The Medium Show

Episode Summary: What Medium.com is, how it actually works, and 5 concrete ways it can help a podcaster or content creator build authority and exposure.

What You’ll Learn

• What Medium.com actually is: part blog, part social network, part self-publishing platform
• The mechanics: how recommending, responding, and publications work
• 5 concrete ways Medium can benefit a podcaster or content creator
• Why Medium is a genuinely good place to start writing a book, chapter by chapter

What Is Medium?

A site where anyone can write articles of any length on any topic — a genuine hybrid of blog, social media channel, online magazine, and self-publishing platform, popular with both internet personalities and major brands.

Facts & Figures

Launched in 2012 by Ev Williams (co-founder of both Twitter and Blogger). Unlike Twitter’s character limits, Medium has no writing length cap, and pulls in an estimated 40–50 million monthly visitors.

How to Use It

Log in with a Twitter or Facebook ID, customize the profile and bio, click “New Story” and start writing. A small + icon appears in blank space for adding photos; pasting a YouTube URL anywhere embeds the video automatically. Standard text formatting — headlines, block quotes, lists, bold, italic — is all supported by highlighting selected text.

The Social Side

Clicking the heart icon “recommends” a story (Medium’s version of a like) and turns it green — the author gets notified (can be disabled). Responding to a story surfaces that response on your own main feed. Other features include bookmarking favorites and creating publications (essentially a personal, curated magazine). Popular topics skew heavily toward tech, design, entrepreneurship, and self-development/lifestyle content.

Why Use Medium

It’s become a genuine daily reading habit — subscribing to topics of interest delivers articles straight to the inbox. It’s also a place to build writing muscle, gain brand exposure, and establish real authority around podcasting and content creation.

How Medium Can Benefit a Podcaster or Content Creator

Medium functions like any other social channel for promotion and marketing, but with a more thoughtful, “expert-in-the-room” feel — a genuinely strong place to stand out in a specific topic area.

1. More exposure for existing content. Write directly on Medium, or (common approach) keep the primary blog elsewhere and cross-post with a link back — quick to do, and gets content in front of more eyes. Imagery and video matter here since Medium is a visual platform.
2. Start a Medium publication. A way to curate a specialized “newspaper” around a specific niche — genuinely useful for building brand authority and collaborating with others.
3. Teach. Medium handles tutorials, how-to guides, and embedded video well — top-10 lists and “ultimate guides” perform especially well, so it’s a natural place to flex teaching skills.
4. Network. Recommend and respond to other writers’ work frequently.
5. Write a book. Genuinely — several writers have published entire books chapter by chapter directly on Medium. For anyone with a book goal, it’s a legitimately good place to start.