything else with more potential first.

Medium DOES offer domain and hosting services though. You can have it act as if it's your own site, complete with analytics and being exposed to whatever mediocre in-house exposure they can create for you. But having a blog on Medium is no less a liability than it is on your own setup. As a matter of fact, I don't think having a blog is ever a liability. It should be producing income. I make the large majority of my living on blogging. It's the opposite of a liability.

Medium as part of a huge marketing campaign? Sure.
Medium as your whole attempt at this game? Hell no.
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I don't mean to say that I am going to BUILD BUSINESSES on top of Medium. Don't get me wrong, that's not my point.

Actually I want to focus on Video and Live Content as the cornerstone of my content strategy.

And for that as you can imagine, we have to go with Youtube most of the time.

But my main question is about going for a Medium blog vs self hosting it.

Not at all about making it the focus of anything.




Awesome replies! Keep the discussion going, I think there's more to discover here.
 
What does Medium give you that having your own site doesn't? (It sounds like you are going to have your own site anyway, so you are still going to have the 'hassle', such as it is, of organising hosting, etc..)

I get the argument that posting content on social media and video platforms is also 'giving away your content' - but in each of those cases you are (hopefully) gaining some advantage. But Medium gives you...?
 
ToffeeLa said:
What does Medium give you that having your own site doesn't? (It sounds like you are going to have your own site anyway, so you are still going to have the 'hassle', such as it is, of organising hosting, etc..)

I get the argument that posting content on social media and video platforms is also 'giving away your content' - but in each of those cases you are (hopefully) gaining some advantage. But Medium gives you...?
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I am not looking for an advantage over a blog. Just an advantage over not having a blog.

Basically I want to have a simple website structure, I want to be nimble.

A website I can easily backup. And I don't mean just one, I mean all my websites.

I want to be able to change hosts seamlessly if I need to. Not having to worry about the design of blog pages, not having to mess with wordpress.

That's basically it.

I am not against hosting written content.

Maybe some Big Page, a big pillar content kind of page on the website, a sales page and a few other core functions of the website.

But for some articles that we may write as support content for our video content I thought I could just skip the hassle of a blog.

In all honesty, most really old blogs that I have noticed have a bunch of broken links, broken designs, old pages disappearing etc.
 
What's the purpose of your content? Cause this sounds like a massive waste of time. This is an online business/marketing forum and I can't see how putting content on Medium benefits your business? I can't even see how you can monetize it better than it being on your own site where you control all elements.

Videos are large files, but with the cheapness of bandwidth you can self-host videos if you want, or throw it up on Amazon S3. With Linode I got 166 TBs of bandwidth un-unused this month so far... What's the likelihood I'm going to even get to 1% usage of that?

With HTML 5 putting video on your site is as simple as inserting an image. But again the benefit of YouTube is people are going there and can grown an audience - the end benefiting your brand.

YouTube solves the video size and bandwidth problem at its core. Medium doesn't solve anything.

I guess the question is how does Medium help your brand, you grow your audience, or better your business?

If you look at something similar like Quora, answering questions allows for you to traffic leak that traffic to your site.

For Medium - you would essentially be putting content on another platform instead of your main domain - I don't see the opportunity to gain traffic to your main site or drive more business.

Most of the people that go to Medium and have their content "blow up" use another source of traffic like twitter or some brand recognition to get attention to the Medium post. Example with 37signals drops a Medium post it is cause they are 37signals. They have an audience outside that they point to the Medium content.

Again I have never in my life heard "I'm going to go to Medium to read some posts."

Medium is not a destination. The other platforms are - people go to Facebook, they got Youtube, they got to Amazon, they go to Twitter, Tiktok, and other social platforms.

They don't really goto Quora, they find Quora on Google at best.

Who goes to Medium?

If it's really just about "not hosting" then you can easily use WordPress.com or god-forbid Blogpost.com just as well. Just seems like a massive waste of time.
 
CCarter said:
What's the purpose of your content? Cause this sounds like a massive waste of time. This is an online business/marketing forum and I can't see how putting content on Medium benefits your business? I can't even see how you can monetize it better than it being on your own site where you control all elements.

Videos are large files, but with the cheapness of bandwidth you can self-host videos if you want, or throw it up on Amazon S3. With Linode I got 166 TBs of bandwidth un-unused this month so far... What's the likelihood I'm going to even get to 1% usage of that?

With HTML 5 putting video on your site is as simple as inserting an image. But again the benefit of YouTube is people are going there and can grown an audience - the end benefiting your brand.

YouTube solves the video size and bandwidth problem at its core. Medium doesn't solve anything.

I guess the question is how does Medium help your brand, you grow your audience, or better your business?

If you look at something similar like Quora, answering questions allows for you to traffic leak that traffic to your site.

For Medium - you would essentially be putting content on another platform instead of your main domain - I don't see the opportunity to gain traffic to your main site or drive more business.

Most of the people that go to Medium and have their content "blow up" use another source of traffic like twitter or some brand recognition to get attention to the Medium post. Example with 37signals drops a Medium post it is cause they are 37signals. They have an audience outside that they point to the Medium content.

Again I have never in my life heard "I'm going to go to Medium to read some posts."

Medium is not a destination. The other platforms are - people go to Facebook, they got Youtube, they got to Amazon, they go to Twitter, Tiktok, and other social platforms.

They don't really goto Quora, they find Quora on Google at best.

Who goes to Medium?

If it's really just about "not hosting" then you can easily use WordPress.com or god-forbid Blogpost.com just as well. Just seems like a massive waste of time.
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The purpose of my content is mainly to document things and to generate trust.

I think of content as a way to create trust first, more than about it creating traffic by itself, of course let's not kid ourselves, that's one of the reasons, and an important one.

I am mostly just looking for a place to put written content in.

Not a strategy to generate traffic, and I am not really willing to host video either. I understand it is technically viable nowadays, but there are so many things other platforms like YouTube offer you other than simply hosting an mp4 file.

Such as trans coding the video in multiple resolutions, providing a world class CDN etc etc, blah blah blah about stuff you already know about.

My main motivation is just not hosting a blog, because I've hosted a couple in the past, and sometimes it can get wonky if I want to change my tech stack, platform, design, link structure, backups, changing hosting etc. So I was wondering if I can downsize this liability as much as possible.

Would you say the same if I tell you that writing articles is not a very important part of a traffic generation strategy for me?

Because it is isn't, I want to invest more in rich media content, Video and Live Content, as I said before.

The main objective would be to have longer form content (longer as in... longer than an SMS Message, or longer than a Youtube/Instagram description), in some place where I can point people to in order to get information about X or Y topic.

Also, as you mentioned, 37signals have used it and other respectable brands use it.

I like the simplicity it offers, and it has interesting team management abilities. For example I can create a publication there and then have a partner create a post there.

Don't get me wrong please, I am not making a case for Medium at all.

I just feel I have developed this phobia for hosting content, especially if I see it will get more and more complex with time.
 
If you have been building sites for a long time you will have (had to) build in HTML or at least self hosted CMS. In this time there have been so many content platforms that have come and gone.

My content goes on my domain. I want control.

Can I syndicate the canonical content on other platforms? Sure.
Am I learning to leak traffic from other platforms back to my site/s? Absolutely.

But if it isn't happening already Medium will be replaced by another platform (Substack?) and you will have invested that effort in a place that has no following.

Medium is just a traffic source in my mind.
 
I really don't see how running a simple Wordpress blog is a hassle.
 
bernard said:
I really don't see how running a simple Wordpress blog is a hassle.
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Not running a simple wordpress blog.

Just running wordpress alone is annoying.

I'm not saying it's not worth it at all, in all honesty I don't know in the end.

It's just annoying when you have 10 websites you own, plus 20 form clients, and you have hundreds of posts you built on each, and then there's all this content you have to backup, and all of these link structures you have to preserve.

And all the things that can go wrong when you want to change to a different tech stack, different theme, plugin that breaks whatever.

On Medium I have none of these issues, because they will take care of all the infrastructure.

This change in mindset came when I started building static HTML in 2020. It's a breath of fresh air.

Maybe what I need is a better CMS solution.
 
Here's what it comes down to for me:

Pros of Medium
  • Slightly easier to manage. Looks nice out of the box.
  • If you're a Medium Partner, they pay you when you get enough readership to your publication (similar to YouTube).
  • If you trend in a category or write for a popular publication on Medium, you can get quite a lot of traffic. With that said, gaming their algorithm is a lot harder than it used to be.
  • If you're just starting out, Medium content tends to rank faster than a brand spanking new domain.
Cons of Medium
  • Lack of longterm control. I had a company once that migrated away from Medium to Wordpress. Medium advertises a simple content export but the reality is that their exporter sucks and if you run into trouble, customer service is close to non existent.
  • Subscriber features are weak at best. - Medium added a "build your list" CTA component for authors but it isn't great. If you want to own your list longterm, Medium isn't necessarily the way to go.
  • Medium is starting to create reader paywalls. As a reader, I'm increasingly locked out of Medium based content. I'm not sure when my "month" resets, but it's October 3rd and I am already getting bombarded with Upgrade messages. As you can see from the screenshot below I only have 2 free articles left on the month. For me, this is just a reminder that I'm at the mercy of whatever Medium decides.

    06gCK8z.png
I use Medium as a syndication channel and testing ground for specific types of writing, but if I have the choice, I put the work I really care about elsewhere.

I hope this is helpful. Whatever you choose, if you put value out there I'm sure you can transcend the platform choice and prevail.
 
artsci said:
Here's what it comes down to for me:

Pros of Medium
  • Slightly easier to manage. Looks nice out of the box.
  • If you're a Medium Partner, they pay you when you get enough readership to your publication (similar to YouTube).
  • If you trend in a category or write for a popular publication on Medium, you can get quite a lot of traffic. With that said, gaming their algorithm is a lot harder than it used to be.
  • If you're just starting out, Medium content tends to rank faster than a brand spanking new domain.
Cons of Medium
  • Lack of longterm control. I had a company once that migrated away from Medium to Wordpress. Medium advertises a simple content export but the reality is that their exporter sucks and if you run into trouble, customer service is close to non existent.
  • Subscriber features are weak at best. - Medium added a "build your list" CTA component for authors but it isn't great. If you want to own your list longterm, Medium isn't necessarily the way to go.
  • Medium is starting to create reader paywalls. As a reader, I'm increasingly locked out of Medium based content. I'm not sure when my "month" resets, but it's October 3rd and I am already getting bombarded with Upgrade messages. As you can see from the screenshot below I only have 2 free articles left on the month. For me, this is just a reminder that I'm at the mercy of whatever Medium decides.

    06gCK8z.png
I use Medium as a syndication channel and testing ground for specific types of writing, but if I have the choice, I put the work I really care about elsewhere.

I hope this is helpful. Whatever you choose, if you put value out there I'm sure you can transcend the platform choice and prevail.
Click to expand...

Bro, they only do this to people who want their content to be featured by the Medium team.

If you allow this they will push your article to their newsletter etc but they will also paywall it.

That's like a marriage with Medium and pretty much overkill, but I guess some people enjoy the easy fame and money they may get.
 
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