The Psychology of the Single-Clap
Is Medium’s Reader-Rating System Driving Writers over the Edge?
The psychology of the single-clap seems to be different for everyone, but negative for most. We are trained to believe that receiving applause should mean receiving a round of it.
Imagine giving the performance of your life and, at the end, everyone in the audience politely claps once, twice, or three times, and then: silence.
Maybe you don’t care because you’re just performing for you, but for most writers, baring our souls requires vulnerability and clapping is the needed-validation that we’ve been heard in some meaningful way.
I have been on Medium for a year-and-a-half. I joined from a writer’s group elsewhere that seemed to know the inside-scoop on Medium’s mystery algorithm for engagement: clapping. It took less than a week for me to catch on that I could and should clap for a piece up to 50 times.
Single-claps seemed to be no-nos even before claps were monetized and even more so after.
I took my 1–50 rating very seriously. Poems never got over 30 (because they were short). Fiction always got over 20 (because it took longer to write). And then if I was going to clap at all for a piece I always clapped at least 10 times…anything less seemed insulting.
I’ve since abandoned this model, but for a time, it was religion.
Being a part of several external communities for Medium writers, I’ve noticed “clapping” is a topic of conversation at least once a week. Either people want to get a feel for everyone else’s rating system, or they want to rage about single-clappers.
I cannot deny — the single clap used to drive me nuts (and it wasn’t even that long ago). A single clap told me “I read it. Didn’t think much of it, but I did read it.”
Two or three claps was even worse because it meant people knew you could clap more than once and were still being “stingy”.
The writers I hear from think that single-claps are a statement about the quality of their work, their opinions, their feelings. Their hearts sink when they post a story and come back a few days later to see less than a few hundred claps. Many writers are hoping to break barriers with each new piece. I recently got my first 2k clap story and it wasn’t from two-thousand individual fans. :)
I know people who have left Medium because they felt that no one understood the clapping system and the money they were making was just not enough for the time they were putting in. I urge those people to remember that not that long ago, it was much more difficult for writers to find accessible, paying markets for their writing at all.
You have the ability to reach a much wider audience on a centralized platform and now Medium will let you earn a bit of money for your work.
Medium’s model isn’t perfect, but it’s a step-up and it’s up to you to find the next way to earn the money you think you deserve.
The Reality of Single-Claps
Many people who clap once do so for one of two reasons:
- They don’t know you can clap more than once.
- They believe that they have a very finite amount of claps to give and want to be able to offer them to as many people as possible.
At this point, if I were to stop clapping 30–50 times for most pieces, Medium would think that my single-claps meant I didn’t really care for a piece. My single clap would be financially worthless.
But for people who clap single or a few all the time, those claps are worth more!
For writers receiving single-claps: Don’t hate. Those readers are being careful with their $5 and still choosing to give you a piece of the pie.
Even if a single-clap was an opinion of your work, they could have walked away without clapping at all, leaving your reader-fan ratio all wonky.
For single-clappers: Consider that audience tends to clap for pieces that already have lots of claps on them. Writers love reaching 1k clap milestones because, in an over-saturated market, it feels like an accomplishment. One thousand claps can take 1k single-clappers or as little as 20 generous-clappers. The money earned seems to mean less to most authors than the number of visible claps on their piece…it’s a pride thing.
Most importantly, if you read an article to the bottom, please do clap at least once. Not clapping makes the ratio of “readers” to “fans” miserably low which can be even worse for authors who are checking their stats and trying to determine if readers are getting anything out of their work.
There are Other Ways to Gauge Audience Interest
Highlighting — As you are reading someone’s article you can highlight lines that speak to you. It paints their piece with pretty colors and lets them know you actually read through instead of just clapping out of duty.
Commenting — Commenting on an article might be the single-most important thing you can do for an author. Medium may be using comments to gauge what authors are worth taking a look at for curation. It is the most involved sort of engagement, might take more of your time than the others, but it means the world to authors to receive a kind word.
Liken commenting to receiving an actual post on your Facebook wall that says “Happy Birthday” over the person who just “likes” someone else’s birthday post in agreement that you deserve a happy birthday. Comments just mean more. :)
Tweeting / Sharing — If you are on Twitter, you can highlight small sections of someone’s work on Medium and hit the bird button that pops up. This will create a cute little quote of their story that you can tweet to the world. This might be the highest honor I’ve ever received and most people don’t know it exists. Sharing someone’s article on Facebook, Twitter, or tagging it in your own post as a collection of your favorite stories for the week are incredible compliments to writers.
When it comes to clapping — I don’t care how few I receive anymore. As a reader, if an author impresses me with their stories, I’m still going to clap their faces off. But as an author, while I want to make money, I acknowledge that the mysterious algorithm doesn’t allow me to easily calculate how much money I should be making off of a single-clap versus 50.
Please clap to let authors know you finished their article and it wasn’t a waste of your time, but as for the number, do what you think is right!
There are other types of engagement that mean more.
I love to receive comments on my work, to have the opportunity to interact with the invisible viewers and readers of the pieces I worked so hard to create. I want to have conversations about the topics I am passionate about. Let me know what you think! I love learning about other people, and I love expanding my range of knowledge through the experiences and insight of others.