Medium for Higher Ed: Is it really worth my time?

We know, we know, another blog post about yet another social media/blogging platform. If you haven’t heard of Medium or if you’ve resorted to covering your ears every time someone mentions the latest ‘it’ platform, just hear us out.

Medium is a blogging platform founded in 2012 by Evan Williams and Biz Stone, some of the people who brought us Twitter. It comprises a simple yet multi-pronged approach to blogging; acting as both a publishing and promotional platform. Medium, in its own words, is “a place where everyone has a story to share and the best ones are delivered to you. Every day, thousands of people turn to Medium to publish their ideas and perspectives.”

In really basic terms, Medium acts as both Reddit and WordPress combined. It’s a platform that allows users to write, publish, and share content to a relevant community.

How does Medium work for Higher Ed?

The first thing to note about Medium is that it places an emphasis on quality content rather than on online visibility, SEO or site quality. It’s the viewpoint that matters not the views. This is a refreshing idea when you consider how hard it is to get your voice heard on most platforms, without an army of followers to promote you. So, for all you tired marketers out there, this could be for you. If you know you’ve got a clever, unique and genuinely useful blog post up your sleeve, why not try it out on Medium. If it’s good enough, it might just get read.

If your university wants to set up a Medium account, it’s actually pretty easy. It employs a straightforward WYSIWYG editor that enables users to add headlines, images and video. There’s plenty of room for customization and each post contains an estimated reading-time in the sub-headline as well as social sharing buttons at the foot.

Now, if we’ve managed to pique your interest in the medium of Medium, allow us to share with you some truly diverse and impressive Medium posts from universities. (We apologize in advance for the Medium-sized rabbit hole you’re about to fall down.)

Draper University - ASU Guest Blog Post: College Burnout

Harvard University - Harvard faculty share lessons from work and life

University of Northampton - 9 ways to be a marketing bad ass

University of California- Transfer Students Deserve Better Road Maps

Gettysburg College - The Ten Commandments for New College Students

Hillsdale College- Philosophy and the University

Medium is still a platform that’s developing but there does seem to be huge potential for Higher Education and content marketing success on Medium. The platform also features an impressive analytics dashboard denoting views, reads, read ratio and recommends. This gives you valuable insights into what content is hitting a homerun with your audience and what content is falling a little short of the mark. There’s also endless possibilities for using Medium as part of your student recruitment or research strategies.

What do you reckon, is Medium something your institution is going to embrace? If you’re already a Medium convert let us know in the comments.