As we all know, creating great content is only half the battle - and what does “great content” even mean, anyway? It’s so subjective. That’s a whole different topic in itself and, actually, the folks at Sparktoro just published a great article discussing it.
Wow, a tangent already and we’re one paragraph in.
Let’s get back on track.
As discussed, creating “great content” is only half the battle. Making sure people see it and engage with it, so it can have the impact on your business that you want it to, is the other half. And one that very few businesses actually succeed with. Sad, but true.
Why? Well, lots of reasons - the competition for attention is fierce, and you’re not just battling with your direct competitors for it. Search engines and social media platforms have killed organic reach, and, frankly, very few businesses are actually actively promoting their content anyway.
Put that all together and it’s no wonder why most businesses are getting low views and impressions, and almost no engagement on their content (and no, Dave from the office down the hall liking your LinkedIn posts is not what we’re talking about when we mean “engagement” - but thanks Dave!).
So what’s the answer? Promote your content, of course. Sounds simple but it’s true.
But what if you struggle with that? We often get told that a lack of time is the biggest factor behind businesses not promoting their content. If that is the case for you, then we highly recommend looking into a content promotion platform or tool to help you.
RELATED: Why You Should Invest In A Content Promotion Platform
And two of the most popular today are Medium (you’ve probably heard of them) and Converge (that’s us *waves*).
And something we often get asked is; how are the platforms different, and which one best suits my content strategy?
The best way to answer this is to compare Converge and Medium, share the strengths and weaknesses of both platforms and give you all the information you need to make that decision.
Read on and enjoy, friend! :)
Understanding the Platforms
Before we start comparing, it's essential to understand what each platform offers.
Medium is a content hosting platform where anyone can become a member and write and publish their thoughts, stories, and ideas. It's widely appreciated for its clean design, ease of use, and diverse community of readers and writers. From thought-leaders to independent writers, you'll find a wide range of voices and perspectives on Medium.
Converge is a content promotion platform where, similar to Medium, any business can become a member and publish their articles. It’s also appreciated for its clean design and for how easy it is to use. You’ll find businesses of all sizes publishing and engaging with content on Converge.
The main difference between the two is that Converge actively promotes its member’s content daily. Medium simply hosts it.
The focus for Converge is to ensure your written content gets seen by more of your target audience, to boost things like brand awareness, branded search volume, engagement and a better ROI on your content efforts.
Who They're For
While both platforms will accommodate a broad range of content, they cater to different audiences. Medium hosts a diverse array of topics, welcoming all writers to share their unique perspectives. Whether you're a seasoned journalist, a budding writer, or a thought leader in your industry, Medium will host your content.
Converge, meanwhile, is best suited for businesses and agencies regularly producing and sharing written B2B content. While they take content from businesses in almost every industry, they vet every article that’s published to ensure minimum quality standards are met.
Content Promotion and Reach
Both platforms promise to help your content reach a wider audience, but they do so in different ways.
Medium relies on its established network of over 100 million readers and its algorithmic curation to bring your content to the right people. It's a community-driven platform where the quality of your work can lead to more readers and followers over time.
It’s an elegant system that we see search engines and social media platforms deploy, and that established audience is an awesome benefit, even if there is an algorithm to deal with and a lot of competition for attention.
Converge, by contrast, takes a more proactive approach to content promotion. Once you've published content on Converge, it automatically enters their promotional queue. From there, Converge pushes your content out to its combined audiences across its website, social channels, business influencers, and partner newswires and syndication platforms (with audiences in the tens of millions) every day.
It does the promotion for you. Continuously.
And it should be noted that content on Converge is promoted equally, regardless of the size of business that published it. And there’s no algorithm to deal with, either. If your content is relevant to a certain audience, it will be promoted to that audience as much as any other relevant content.
Now let’s take a look at what each platform offers..
Comparing the offering
Converge
- The Content Promotion Is Done For You: Once you’ve published your content on Converge (which only takes a couple of minutes), the platform takes over from there. At this point you can relax knowing that your content is going to be promoted every day across social media, and via Converge’s newswire and syndication partners, and sources of influence. It’s almost hands-off content promotion, but not quite.
- Analytics Feedback: You will see how much additional exposure Converge has generated for your content via your user dashboard. It shows how many views and clicks your content gets daily, weekly, monthly or yearly. Useful to know, and it can help you with your long term content strategy too, as you’ll quickly see which of your articles are resonating with your audience and which aren’t.
- It’s SEO Friendly: Converge allows for the republishing of content originally posted on other platforms (such as your own blog). And it uses canonical links to ensure that the SEO value of the original content is not compromised, which is a crucial feature for businesses looking to maintain their SEO strategy while benefiting from Converge's promotional capabilities.
- It’s Free To Access For Readers: The primary audience of Converge consists of business professionals and owners primarily from the UK and USA. There are no barriers to accessing content such as subscriber walls or paywalls, making the content available to any visitor of the site.
- There’s Simple Pricing: Converge offers two very affordable subscription tiers, along with a free 30-day trial that allows users to publish two articles to see how it all works. The two paid plans provide options to publish and amplify a certain number of articles per month (up to 2 or 5), track content performance, and offer savings for yearly payments. So, you can choose the option that fits both your content output and your budget.
Medium
- Access To An Open Platform: Medium is a platform where anyone can write. It hosts a wide array of content from thought-leaders, journalists, experts, and individuals with unique perspectives. The platform encourages the sharing of insightful and dynamic thinking on any topic and it’s both easy to sign up and publish content to.
- An Active Community: Medium has an engaged and active community, and serves as a space where ideas can be shared and spread, although Medium itself does not actively share or promote any content that is published on its platform.
- Monetization Options: Writers can make money by publishing on Medium if they join their Partner Program (you need to have at least 100 followers and have published at least one article before you can join it). Writers are paid based on the engagement their articles receive from Medium members.
- Ad-Free Experience: Medium creates a clean user experience and avoids relying on advertising as many publishers do by charging its readers to access the platform.
In the next section, we'll be looking at some of the key differences between these platforms and how they may impact your decision to choose one over the other.
Converge vs Medium: Key Differences and Similarities
In this section, we will compare Converge and Medium based on several factors such as audience, content promotion, monetization, and ease of use.
Similarities:
Ease of Use
Both Converge and Medium are designed to be user-friendly platforms where you can easily upload and share your content. Converge promotes ease of uploading content and has a straightforward process for content promotion. Medium also provides a range of publishing tools and promotes ease of sharing your thinking on any topic.
Differences:
Audience
Both Converge and Medium have a wide audience reach. Medium’s is more baked-in, whereas Converge’s audience is made up of the sum of its parts - its owned channels, newswire and syndication partners, and sources of influence.
Converge's audience is primarily made up of business professionals and owners from the UK and USA, with some readership coming from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India.
Medium’s audience, on the other hand, is fully global and reaches consumers as well as professionals.
Content Promotion
Converge and Medium handle content promotion differently.
Converge actively promotes its users' content across its website, social channels, business influencers, and partner newswires and syndication platforms to ensure that the content gets in front of as many of the right people as possible. The reach across all of these channels is in the tens of millions, but because articles are promoted based on the content topic and categories under which they are published, the promotion is focused to reach, as far as is possible, only the audience you want to reach rather than everyone.
Medium does not actively promote users' content. However, its vast reader base and algorithm-based content recommendation system can help in getting the content in front of potential readers.
Monetization
Monetization is another area where these two platforms differ.
Converge does not provide a direct way to earn money from your content. Their focus is on promoting your content to enhance your brand's visibility, recognition and reputation, all of which may lead to business growth.
Medium has a Partner Program that allows writers to earn money based on how much engagement their stories receive from Medium members. The more claps a story gets, the more money the writer can potentially earn. Although be aware that the vast majority of writers on Medium (94%) earn less than $100 per month.
So, what do you think? It’s time for the TL:DR
It’s clear that both Converge and Medium can be excellent platforms for sharing and promoting content, depending on your specific needs and goals.
If your content is primarily B2B focused and you want active promotion of your content to significantly more of your target audience, increasing your readership, building your brand and getting a better ROI from your content marketing efforts, then Converge might be the better choice.
If on the other hand, if you’re looking to monetize your content, Medium would be the better option.