Treating a Medium Response As a Launchpad
Following Toni’s advice and then doing something more.
Great article, Toni!
I have been contemplating the authored response aspect of Medium for a while and experimenting on LinkedIn. Why there and not here? Because, the narrative flow of LinkedIn seems to be much more transactional than Medium, making it a bit more accommodating for figuring out what can work to build engagement with others.
My interpretation of the “Medium response” is that it should demand that the author (versus the commenter) put more effort in conveying a substantative addendum or argument, and that the focus should be on providing feedback to the original author versus explicitly building engagement with other Medium contributors. Perhaps that approach just treats Medium a bit more high brow than it is intended to be, but it feels more formal when responses are treated as follow-up articles on the platform. If it helps the responder broaden engagement reach, it will more likely come from those interested in the same topics, resulting in a higher following quality than engagement on a platform like LinkedIn would inherently provide.
How I think that translates to your note about the paywall is that you could use responses as more of a gateway to content that can earn you money as a Medium contributor. I think that makes sense from the perspective that a response should be an invitation to have a deeper conversation about the material, not just a transactional feedback mechanism meant to be seen by as many eyes as possible.
Naturally, that means that it is probably best to reserve your responses to articles that align with what you write. For example, I generally write about cybersecurity and resilience. If your article had been about either of those topics, I could respond with some comment about how it aligns or conflicts with something that I have written, with a link to my contributed article. If you (or any of your readers), finds sufficient value in the comment, perhaps you will click on my article to see how what I wrote is consistent with my response. Then, if you like it, you can clap for it or follow me as a show of support. You could also respond in kind, but on the article behind the paywall versus to my response.
A contributor could also respond by examining a different aspect that you did not cover but that may be of interest. I recently posted a little piece of satire, Companies Loved Zoom Until Everyone Started Using It, that has earned me a few claps. I might try to engage you in a conversation about how people tend to use claps as minor likes, but very few highlight or comment beyond the simple click or two of a button. I could also ask you for your advice on how to garner more comments as a reverse angle to your article. Perhaps you accept the invitation to engage, or you do not, but just posting the response could amplify the reach of my article without looking like I was trying to ride your popularity coattails (which, of course, is exactly what I’m doing).
Perhaps there is a fine line between engaging through responses and spamming popular articles with links to others, but I do think that Medium already provides respectful ways to earn from responses while also providing constructive feedback.
