Buckle Up For the New Changes Coming to Medium in August!
Hint: Whoever said high audience engagement was a vanity metric will soon be rethinking their opinion
Are you ready to surf the waves of change yet again?
For a two-year Medium veteran like me, I normally don’t get too excited by such announcements because other than a few tweaks here and there (to be more in alignment with the latest changes), I tend to stick to my usual routine and topics, namely:
🎈3- 4 articles per week (a combo of long form and short form).
🎈Personal stories.
For the following reasons: 👇
✅Pacing myself works for me without overwhelming myself and avoiding burnout.
✅It’s my passion — I have always written personal stories because that is what I love writing about.
👉From what I understand we will be seeing a major shift in favor of personal stories probably to counteract the onslaught of AI-generated articles as this excerpt from The Medium Blog explains: “Over the last few years, our members have told us in no uncertain terms that they are tired of clickbait and content mills, want ‘get rich quick’ siloed into a constrained area, don’t want stories that are generated by AI, and, in particular, want to read human stories that deliver actual human wisdom.”
👉I have also been blessed with high audience engagement since I was a newbie. Some referred to it as a vanity metric. I beg to differ. Especially if you are consistently delivering the goods as well. By that I mean not just the engagement but the quality of writing and solid views.
And finally, with the new wave of changes coming in August, engagement is going to be a crucial factor in earnings.
Here is how Susie Kearley breaks it down for us in her enlightening post:
“New story earning calculation = (Engagement points + follower bonus + boost bonus) x Read rate (adjusted)
Most people don’t gain a lot of followers after publishing. Most of us rarely get boosted. So for most of us, this simply means that engagement levels will affect your earnings now.”
👉The new changes will emphasize quality over quantity which may come as a blow to those who are intent on being a human content mill.
Buster from The Medium Blog explains: “We’ve also heard from many authors that they don’t like how the Internet incentivizes quantity over quality. They are tired of the creator treadmill…Tell your story rather than churn out content. Take the time to go deeper, research longer, and edit more. We will always be shifting our payment and distribution incentives for this type of writing.”
As of June, this is a graph showing the distribution of earnings among Medium writers👇
👉 I have found that there are 2 camps among my readers — those who value a higher Read Ratio even though the number of readers may be less and those who are happy with a decent amount of views.
I tend to go with the flow.
There was a time when I had 100% Read Ratios for my long forms, (3-digit views), and then it tanked to the 30s but made up in views and now the RRs are back up probably due to the introduction of the new boost feature.
5 boosts later, I am hardly complaining — just grateful to be here and writing👇
👉However, from August onwards, Read Ratios will be calculated based on how many people have read your story for 30 seconds or more therefore those with higher RRs earn more.
So if earnings are a goal, those with higher RRs will be in the winning camp.
👉There are a number of other changes in store as well:
- More countries are being added to the partner program such as Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Gibraltar, Hungary, India, Liechtenstein, Malaysia, Malta, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates.
- The 100-follower requirement for newbies is being taken out in lieu of membership in order to participate in the MPP.
- Axing the referral bonus program.
At the end of the day, I don’t think I need to make any major changes to my writing in light of the latest changes.
I am fine doing what I have always done, which is:
🎈Writing quality content that appeals to readers without spamming their inbox.
🎈Highlighting, clapping, and commenting on as many stories as I can.