Member-only story
Jerked around by Medium
It’s The Expectations That Got Me
The ups and downs of Medium
When I joined Medium in early 2020 my expectations were nill. I didn’t expect many readers, I didn’t expect many comments and I certainly didn’t expect any moola.
So why bother?
One of the biggest reasons for me was the camaraderie of fellow writers, especially my in-real-life writer friends.
We were all excited to have found a barrier-free place to share our work. We quickly became avid readers of other writers doing the same.
It took some time to figure out the give and take of “following” people. My friends and I kept each other posted on how many followers we’d accumulated. It was fun to watch that number grow, although we realized early on that the number of followers didn’t equate to actual readers.
Eventually, we started learning the ropes of Medium. At the time, that involved the magic word “engagement.” Not just any engagement, it had to be “genuine engagement.”
We did our best to follow the fuzzy Medium guidelines on genuine engagement. In addition to posting our work, we were reading, highlighting, clapping, and commenting on the regular.
