Why I’m No Longer Writing on Medium

Marketing

Aug 8

Last year I went on a month-long social media detox.

I had been feeling overwhelmed by the pressure to post frequently, keep up with new features and algorithm hacking tips, and above all, discouraged by putting so much work into a post for it to receive little engagement.

The detox gave me the reset I needed and allowed me to gain perspective on how I want to use social media and how it fits into my marketing strategy.

Since the detox, I quit these social media platforms and converted my Pinterest account from business to personal.

I’ve also been blogging more consistently, and while on my social media detox, began writing on Medium.

My Medium experiment

When I discovered Medium, it seemed like the YouTube of writing. Like YouTube, your content can reach a built-in community - and you get paid for views.

I started a YouTube channel in 2020, and while I no longer publish videos consistently, I’m still earning royalties from the videos I have already created.

I much prefer writing to recording video, so the idea of generating revenue from my writing was appealing.

I began copying over posts from my website’s blog to Medium, and whenever I wrote a new post on my blog, would also post it on Medium.

If there was a post I wanted to write but didn’t think it related to my website’s blog, on Medium it went.

I’ve appreciated the format of Medium. It’s minimal, easy, and I liked the quote and section divider options.

Despite the ease, it still takes effort to copy over posts, format them, and find a stock photo, because header photos are part of Medium’s format.

I also cross link between my posts to boost their readership and search engine optimization, and it’s time consuming to find the links on both my website blog and on my Medium blog.

It’s been over a year since I’ve been on Medium, and my writing has only generated $4.03.

While it took me over a year to start generating revenue on my YouTube channel, I was seeing growth along the way. This hasn’t been the case on Medium.

Why I’m giving up

I’m simplifying my business, including the platforms I use for marketing.

At this point, I’d rather focus efforts on growing the readership of my own blog, even if it doesn’t generate direct revenue like Medium can.

I don’t want to put in the work of copying posts over to Medium and submitting them to publications on Medium in the hopes they’d get picked up. I’ve tried numerous times with little success.

It’s ok to not want to put in the effort - as long as you have a focused strategy elsewhere.

In terms of marketing, I believe that a small business’ marketing strategy should reflect its owner’s strengths and not what appeases a social media algorithm. There are many channels to market on besides social media, many of which are more effective.