Three Big Problems I'm Seeing With Medium's Boost Program

I run three publications. I'm seeing issues in the stats. We should talk.

Happy Friday,

I need to start by saying I’ve always been an advocate for the Boost Beta program at Medium. This post might sound like I’m not. I promise you, I still am.

You can believe in the potential of a person or an idea and still see problems. For that matter, I think it’s unhealthy to only look at the rosy bits and ignore problems. That’s how things go right down the toilet. Ask any divorced person.

I’m an advocate for the Boost program because when algorithms ran the show, the site was filled with clickbait and “how to make money on Medium” posts and that problem was only going to get worse because of curiosity clicking.

That doesn’t mean the Boost program is perfect. It’s not. Not even close.

I run three publications. That means I see a lot more story stats than just mine. And lately, I’ve been seeing some weird stuff. I don’t know what the solutions are, but I wanted to share them so you can watch for them in your own stats.

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1. It started with some pretty wild non-member views…

This is a boosted post in one of my publications. Awesome that it got 1.3K views the day after it was boosted. Damn shame 1,000 of those views are non-members. That means the writer won’t get paid for them. That’s not cool.

So I started watching for that across all three of my publications plus my own stories. I have more than two dozen of those screen-capped so far. Just insane non-member views. It’s not happening to every writer or every post. But it’s happening far more often than I wish it was or think it should be.

In case you’re wondering, it isn’t topic related. It’s happening on all my publications and some of my own stories in other publications.

Yay, we get a better pay rate for getting boosted. Boo, we’re earning diddly because there are more non-member views than member views. Again. Not cool.

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2. I thought non-members don’t get free views anymore?

Here’s a handy trick you may not have tried. Right click any of your stories and open in an incognito window. That will let you see what non-members see.

A while ago, Medium announced that non-members don’t get 3 free reads anymore. Instead, they see a “preview” with a signup underneath.

When I started seeing a surge in non-member views, I started checking posts in an incognito window. On most of my posts, the free preview is about 1/3 of the post. But that’s because I write long. None of my posts are under 6 minutes. One one of my shorter pieces, the preview is half the story. 800 words. 376 of them free.

There’s a boosted post in one of my publications that’s a short read. 150 words. Let me tell you something as a nominator. A post has to be damn good to get boosted with only 150 words. It’s really rare for short reads to get boosted. That one was. Damn good. And it got boosted. The whole thing is free to non-members.

I am just sick. The writer is a damn fine writer and non-members can read the whole post as a “preview.” Absolutely free. Why sign up, then? Just read short reads free.

But here’s the kicker. Under the free preview, no matter the post length, is a note that says “create an account to read this story on us.” What does “on us” mean to you?

To me, it means people who create a free account get free reads. I don’t know how many. I don’t know how it works. Why don’t we know how it works? Shouldn’t we?

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3. Unboosted posts are sometimes invisible…

Here’s what Medium told us. If a story doesn’t get boosted, don’t worry, it will still be shown to the writer’s followers and the publication’s followers.

One evening a submission came in. So I scheduled it for morning, fully knowing I was going to be away for a full day and night. No worries, I thought. The writer’s followers will still see it. She has 2500 followers, that should give it a good start.

Imagine my surprise to come back and see it sitting at zero views. So I nominated it for a boost. It was accepted. Now here’s the drastic comparison. For the first 24 hours that post was online, it got zero views. Within 24 hours of getting boosted, it got 400 views. Why is that? Am I to believe none of her followers wanted to read it?

None? Not one? Or maybe did they not see it? I don’t know the answer to that.

So I did an experiment. My apologies to the writers who were my guinea pigs. Every time I published a post, I waited 24 hours before nominating. Sometimes 48 hours. Too often, posts got no traction if they’re not boosted. Not always, but too often.

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Some takeaways here…

Here’s the thing. If you love writing and want to write whatever the hell you want, Medium is the best place to go. If you doubt that, go write on vocal for a month. You’ll make a penny for every dollar on Medium. The only way to make money writing on Vocal is to drive your own traffic or win the competitions.

Substack is a contender, but the newsletters earning the writer a living wage aren’t by some writer who writes about feminist today, history tomorrow, pondering the meaning of life the next day, and heaven knows what the next day.

Successful newsletters are niche driven. Check the leaderboards, you’ll see.

Even in observing problems, I would not want to be the one tasked with fixing them. Medium needs memberships to grow, because that’s where the money comes from to pay writers. They’re not going to grow by promoting crap, but when they promote good writing to non-members, the writer inevitably gets short-changed.

When people get frustrated, they tend to finger point and nitpick. Once frustration exists, we’re more likely to point out how we’ve been “wronged” than ask how this can be resolved for the benefit of both sides. Hell, that’s why half of marriages end.

Writers are people before they are writers. It’s easy to scream about transparency and ask why we don’t know how something works, but the answer is simple. The more they tell us, the more we have to pick at. And you know we will.

I don’t know the solution. But I think it’s worth a conversation.

Are you experiencing any of this? I’d love to know what you think.

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Instead of sharing my posts…

These are my publications. I’d love if you’d check them out read something. :)

• History of Women — 22.3K views on our stories this month!

• On Reflection — 12.2K views on our stories this month

• The Book Café — 12.1K views on our stories this month

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If you enjoy my writing, please click the heart or share this post. Thanks. :)

xo,
Linda