Soon, you’ll need 100 followers to get paid on Medium
Funny I was writing my article on what people should know before they post on Medium for the first time, but then this story comes up. The Medium Partner Program will soon require 100 followers and 1 story in order to apply for it. In the past, you can join as soon as you sign up.
When the news arrived along with better tools for analytics, many users have celebrated it. It would mean writers would be more rewarded for their hard work on this website, which is oversaturated with a lot of articles across a broad range of subjects.
But for me, this is worrying.
It sets out a requirement that a lot of writers have struggled to achieve for months, as gaining 100 followers is much harder than you might expect. After posting a few articles, one of which gained popularity, I only achieved about 20 followers. That means I would have to work harder and grab the rest of the needed followers before the end of the year. If you’re reading this as someone who has yet to enroll into the program, then you’ll need to gain 100 followers in order to do so.
Not only that, but it’s likely to make writers more desperate. There’s a new referral program if they refer someone to become a subscriber of Medium, then they’ll receive half of the user’s membership fee. This would only encourage more writers begging for more exposure and profits, which would, of course, separate them from the other fortunate writers who are successful.
Is Medium no longer a good place to start for new writers?
With those requirements in, they would most likely let down a lot of newcomers. They may not receive the rewards from a lot of articles they post on Medium. While they could be seen as measures to combat amatuerish and less active writers, it would mean getting paid for their written work could become much harder than before. It may even prove to be a fruitless venture as Medium would assume those with a huge fanbase would get paid easily. It even sets a bias, as they would attract more writers towards the more porfitable topics in the market.
Therefore the criteria is more likely to discourage new writers to the platform and end up exploring other avenues of getting paid for their writing. Just imagine when you have worked so hard on your articles, only to not get paid easily for it. It would tempt you to promote your articles on social media and alike, when if you’re choosing the right topics and words can lead you to success. That process will of course get more difficult to achieve.
Is it that bad?
If you think about it, you won’t get paid a lot without having a lot of followers and views anyway. To truly succeed on Medium, not only you would need to produce quality articles there, but you also need to know a reasonable deal of marketing. By following the tricks shared online to sell your articles and grab the reader’s attention, the requirements may not be as bad as you believe them to be.
But never forget that the criteria given will expect you to concentrate harder on the marketing and the writing quality of your articles. With that, it further solidifies the message the Medium Partner Program sends to you…
Medium is about commitment, not profit per paragraph
To truly succeed on Medium, you must write as a passion, not to earn for the living. You must research everywhere to make your points valid. You must write regularly to keep readers engaged. You even need to present your content in a manner that grabs their attention and see the words of wisdom between the lines. It’s not something you can say anything you wish there, because that would be better suited for your personal blog. But on here you really have to work with a lot of commitment to quality and appeal.
If you can’t keep up with all of this, you won’t get paid. Pretty simple, with or without the criteria for the Medium Partner Program.
However, it may be the start of culling more writers on the platform, which weakens the broad appeal of fresh writers online. Only then Medium would turn from ‘Youtube for writers’ to a VIP area for them.
I’ll post another article soon that offers tips to know before deciding to post on Medium and fight to earn your 100 followers. So I’ll leave you with a cheat sheet of how to get popular on Medium:
- Post at least one article a week to keep your followers engaged
- Work on only a few themes to establish the reasons people should follow you (e.g. Mine is Writing and Marketing)
- Make sure the headlines grab readers’ attention
- Get straight to the point on your writing without making too much information as padding
- Post articles that would most likely educate or inspire people on the given subject
- Research, research and research