“Boosted” on Medium: What Does It Mean?

An interview with Medium’s VP of Content and Director of Product about what Boosted does and means.

Image created by Author, showing author pointing at the “Boost” circled and the “Boost” with an arrow pointed towards it.

Imagine you write a story that means everything to you.

Imagine you get a notification that Medium chose to boost it.

Imagine you watch it go viral, getting tens of thousands of views as people — the people who need to read it, the people who are craving your voice — get to see it on their dashboard.

Screenshot of author’s story stats. Show a graph of a story Boosted on Medium, with around 30k views total.

They click on it, they read it, they clap and they’re so excited that they had the chance to read it.

That’s the power of Medium’s Boost functionality.

This article will give you both the short answer and the long answer to what is what does it mean to be Boosted on Medium.

(I’m transcribing the video I recorded above, so no matter if you prefer to listen, watch, or read, you’ll get almost exactly the same content in either video or article format!)

Table of Contents

Introductions
The Short Answer: What does it mean to be boosted on Medium?
Diving Deeper Into Boosted
∘ How can I get my story Boosted on Medium?
∘ Anecdata: what gets Boosted on Medium?
∘ What happens when your story gets Boosted?
∘ How does Boosted work with Medium’s Algorithm?
∘ What’s the difference between Distribution and Boosted?
∘ Why develop the Boosted feature?
∘ Can writers with zero followers still get Boosted?
∘ Do certain publications have more Boost power?
∘ A new system of curation? Get paid to be a curator on Medium?
∘ What’s coming next on the Medium Boosted roadmap?