WRITING | MEDIUM
4 Ways Medium Should Improve their Analytics for Writers
A simple request for better data analytics from one small writer on this massive platform
I published my first Medium article in late 2020. Discouraged by the lack of instant success, I didn’t write at all in 2021 (that’s on me, of course). Back in January, I decided to start writing more. In just a few months, I was hooked.
By June, I knew I wanted to write more seriously. And this month I started writing (almost) every day.
Here’s the thing: I love data. So of course I check my Stats often (even when I know I shouldn’t). I’ve published 7 articles this month on a variety of topics. And thanks to this, my overall stats have improved.
But I am so. damn. frustrated by the amount of data Medium gives us as writers. So if I could have my way, here’s what I’d love to see in my Stats Dashboard.
1) Give us a better daily data breakdown
Clearly, I’ve had a spike in views the last few days, awesome! But which articles did they come from? Were they shared internally or is that traffic coming from external sources?
I’m a data-driven gal, I want to know these things! Clicking into each article’s stats is time-consuming and underwhelming. I don’t want to spend my precious writing time trying to analyze each article one by one.
In my opinion: It would be much easier to just click the bar on the graph and see which articles have data for that day.
2) Allow for custom date ranges
I love the ‘Last 30 Days’ view, but what if I want to see how my stats changed month over month? Right now, I have to wait until the start of a new month to get a solid number for the previous month. And there’s no comparison of month-over-month changes!
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This could just be the marketer in me talking, but comparing what happens between two timeframes is so important. How else am I supposed to know if publishing more articles than the previous month actually worked?
3) Provide how many claps and comments are on each article
I recently wondered which of my articles are most engaging so far. Without understanding these metrics clearly displayed in the dashboard, I have to manually go through and document engagement for each article.
Right now, I only have 23 articles published. But if I keep up with my writing goals eventually I’ll have 100+.
Tracking article trends over time for individual articles is a manual process with the current dashboard. Putting these metrics front and center (or at least in the far right column) would allow me to update my tracking faster.
4) Let writers group and see article stats for multiple articles at once
I write articles about a few different topics. This goes against the wisdom of “pick a niche and stick with it” but that’s not my end goal. I want to share my current knowledge, what I’m learning, and my life experiences overall. My articles generally focus on marketing, UX design, or writing.
But, I don’t publish for one topic all at the same time. Seeing how articles for certain topics compare to each other is difficult in the current setup.
A few benefits of creating these features for writers:
- We would know if increasing article post frequency or length is enough to gain the growth we want.
- We could understand if focusing on certain topics extends our reach to audiences who engage with our content.
- We could test. This part is so important to me. Headlines are a major way to gain views on your articles. Better analytics would let us test headline length, format, and more.
- Tracking our growth is easier. I’d spend more time on the platform (which is what Medium wants, right?) and more time writing if I understood my biggest driver of growth.
I know I’m on the outside looking in — just one writer on a platform with thousands. And I know that creating new tools and features is often easier said than done. But hopefully, someone, somewhere who works at Medium might find this feedback helpful for their product development.
Fellow writers: what other data would you find most useful in your Stats?
