A True Story and a Lesson On Medium

Why I Pay Attention to Claps. (who, how many)

The magic behind claps

Once you look at it this way, it will never be the same.

Big statement there.

Yet, a small story behind it.

When I first encountered claps, I didn’t even know that you can clap more than once, so in my mind, I’m thinking if I can get a couple of claps per post it would be great.

My First Post On Medium.

This one I wrote back in June 2022, right after I landed a new job at a clothing company. Besides the first child was 9 months old at the time this was one of the reasons I decided to go work for another company rather than continuing my own Amazon commerce business.

You see I received 103 claps, I was over the moon for a couple of days.

That is when I started to read other’s posts and one time I slipped and clapped +2. I’m like oh… (you can do that?)

Yet, I soon realized I could clap more than one time that is when I quickly went and looked into the little arrow hovering the mouse over it, and Ah.

This is what I saw:

I thought I was building something bigger. But it turns out to be a few generous people trying to show how much they like the post.

Just a few days ago, I thought I was getting somewhere.

I didn’t become a member 5 days later.

It was to show that my write was even likable in some way first.

I even put “Test Post” on the title, how shy is that?

That was my silly but true story on Medium.

Now the Magic behind the claps. (Reader and Writer’s takeaways)

Claps are free but they are powerful.

They don’t just show appreciation for one another but more importantly, let the algorithm know that it should be shared with more readers.

You see there are two parts, we will focus on the human part.

Claps view as a reader, this has to do with how likely the content is going to get read.

Since the Title and image have got our attention and with the help of Medium Tags/Pubs that made it to our feed.

Now is the time to click in and see what is it about and if we should continue to read it.

At this point you have already seen how many claps or comments it had, so the chance of you reading it is now directly correlated to those numbers.

Is there a reason?

We always go for the easier route (or rather the brain does that).

If it is pre-rated already, we’ll most likely take a look at it.

Claps view as a writer, as a writer we are hunting for attention.

What does that have to do with claps and how does it work?

If you do pay attention to who and how many claps they give you then you already crack the code without you realizing it.

We are human we have habits and we always favor one over another.

If a reader claps on your post multiple times at 50 or close to it.

Then you have found your loyal audience/reader.

Trust me that they have better things to do if you or your post weren’t attractive t,o begin with.

The reader read for different reasons, they might want a read and clap/comment in return. (you should try to do that if you see them putting all the effort to get your attention)

It does work both ways.

This post is an extension of the post about why I clap only 49 times and with a Read Ratio of now 87% Post. (If you missed it, you can read it now, thanks.)

Thanks for Reading.

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Bin.