Advice

Why Having a Top Writer Badge Matters

Don’t Listen to Those Who Bash the System

I’m a huge fan of badges.

Have been since my early Girl Scout days. The idea of setting a goal, working to understand a thing, build a skill, and feel a sense of accomplishment, achievement and even mastery, have been a part of my DNA since I started clearing out the preschool library shelves and reading all the books at the age of three.

So for me, earning a Top Writer Badge in ANY topic on Medium is a psychological bonus. But there are practical reasons to want to have one of these shiny badges on your profile.

I’d like to share with you my opinion about it, and talk about some statistics.

It’s challenging to find a current accurate number on exactly how many visitor-readers Medium has each month, but it’s huge. Somewhere between 80 and 100 million.

Medium writer Casey Botticello published a well done brief analysis about the health of Medium. This was research as of October, 2019.

Each Top writer badge has a maximum award capacity. What that means is ONLY 50 people can ever hold one of these badges at a time.

Of the millions of people who visit Medium, and of the thousands of people writing here, only 50 people can have a badge in the category you choose to write in. So receiving one is a BIG DEAL. It’s an accomplishment that speaks to your skill in building audience, writing consistently, and securing readers. That’s significant, and in my opinion, not to be cast aside lightly.

Tags and the use of tags is one of the least well understood aspects of writing, and finishing, your post. I say that, because I see many writers use tags that do not have any chance whatsoever of earning them a top writer badge. If a tag doesn’t support a writing goal, what’s the point?

What are the badges that you can achieve? This is a moving target. I’m fond of this article by J.J. Pryor. But since it was written, there have been updates.

I’m hoping J.J. will do that update soon, since I refer to this wonderful document frequently, nearly daily, and I point many many writers to it as well.

It was back in January 2017, when Medium first introduced top writer badges. Read about that here.

So if I am actively writing on Medium, building my audience and readership, helping other writers build their audience and readership, and targeting and earning top writer badges, it is really easy to get assimilated into the Medium writing community and forget that there are millions of people in the world who not only don’t write, but also aren’t yet on Medium as readers either.

A fish in water can’t see that it’s living in water.

When I post an article that I crafted carefully, was possibly curated, or is part of a body of work in a tag area where I earned a top writer badge, that’s an opportunity to share not just the article, but my profile with the outside world.

You can post that article link to twitter, to facebook main pages — outside of Medium groups — to LinkedIn, or any of a number of other groups where people can see your work, click through to your post, and in the process, see that you are a Top Writer in whatever tags you’ve earned.

And that can get you the attention of editors in other higher paying gigs. And as someone said to me — THAT is way better than Fiverr or the other lower level underpaid writer jobs.

The last time I sent an article, or just a link to my profile page to a prospective new editor at an online site, as soon as she saw that I was a top writer in over 10 categories (and yes, I know, they come and go), she said to me, “I am always happy to hear pitches from experienced writers.”

So don’t give up, don’t listen to the naysayers, and go get your badges!

If this post was helpful to you, please share your comments!

Susan Brearley is a brilliant strategist, a published book author, writer, seasoned editor, essayist, occasional comedy writer, and an accidental poet.

She is the Chef, Elder and Program Director at Elf Works Lane Retreat Center.

Reach out if you need a writing coach, or a life coach. She does that too.

In a one hour coaching session, you can learn the very best strategy about how to write on Medium to accomplish your goals.

She is currently based in the mid-Hudson Valley, New York.