For Medium Newbies: Clapping is like stars and you can clap up to 50 times!
Okay, although I’ve been a writer for some time, I am a complete newbie to writing on Medium. For the last couple weeks I’ve been coming up to speed, learning about how to publish, what to publish, what publications are interested in the same topics that I am. And I’ve been reading articles too. I love clapping for them at the end and it’s fun to see other people clap for mine too. I thought of it like Strava’s “kudos.”
It all seemed pretty simple.
Then I opened up my account and saw that mere moments after an article had been published there were 40 claps. Did 40 people just read my article? (Remember I’m new, nobody even knows I exist on Medium yet, so 40 claps just moments after publishing seemed like a lot to me.)
I drilled down a little further and figured out it was just one person who had clapped. One person clapped 40 times? Is that allowed?
I looked it up. Yep. It’s allowed. Turns out one person can clap up to 50 times.
A lightbulb went off. Oh! Clapping is like giving stars on Goodreads or Amazon. Then, I immediately felt terrible about the people I had clapped for. I had only clapped once. Yikes is that like given 1 star when there are 50 possible?
Oh the shame that flooded my system.
Turns out none of my friends, some of whom have published on medium, knew about this option either, which made me feel better. So, to any other newbies out there know this: if you like something clap a LOT, like 50 times.
If you are a writer inviting your friends to clap, make sure your friends know too. (And, remember, the number of claps is also tied to earning potential on Medium.)
Anyway, clapping a lot is how we give kudos on Medium. Oh, and apparently it is really cool to highlight a sentence you loved.
