I ran into the same situation and this is what I found out. For anyone running into the same predicament this comment is for you. Medium is both a publisher and a social media platform. Two separate areas. Medium has full support for AMP and Facebook Instant Articles if you are a publication yourself. If you are using Medium to host your own website you can optimize your website for Facebook and Google. If you are just making posts to the generic Medium blog, your social media traffic will be limited to Medium. Medium can be used like WordPress, or it can be used like a social media platform. They only give those tools to website developers, and so far have not announced any plans to offer support for users on their direct network. The user does not own the right to their software unless you pay Medium to host your own website. That is the unfortunate catch 22.
In better words, you have to be a Medium publication with your own website to have that tool. Medium announced in 2016 that a publisher or company using its new Medium for Publishers platform will have the option to post content as Instant Articles. It costs $5/month. That will also allow you to more easily get your stories out there. Essentially like having your own website through Medium and you have a special URL. Only Medium publications can control the distribution of their own content. Great tips below. You can also have Medium email you the entire HTML code of all of your posts, so you can easily transfer them to your own hosted website.
