How to Get Referred Members on Medium

Tip #4 will surprise you

This article has two parts.

• The first one is SEO optimized and absolutely boring to read.
• The second one is short.

What’s a referred member?

A referred member is a reader who became a (paying) Medium member using your referral link. Here’s an example of a referral link:

As you may have noticed, Medium gives the possibility to customize the text of the offer. Do not neglect this opportunity to showcase your wit. Scientific studies showed that imaginative messages increased conversion by 17% on average.

Why and when did Medium introduce the referral program?

Medium introduced the functionality in August 2021 for the greatest pleasure of its writers. Finally, they had an opportunity to put their marketing skills to good use.

From one day to the other, my Twitter feed flooded with offers from Medium writers. Some gave monetary kickbacks, “any reader using my referral link to subscribe to Medium will get a $5 Amazon-Kindle voucher.” Some were more original and sent postcards to readers using their referral link.

But the best offer came from Bob Merckel, who offered a fresh mackerel to anyone using his referral link to become a Medium member.

Overall, the operation was a big success for Medium as all its writers talked about the platform to their families, friends, colleagues, and strangers on the streets.

Why would anyone want referred members?

Two words: passive income.

A reader who signs up to Medium with your referral link will give you a significant chunk of their membership fees each month.

Almost 50%! Can you believe it? I find this extremely generous.

Someone who pays monthly $5 will earn you $2.27, and someone who pays yearly $50 will get you $24.12 per year or $2.01 per month. Compared to the average payout for Medium articles, it’s no small amount.

What are the drawbacks of having referred members?

One word: pressure.

Yes, referred members put pressure on the writers. Who would risk disappointing the people paying a monthly fee to read their stuff? Having referred members means you will be less willing to explore new topics, new genres, or new voices. Since you’ll want to keep your referred members satisfied, you’ll serve them the same dish without end.

The very same dish that convinced them to subscribe to your “restaurant” in the first place.

And imagine if your referrals come from members of your family!! Do you REALLY want them to read ALL your stories?

I don’t think so.

A confession

I wrote all this for two reasons: to increase reading time and to make my article more SEO friendly in case search engines would like to use it as a reference for the topic of referrals and referred memberships on Medium.

All right, three reasons. I wanted to make the Merckel / Mackerel joke for a long time, and this was a great opportunity.

But, as we approach the 500 words mark, it’s time to deliver on the promise made in the title.

5 tips to get referred members on Medium

For this part, I will use the bullet point style. It’s short and to the point. And it makes search engines wag their numerical tails.

• Write articles. To get referred members, you need to be visible. If readers can’t find any of your articles, they won’t see your referral link either.
• Be shameless. Talk about Medium with your friends, colleagues, and strangers on the bus. The more “traffic” you create, the higher the chances someone will “convert” and use your referral link to become a Medium member.
• Write viral articles. Granted, this is easier said than done, but it works. Viral articles tend to be shared outside of Medium and therefore have a chance to land in your mother-in-law’s country club friends’ inboxes.
• Sell Mackerels at a fish market (or anything really). In other words, any time you sell a product is an opportunity to upsell your client with a Medium membership. For example, I’m teaching an online course on nothing, and at the beginning of each cohort, I offer my students to subscribe to Medium with my referral link.
• Write articles like this one. OK, I’m not gonna lie because I’m not sure this will work. But articles about referrals like this one have a chance to be picked up by search engines. Should it be the case, people searching for information about Medium referrals and referred memberships in the future will be directed here. And — who knows? — they might even use my referral link.

At the beginning of this article, I promised you two parts: a boring one that would tell you everything you already knew about referred memberships on Medium; and a short one.

It’s time for the short one.

The short part — or how many referred memberships I got so far

Unfortunately, I’m still in negative territory:

If you want to help, you’re welcome to do so. For example, ask your friends, colleagues, and family members to use my referral link to become Medium members.

Referrally yours.