Titles, Dave, titles. That’s the biggest difference I can see. The story that did well has a title that inspires curiosity. It’s not obviously left-leaning at all. If I were a right-winger, I’d see that title and think, “At last! We’re getting some traction on Medium. I want to read this.” The left-winger looks at it and thinks, “What? That’s alarming! I’d better check this out.”

Run all the those titles through Coschedule’s Headline Analyzer and see what you scores you get.

Two other things I’ve learned is that people are more likely to respond to something that prompts a strong emotional reaction and they generally like to know what to expect from an article. Unless they’ve heard of Dave Volek, they’re not interested in why he should be president. They recognize that this is probably humor, but it’s not clear whether or not the concept is going to be funny enough to be worth their time.

So, yeah, people like to fight, especially now when everyone is so freaked out, but that’s not why your one story did so much better than the others. Nobody’s going to read your stuff if they can’t get past the title and the other titles weren’t interesting enough.

If you’re a big shot with 100,000 followers, your fans will read your grocery list. Those of us further down the food chain have to try a lot harder.