Summary

A writer reflects on the impact of reduced content output and promotional activity on Medium.

Abstract

The author of the article has been consistently writing and promoting 5-7 articles per week on Medium for a year, which led to significant earnings and a following of 1.4k. However, during a one-month experiment where the author drastically cut down on both writing and promoting content, the results were a significant drop in views, reads, fans, and earnings, demonstrating the importance of consistency and promotion on the platform. Despite the setback, the author plans to resume the previous rate of content production to regain momentum and re-enter the $100 a month earnings club.

Opinions

Consistent writing and active promotion are crucial for maintaining visibility and earnings on Medium.
The author believes that their success on the platform, including a 5-month streak of earning over $100 a month, was largely due to their consistent content creation and engagement with Facebook groups.
The experiment revealed that without consistent effort, even established writers with a substantial following can see a marked decline in their platform metrics.
The author acknowledges the importance of their own efforts in their success and is determined to recover from the dip in performance caused by the experiment.
There is a recognition that the platform's algorithm and audience engagement are sensitive to changes in content production frequency and promotional activities.

MEDIUM THINGS

My 1 Month Experiment On Medium

What happens when you don’t write AND promote consistently on the platform?

In just 3 weeks time, I would have been a writer on the MPP for exactly a year. 12 months of consistent writing on Medium, or was it? Truth is, I HAVE been consistent in my writing over the last year. I wrote at least 5–7 articles a week. My best month? I published over 60 articles. Sometimes, up to 3 articles a day.

And it wasn’t just writing and publishing articles consistently. I was also promoting my articles consistently. Each time I published a new article, I would promote in on the numerous Facebook groups that I’m in.

Each group has their own article thread every single day where members can post a link to their article and also help to read articles posted by other members. It’s how you support one another. I was very active in the past 12 months, promoting my own articles while supporting others and vice versa. I don’t really know how much I views or reads I actually got from my promotions on Facebook but I know it counted for quite a lot.

My consistency is what led me to finally breaking into the $100 a month club and kept me there for 5 straight months. It also allowed me to average roughly $5 a day for at least 3 of those months.

But what if I wasn’t consistent?

What would happen if I didn’t publish 5–7 articles a week? What would happen if I didn’t promote every new article I publish on the multiple Facebook groups that I’m part of? What would that do to my stats? What would that do to my earnings?

And so, I decided to take a risk and find out.

Before this month, the lowest month of content I’d published was a year ago, when I first joined the MPP. In July 2019, I published 3 articles in the space of a week. Because I joined in the last week of the month, I only had one week left to write. But those 3 articles earned me my first dollars on the platform, $5.

From August 2019 onward, I’ve published at least 30 articles a month. Until now that is.

Not counting this one, I’ve published 11 articles for the month of June 2020 which averages about an article every 3 days or so. Where I used to write 3 articles a day, I wrote just one every 3–4 days.

And each article that I wrote, I never once promoted it. Not on the various Facebook groups that I’m part of, nor on any other social media sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. as I wanted to see just how well it’ll do without making an effort in promoting them.

I wanted to see how much it’ll affect everything that I thought I’d known.

For starters, I’ve a following of 1.4k on this platform. Just how many % of them actually read my stuff, I have no idea. But 1.4k isn’t a small number, especially when the bulk of them are genuine followers that followed me because they wanted to, not because I followed them first. I’m also an editor and writer for at least 10 different publications.

My stats have also dropped significantly.

For someone who’s been on the platform for almost a year, has a 4-figure following and for 5 months straight, have been in the small group of writers making $100 or more a month, you would think that the money would just flow in right?

Well, this experiment has proven otherwise.

Unless an article suddenly explodes and goes viral in the next 2 days, my 5 months streak will be coming to an end. As of today, I’ve made $75. It’s not bad money actually as a lot of people are still struggling to even hit the $50 mark but because I’ve made over $150 in the last 5 months, I will definitely feel this one quite a bit, even more so because the final amount that I will be receiving will have had a 30% tax deduction as well. So chances are, I’d only be getting just below $50 this month.

That’s a lot of difference.

My stats have also dropped significantly. Views, reads, fans have all come tumbling down which is obvious because my earnings have dropped. I’m just not getting as much reads as before and that’s probably because my articles are just not reaching as many readers as before.

Honestly, it has gotten me down a bit but I knew what I was getting myself into and what I could potentially expect from this experiment. Initially, I only wanted to try it out for a few weeks but I knew that I needed an entire month to get a more accurate picture of what it’d be like.

For someone who has had what I would call good success on the platform for the past year, this month has definitely been hard to take.

But what this experiment has shown me is that no matter how much success you think you’ve achieved on this platform, you will lose all of it if you’re not constantly grinding it out and giving it your best and it’s a lesson I will not be forgetting anytime soon.

That being said, come July, it’s back to how it used to be with at least 5 articles a week or if possible, an article a day. This experiment would have caused me to lose some momentum but I know it’s totally possible to get back to where I was or even better. I hope that my time out of the $100 a month club won’t be too long either and that I’ll be back in again soon!

I’m definitely gonna keep going and hopefully make my 1 year anniversary on the MPP one to remember. It’s time to get back to work.