Check Your Earnings! Medium Just Paid Me A $50 Bonus
A perfect start to the weekend. I hope you received the bonus too
It’s worth taking a look at the Earnings today because Medium has started a new bonus round. After being one of the lucky ones to get the $500 bonus last month and being one of the top 1,000 writers in regard to member engagement, this month I got a $50 bonus, and it’s called the ‘June Member List Bonus’. For the amount of money converted into euros minus taxes, I can buy my son a pack of swim diapers for our summer holidays. 😋
Maybe you‘re in the Bonus Club too!
I know from Kristina Segarra who also joined the $100 Dollar Club last month and is celebrating her one-year anniversary on Medium (Congratulations!) that there are other writers on this platform who received $100 or even $500 again.
After so much talk about the bonus in May and speculation about whether it would be a ‘one-time bonus’, here it goes. The $500 left many writers scratching their heads and writers had complained that they would have liked the bonus to be split. Instead of giving $500 to 1,000 people, they said it would be great if the bonus was split among many instead of just a few.
So my tip is to definitely take a look at Earnings today. Maybe you’ll be on the list too! — such as Rajesh Vairapandian
Vocal pays you a bonus on a regular basis
Like Kristina, I think the bonus distribution might have something to do with Medium’s competitors. I read a few articles on this topic in May. I know from Vocal in particular that they pay out a bonus on a regular basis.
For example, Terry Mansfield recently wrote about his surprise when he received a $50 bonus from Vocal. (At this very moment, he’s publishing an article about his $100 bonus on Medium as well). For writers, it can make sense to publish their articles on multiple platforms, depending on what their goal is. Dr Mehmet Yildiz for example writes for the big three: Medium, Vocal, and News Break. News Break, Roz Warren reports, pays writers a base salary and additional dollars based on the reader's engagement. Each platform seems to have its own system.
The market of blogging and writing online is undergoing changes
With over ten years of experience in marketing, I always find it exciting to see such developments. It definitely leads to people talking more about Medium and also the other social media platforms in comparison.
From a business perspective, in general: How do you find out if someone is willing to pay (because there is always a Pay Wall on these platforms) for your knowledge and business idea?
Simple: You look to see if there are OTHER people/companies in your field who have already an online business and are successfully selling their services (a platform where you have easy access to writing your stories and earning money for your efforts) there.
And if that’s the case, then rejoice! Why?
Because it means that your idea works and that money is being made in your market! Medium was the pioneer and News Break and Vocal are now disrupting the market. Otherwise, there would be an unchallenged market leader and the market, and thus for example the rules of the Medium ‘game’ would not change at all or only slowly.
If you think Medium is hard, try blogging on your own!
Now there are surely one or the other among us who will ask themselves again, why not me? Why the others? Is Medium even the right platform for me? Should I move on to another platform? Vishnu*s Virtues asks another more relevant question:
I used to be a travel blogger for a year but I earned almost no money for it — but I had other privileges (I will write about that in one of my next articles).
Reasons to stick to Medium
…and continue the journey (and manage to get one of the (hopefully) upcoming bonuses, based on Vishnus article:
- Medium provides the technology to publish our stories
- Its (new)features are simple and easy to understand
- Medium showcases our work to readers who may be interested
- Medium improved its algorithm in May and made it even stronger in regard to help to promote our work.
- The viewing experience is getting better and Medium is constantly updating the user experience
- Writers can earn on this platform simply by writing and publishing
As Vishnus says ‘We are in the golden time of blogging thanks to Medium. A place to write, be read, and earn some money.’
The bonus is a great recognition but ‘just’ one sweet reward for writing about your thoughts and feelings. There’s much more to it.
