MEDIUM, MY WAY

I Know I’m Not the First to Wonder: Does Editing a Viral Article Kill It?

And I won’t be the last, but no, I don’t think it does

Photo by Isaac Smith on Unsplash

Though I generally don’t read or write articles about Medium, now and then I can’t help myself. I watch my stats. I observe a phenomenon, I grow curious, I analyze, and I make a conclusion that is my truth. Still, my truth is unlikely to be everybody’s truth; and, because I’m impatient, I sometimes jump to conclusions.

My problem is I get excited when I discover something, and I want to share. Even more thrilling to me is the reader engagement that often follows. People will either tell me I’m full of baloney, or they tell me they saw what I saw. Either way, a conversation is started. And maybe a reader sees a pattern in their own work they could exploit for greater success in future. Win-win.

The last time I experimented, I fiddled with headlines.

I Upgraded Every Underperforming Headline And This is What Happened

A few days ago, an article I published on May 5 went mildly viral. I say “mildly,” though for me…