How To Use Medium: A Complete Guide

Updated October 7, 2023

Justin Cox
The Writing Cooperative
21 min readJan 5, 2018

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Photo by Dayne Topkin on Unsplash

I published my first Medium story (that’s what Medium calls articles or posts) on February 24, 2014. Over the nearly ten years since, I’ve learned a lot about the ins and outs of the platform while publishing hundreds of stories and amassing 100k(!) followers.

Medium constantly evolves and expands features, so whether you are a long-time user like me or a brand-new user, there’s always something new to discover. This guide collects all the tidbits and tips I’ve picked up along my Medium journey and aims to help you make the most out of your Medium experience.

Everything featured in this guide assumes you have a Medium account. If you’re not signed up yet, sign up and return ready to read.

After creating your account, personalize your bio and profile page. Think of your bio as your tagline. This short sentence appears everywhere your profile picture does and gives other Medium users a sense of who you are (and if they should follow you or not).

Ok, now that your account is ready to go, let’s get on with the guide.

Table of Contents

Read Stories and Follow Content

At its core, Medium is a great place to read amazing stories — from commentary to nonprofit resources, from laptop reviews to writing advice, from tech journalism to letters from the CEO — everything you’re interested in is found here.

There are two types of stories published on Medium: free and paywalled.

  • Free stories are available to anyone, even those without a Medium account.
  • Paywalled stories (previously called metered stories) are published behind Medium’s paywall, known as the Medium Partner Program. Paywalled stories are indicated by a yellow star and are only available to Medium members who pay a monthly fee.

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I help writers and nonprofits grow. Editor of The Writing Cooperative. Contact at JustinCox.com