How to get your story nominated for Medium’s Boost program
What is Medium’s Boost program and What Can You Do to Get Your Story Boosted?
Calling all developers!
Are you passionate about a specific library, language, or technology, and love sharing your knowledge and experience with others?
Do you have a deep understanding of your field and feel confident offering insights and valuable advice?
Does your writing aim to enrich the larger community of developers, programmers, and enthusiasts we’re all a part of?
If you answered yes to these questions (and especially if you’re looking to expand your reach on Medium!), we have some news for you.
Medium recently launched the Boost Nomination Pilot program, and I’m thrilled to share that In Plain English has been chosen as one of the nominators! This means that we have the opportunity to help elevate fantastic content from talented writers just like you.
So, what exactly is the Boost program?
Essentially, the Boost program seeks to discover “hidden gems” among articles and amplify their outreach.
The task of finding these “hidden gems” falls on the nominators — the editors of publications — like myself, while Medium’s prerogative is to “boost” the traffic these stories receive by highlighting them and bringing them to a wider audience.
For those curious about the benefits of the Boost program, here’s a stat that might interest you: typically, 95% of the stories boosted by Medium have gone on to receive a minimum of 500+ views within 2 weeks of getting boosted — with certain stories racking up 100,000+ views and counting.
For more details about the boost program, you can read the following articles:
Which stories are considered for nomination?
Now that you’re all caught up with the basics of what the Boost program is about, let’s delve into the criteria stories have to meet in order to be considered good enough for a nomination.
Medium has laid out three broad guidelines that determine whether a story qualifies for the Boost program or not:
- Story content
- Whether it enriches the life of the reader
- Whether it’s human-created content (and not AI-generated)
2. Author’s experience
- Does the story authentically reflect the author’s experience, and is the author sufficiently qualified to voice their opinion within the context of the story?
3. Craftsmanship
- Is the story grammatically sound, structured well, punctuated properly, and formatted appropriately?
- Does the story leave an impression on the reader?
To learn more about Medium’s content quality guidelines:
For those familiar with the In Plain English publications (JavaScript, Python, AWS, and AI in Plain English), as well as our Stackademic publication, we will nominate content if it broadly meets all or at least the majority of the following criteria:
- Is the story informative, substantive, and relevant for readers? In an era oversaturated with content lacking substance, it’s essential that the story is worth the reader’s time, enriching and adding value to their lives.
- Is the story original and authored by a human without AI assistance? Stories primarily composed of AI-generated content will not be considered for nomination.
- Is the content free of plagiarism? Plagiarised content is immediately disqualified from being considered for nomination, and, if found, will be removed from the publication.
- Does the story genuinely convey the author’s experience? For example, stories from beginners are acceptable, but they should reflect the authentic experience that comes from being a beginner. Similarly, for stories that are highly technical or address controversial issues in technical fields, the content should ideally be authored by a qualified individual who is a subject matter expert.
- While we encourage effective SEO optimization practices, stories with clickbait titles solely aimed at driving traffic through SEO strategies and lacking in substantive content, will not be considered for nomination.
- Is the story grammatically correct, free of typos, free of misspelled technology names, and formatted and structured correctly (containing appropriate title, subtitle, headings, code blocks, etc.)?
- Are the sources appropriately cited (with links) for images, graphs, facts, figures, etc.?
Reiterating in simpler terms: stories will be nominated if they are impactful, add value to readers, make a difficult subject matter more accessible for the reader, are genuine personal/professional experiences presented in a coherent manner, and are insightful with your unique take on the subject.
In addition, stories with upwards of 5-minute read time are preferred. This is because the Plain English team believes this is the minimum read-time needed for a story to have quality, substance, and something worth saying that can truly add value to the reader.
Having said that, despite the objective criteria listed above, our team will reserve a dash of subjective opinion while nominating a story.
What kind of stories will we refrain from nominating?
One thing to keep in mind if you’re writing educational content (how-to guides, step-by-step tutorials), is to ensure you are not just regurgitating what you found in a YouTube tutorial but actually writing to teach like a good educator (perhaps like a YouTuber who got you interested in programming or technology in the first place) using appropriate language, analogy, examples, etc.
Ensure your content feels authentic, drawing from your genuine personal and professional experience. After reading your story, readers should feel that their time was well spent and that they have gained a deeper understanding of the topic.
When discussing a negative experience with a technology, avoid turning it into a rant. Constructive criticism is welcome, as it informs the reader about potential pitfalls and presents a coherent argument for why the technology might be avoided, rather than appearing as a personal agenda.
Like making bold or sensational claims? We’ll consider it acceptable if you can back it up with facts and figures. But remember that sensational claims that are mere clickbait, while offering little to no substance in their argument, will not be considered in the least for nomination.
To sum up, we will refrain from nominating certain types of stories such as:
- Generic listicles for example, “Top 10 React Libraries for 2024”, “Top 5 Programming Languages to Learn in 2024”, etc
- Obsolete programming or technical topics
- Promotional pieces that primarily market the author’s service, product, or website
- Doesn’t offer what it promises in the title
- Stories about cryptocurrency
- Unconstructive criticism or sensationalist clickbait headlines (for example, “React is dead, here’s what’s replacing it”) that offer little in terms of substance
Also, expect to not get nominated if your stories contain the following:
- AI-generated content
- NSFW images
- Profane language
- Sexual innuendos
- Wrong grammar, poor formatting, typos, and spelling errors
- Self-promotion or full of affiliate links
- Inappropriate or clickbait titles
For more details, please read Medium’s quality guidelines. It’ll definitely clear a lot of doubts.
FAQs
Q: Will you nominate my story for boosting if it’s not in your publications?
A: Generally, our team will prioritise selecting stories from our publications to avoid the risk of duplicate nominations. However, if an exceptional story catches our attention, we may make an exception and consider it for nomination.
Q: Is nomination guaranteed if I submit stories to ‘In Plain English’ publications or Stackademic?
A: No, it isn’t. For a detailed answer, refer to the above sections on “What kind of stories are considered good for nomination?” and “What kind of stories will we refrain from nominating?”.
Q: Is the time of publishing a factor in determining whether my story gets nominated?
A: Our team would prefer to nominate new articles — the newer it is, the better. However, an exceptional story from within a six-month period may still be considered for nomination.
Q: Whom can I reach out to if I want to nominate one of my stories or drafts?
A: You can reach out to our Editorial team via our community Discord channel. Here you will have a direct line to the team where you can request to be nominated, ask questions, seek guidance and clarification, and more.
Q: Will my stories get picked for nomination if I don’t nominate them myself?
A: Yes, it might get nominated if it fits with our vision of a good story. In this case, our editors will send you private notes on the selected stories.
Q: If my story got nominated, does it mean it’s getting boosted?
A: No, Medium’s curation team determines whether our nomination gets accepted or not.
Q: How will I know if my story got boosted?
A: You will receive an email from Medium if your story has been selected.
Q: Will I know if my story didn’t get boosted?
A: No. Owing to the sheer number of content, don’t expect any response in case your story didn’t get picked for boosting.
Q: Will I receive an explanation for why my story wasn’t nominated?
A: In case a story isn’t nominated despite it meeting all or most of the above criteria, a writer may or may not receive an explanation (if they reach out) simply because of the sheer volume of content our team deals with.
Bear in mind that we’re only able to nominate 5 stories in a week, and at most 20 per month while prioritising new stories.
Final Words
Remember, boosting is just one way to increase your outreach. Even if your writing style doesn’t align perfectly with Medium’s guidelines, the Plain English team will still publish your stories as long as they meet our content criteria.
It’s important to remember that Medium’s quality guidelines are not meant to restrict your writing style. Instead, they aim to guide you in producing high-quality content that appeals to a wide range of readers, regardless of your style or chosen topic.
If you do choose to use the Boost program, our advice is to focus first on writing quality technical content and adhere to the guidelines.
We wish you luck! I (and the Plain English team) will update this post with new details as we make progress with the Boost program and nominate stories. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.
