In one of my previous posts I provided an easy way to import your Steemit articles into Medium. In this post, I'm explaining why I do.
My previous post on how to perform the import is located here: How to cross-post from Steemit to Medium
If you don't care about reading my previous post, but still wonder why it's important to import your articles into Medium. The primary reason is as part of the import process Medium embeds what's called a "canonical link" which is a piece of metadata that correctly links back to your source article.
Why Steemit?
Steemit allows you to capitalize on your work, as well as encourages people to interact with your work by motivating everyone economically. It seems like everyone is more inclined to up-vote or provide feedback on Steemit than on Medium. On Steemit, you can write an article, and as long as it is well written, you will most likely get an upvote or two. Medium, on the other hand, can have ten times the reach, and you might not even get a clap. I have an example of one of these articles here:
I posted this article on both Steemit and Medium. While Medium provided me with thousands of views for that article. I didn't get one clap. By comparison, when I posted this article on Steemit, I only got seven views, but I did get two upvotes.
I Love Markdown
Once you get used to markdown, it almost becomes second nature to post in it. You keep in mind your limitations. Those limitations enable you to keep a sense of how your end formatting will appear. Not to say that Medium's editor is all that bad. I quite like it. Especially the mobile version. It just isn't universal, and there have been times in the past that Medium has taken the liberty to change how the editor functions.
Since markdown is pretty universal, you can do things like build drafts in Grammarly or Stackedit, and import them into Steemit with a simple copy+paste. After a quick glance, once it's pasted in, the chances are that you are ready to publish with no changes to formatting. This isn't the case with Medium. If you build articles in the Medium editor, and if you copy+paste. You will have to review the formatting of the article, and make changes. You do need to make formatting changes when you cross-post. However, the import makes it a much less painful process.
Global Response
If I do a comparison of who I follow on both Medium and Steemit. Medium tends to have more people I follow that are American. While on Steemit I tend to lean more internationally. To me, this is a value-add for Steemit. It allows me to read how people in other cultures react to what I write, and how they interpret my writing.
Why Medium?
If you don't have a following, and you want your work to be seen, Medium for me is another great place to do that. You might not get any feedback or engagement, but way more people read my Medium articles. The stats for my articles don't compare. Some articles that I posted that are of the same content on Medium can rack up over a thousand views. By contrast, the same type of article published on Steemit will net me a couple dozen.
It sometimes takes more than seven days
Steemit's focus on the first seven days of content creation is an advantage for the blockchain, consensus, and finality, but at times can be a challenge for writers.
Many of the articles I have and had on my Medium front page and bookmarked inside of Medium were featured articles. A lot of those bookmarked articles have longer than a seven day age. It usually takes a couple of weeks to figure out if an article has an impact.
My articles on Medium tend to rack up views at a consistent, sometimes increasing rate months after being published. Steemit articles for me, tend to drop off significantly after that initial payout period. As a good chunk of my articles are underwear reviews. Underwear reviews tend to be a thing that people search for and find at a later date. Sometimes two to three months after the article is published. As the chart below for my David Archy Micro Modal boxer briefs illustrates:
This lag in views, in some ways can be both a blessing and a curse. I don't know whether or not a Medium article will be successful probably until 3-4 months down the road. While with Steemit you know within a day or two whether or not it will be successful.
Related Articles
A good chunk of views for my articles isn't actually from the direct links to articles themselves but from the related articles section. The related articles section for Medium is great at finding content that might be low in views, and a little old, but is still great content just undiscovered.
So What's My Point?
My main point is that both platforms provide different feature sets and advantages. However, both have their disadvantages as well. For me, it's best to cross-post between the two platforms to get as much exposure to readers, and the combined advantages as possible.
If I was a more successful writer, I might opt for one platform. However, since I'm not, I'll get the reads where I can get them.
P.S. If anyone knows a current app that will pull article views (not just upvotes, and replies) for Steemit. Please let me know in the comments.
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