The Retention Editing Era- is Medium turning into a Short Form Content Platform?
The more I scroll on my Medium feed, the more I see only 2-4 minutes read stories. So I decided to write this 2 minute read article about it :D
The only 7-10 minutes articles that appear on my feed are from creators with very huuge followings! And I’m talking about those with 50k- 100k followers & more
But even they post a lot of short form articles- look at Alex Mathers and Eve Arnold !
And a lot of creators claim that in order to grow on Medium you must write only one long form piece of article a week (around 7-10 minutes reading time) and 3 short form pieces of content.
Why this strategy works?
Well, Medium has changed its alghorithm drastically and reading time doesn’t mater as much for monetization. What matters most is the engagement. And for your readers to spend at least 30 seconds on your article, which is cool isn’t it?
Well.. not that cool for the writers that put a lot of effort into their articles because they placed a huge importance on the reading time + giving away a lot of value. I am sure this new update will affect long form creators and unfortunately they may have to twist their strategy a little bit.
And for the writers who already published a lot of short form articles- this is a blessing. Their engagement will skyrocket.
The attention span of people.
Have you heard about retention editing on Youtube? Well, this editing strategy is used to keep people engaged until the end of the video. Why? Because people got a really short attention span. And in the modern world where we are getting bombarded with information everyday, you content must be very interesting and valuable in order to gain attention.
Now I won’t get much into why retention editing is slowly dissipating on Youtube but it seems like Medium is going through the "retention editing era" of Youtube;)
Where we must overstimulate the readers in a short amount of time in order to keep them engaged.
How long will this continue?
I don’t know. Probably until people will decide to do something about their small attention span and overcomsuption habits. Until then, it’s hard to go against a trend when it comes to digital marketing.
But I suggest creators and writers to continue to post long form content and give a lot of value for free. It’s better to have a balance.
