Summary

The author discusses their strategies for dealing with perceived inequalities in engagement on Medium, focusing on reciprocity, genuine interactions, and curating their following list.

Abstract

The article titled "Genuine vs fake on the battlefield of Medium engagement" reflects the author's personal journey with the challenges of receiving genuine engagement on their Medium articles. Initially frustrated by the disparity between the claps they received versus those they gave, the author has developed a method to manage their interactions on the platform. They now choose not to support those who do not reciprocate engagement, ignore superficial interactions, and focus on building relationships with readers who provide meaningful feedback. The author plans to refine their following list to include only those who demonstrate genuine interest and engagement with their content, ensuring that their efforts are reciprocated with thoughtful comments, ample claps, and thorough reading.

Opinions

The author has a negative view of one-sided engagement on Medium, where they give support but receive little in return.
They believe that Medium's clapping feature was intended to allow readers to express their appreciation for articles based on personal preference.
The author values their time and energy and prefers to invest it in those who reciprocate by engaging genuinely with their content.
They consider it selfish to expect reciprocal engagement but rationalize it as a necessary choice due to the value of their time and energy.
The author distinguishes between genuine followers who read and engage thoughtfully and "hit-and-runners" who provide minimal, superficial interaction.
They plan to streamline their following list to maintain connections with only those who are great creators and followers, ensuring a community of mutual support and engagement.
The author contemplates naming those they choose not to follow but decides against it to avoid potential issues with Medium's staff.
They invite readers to share their thoughts on the author's approach to engagement on the platform.

Genuine vs fake on the battlefield of Medium engagement

The best three ways I resort towards the fake one.

The first frustration I had when I started to write on Medium was regarding the number of claps I was receiving compared to the number of claps I was giving.

If you are one of those who have been following me since the beginning, then you know about this article where I am talking about this frustration.

Read this, even if you are not a gamer.

This is about those all 50 claps.

medium.com

The good part is that I have overcome it.

The bad part is that this is still happening.

And I am not too fond of it. (Grammarly told me to choose this instead of “I hate it”). Cool, haha!

Not because the desired claps don’t come. I presume that when Medium implemented this feature, it was something like this: You can give a specific number of claps depending on how much you like the article.

But because I have to resort to something I don’t like.

1. If someone I engaged with does not reciprocate, there is no way I will support him again.

This could be wrong.

I don’t care!

Medium gives a lot of choices.

This is the one I choose.

It is my time and energy. And I know every article needs them.

Why would I support you again if you are not intending to give back some of your time and energy?

Also, it might sound selfish.

I am not.

There are readers that I read, and I expect nothing from them.

Reason: they already put their time and energy into writing something great.

2. I won’t respond if someone is reading my articles without me doing so, and they give me only 2 or 3 claps, a random highlight, and some baby words.

Why would I? This is fake engagement

If he didn’t bother to hold the click on the clap feature for some seconds and wrote some relevant words, it means he didn’t even read the article for at least 30, which is very important.

And trust me, there are a lot of such hit-and-runners.

In the beginning, they fooled me a lot.

Now the chances are low to 0.

I focus on those genuine followers.

They read my article.

They don’t hesitate to clap 50 times.

They highlight what is interesting for them.

And they let me know these by leaving meaningful comments.

This is genuine engagement

3. The best thing I am planning is to reduce my following list.

In this way, I keep only those who matter: the great creators and followers.

For those, I won’t hesitate any moment to fully engage with — 50 claps, highlights, comments, and more than 30 seconds of reading. I read every article entirely.

Something evil that came into my mind was adding those I won’t follow below.

But I don’t want any problems with Medium staff. Haha!

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think about this story.

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