There’s No Way I’m Quiet Quitting Medium — I’m Bringing the House Down

Just watch me

I’ve had a love-hate relationship with Medium for over three years now. I’ve enjoyed watching the community grow, the shares and comments pile up, and my follower count climb.

But at the same time, I’ve become fed up with Medium’s trending algorithms and policies that only seem to benefit the one percenters of the content sphere.

Suddenly, I find myself at an impasse: Do I want to sit back and listen to other people talk about all the QAnon conspiracy BS mixed with some good old Fourth Turning doom and gloom?

Or do I want to let loose, kick back on my porch swing, and tell you what’s what in this dog-eat-dog world?

It’s up to you to choose. You’ll have to decide for yourself which one of these worlds you want us to live in — and what kind of entertainment you’d like to indulge in while you’re there.

I’m not quietly quitting Medium

For the last three years, I’ve been writing on Medium. It’s been an incredible journey. In my time here, I’ve written almost one thousand stories and gained more than 16,000 followers.

I’ve written about everything from personal development to travel to entrepreneurship and am currently working on a nonfiction book about my experience as a digital nomad.

Recently, I’ve noticed that more people are deleting their Medium accounts.

I know some of these people, and watching them leave is always surprising. They seem to shy away from the obvious question: What are you doing next once you’ve burned your bridges?

Last weekend my writing was also feeling a bit under the weather, and I decided to call in sick on Medium. But I came back in like a wrecking ball.

I’m bringing the house down

I’m not going out the door. I’m going to share my expertise with my readers. I’m going to focus on quality over quantity. I’m going to focus on audience development and engagement.

I want you all to stick around with me on this next leg of our journey together through life and writing, so let’s make it worthwhile!

This isn’t about me — it’s about you and how you can build your successful writing career on this platform.

How, you might ask?

Focus on adding value to the community!

That’s why I’ve just launched Engage, my new engagement-centric publication that focuses on helping the community grow and thrive, and I’m counting on you to join us. You can learn more about it and how to participate in it in this Medium post.

Engagement is a no-brainer on Medium

When you look at the engagement rate Medium had in 2020–2021, it becomes apparent that no other content publishing platform could match it.

Medium was booming!

I don’t know if this is still valid in 2022.

The key takeaway is that engagement is the most crucial element in audience development; everything else is secondary.

Of course, you should still focus on creating quality content, but make sure that you’re also considering the other options available regarding where to publish your work and which publication might work best for you in terms of audience growth.

In other words, don’t get too hung up on your specific publication of choice — try new things, experiment, and above all else, have fun!

That’s why I created Engage in the first place.

To build a community of people excited to learn, grow, and give back the love they receive from writing.

Bringing down the negativity-focused echo chamber

I want to bring down the negativity echo chamber on Medium and show you all the incredible possibilities of writing and publishing on this platform.

The rise of the negatively-charged stories on Medium is a perfect example of how writers can get lost in the weeds of engagement and lose sight of their ultimate goal: to create quality content and add value to the community.

Medium is a content-sharing platform, but it’s also a community that needs to be cared for. It needs to be nurtured and promoted, and focusing on negative engagement just because you know that doom and gloom stories are popular on this platform will not help anyone in the long run.

Moreover, as the platform grows, I’m concerned about how sometimes the focus on quantity over quality has threatened to break down the community we’ve built.

I believe that too much attention is being paid to development and growth at the expense of what matters: the people who make up this community.

I want to work with Medium, and I hope they’re willing to listen and change course if necessary for the common good of readers and writers.

Here are some ideas on how Medium can improve its platform to avoid losing loyal creators.

Improve the user experience:

Medium is an excellent platform for producing and sharing content, but it will become obsolete if it can’t be used effectively. I would love to see improvements in areas such as navigation and search functionality on desktop and mobile devices.

Improve content discovery:

As an avid reader, I am never sure what new content will catch my eye next — or how often I should check back for updates after following someone’s account. It would be nice to be able to sort and filter posts chronologically. From what I could tell, the “following feed” doesn’t meet our expectations.

Concluding remarks

Once you’ve cultivated a bit of a following on Medium, the possibilities are endless. You can try advertising your business, expand your reach to new markets or even start a freelance consulting or coaching gig.

The sky is the limit for how far you can go on Medium. The engaged community, easy-to-follow structure, and beautiful designs all contribute to making reading enjoyable and being an inspiration for businesses.

Still, every time there’s a change, you risk bringing entropy into a successful system.

I believe this negative entropy is what we’re experiencing on Medium these days, causing many seasoned authors to run for the hills.

The best way to avoid losing loyal creators in a writing community like this is to listen to them.

By acknowledging the problems with Medium and taking them seriously, they can start working on solutions.

If they don’t, it could be time for me (and others) to leave altogether. But we aren’t quite there yet.

Please check out my stories on Engage for related content:

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