Medium users gather randomly: Is blogging really in decline? Let’s start with Medium Partner Program and subscription system

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The first “Medium Users Gathering” was held in the afternoon of December 17th at the Creation Dream Market. Although this gathering is called “Casual Gathering,” just looking at the theme, you know that it is not casual at all.

This first-ever Medium Chinese creator gathering is only open to friends with Medium accounts. Shi Dianzhi, Xu Zihan, Weng Ziqi, Li Yihong and Fu Ruide took turns playing, each sharing ten minutes. The event was also interspersed with self-introductions from other Medium creators.

At the beginning of the event, Rio Kao briefly opened and then handed the microphone to former Rocket Cafe chief editor Shi Dianzhi (Tenz). He wants to introduce the Medium Partner Program and the subscription system to everyone. Simply put, he is sharing the secrets on how to make money from writing on the Medium platform.

Tenz generously announced to everyone his [income] from joining Medium’s paid writing program in the past few months (https://medium.com/tenzblog/%E5%8A%A0%E5%85%A5medium-payment-program%E4%B8%80% E6%98%9F%E6%9C%9F%E5%B7%A6%E5%8F%B3%E7%9A%84%E6%94%B6%E5%85%A5%E6%83%85%E5%BD%A2-dad68b457d64), I have made about $350 since I joined on September 25th. Although this kind of income is better than traditional advertising networks (such as Google AdSense) (Tenz mentioned that it took about a year and a half before receiving a $100 check from Google), but talking about living on this income is obviously too much!

He also mentioned that it is still not possible for ordinary people to make a full-time job by writing on Medium, and only the interaction of paying members can generate income. Tenz guessed that Medium’s subsidies were large, but it was uncertain whether it could maintain this trend in the future, so he also suggested that aspiring people join the ranks of writing as soon as possible.

Someone asked, “Can I write for the purpose of making money?” Tenz thought that he might as well give it a try, but it is not easy at this stage. In addition, he also mentioned that if any friends are interested in making money by writing articles, in terms of choosing a local platform, they can consider the services provided by SOSreader, which should be much better than Pixnet!

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It just so happened that SOSreader founder Weng Ziqi was also present today and announced that they wanted to transform into a service platform with paid subscription as the core. In the past, only about 5% of the proposers could successfully create paid content on the SOS platform. However, a major revision will be launched at the end of December, allowing interested friends to just register an account and start writing immediately. In other words, the future SOSreader will be more like a blog platform.

Talking about the mentality of running your own blog in the past and writing on the Medium platform recently, what is the difference? Tenz has a unique perspective. Looking back on his blog writing history, he started blogging in 2006. At that time, he used the concept of Everything House to operate it, and there were all kinds of information piled on it. Along the way, from setting up WordPress on his own to later working at Yahoo! and starting to run an unknown website, Tenz has always had a strong affection for blogs.

Many people believe that now is the era when Facebook leads the trend and blogging has long since declined, but Tenz takes an opposing stance. From the perspective of a long-term blogger, it is true that the emergence of Facebook has brought huge impact and challenges. Although blog traffic has indeed been eaten up by many emerging social media, its power cannot be underestimated (such as the effect of SEO, etc.), and it has not really declined.

At best, it can be said that the emergence of social media such as Facebook has given those who were unable to continue writing articles on blogs in the past a new stage to express their feelings. Take netizens who are interested in travel or food as an example. As long as they write a 150-word description on a fan page and add 3 photos, they may get a lot of likes. However, people will not treat bloggers with the same standards. Instead, they will expect so-called food bloggers to write down the restaurant’s menu, signature dishes, environment, business hours, etc. in detail.

Although today everyone is talking about social marketing, which is almost equivalent to Facebook marketing, blogs still have their value and significance. Tenz believes that blog writing has become a threshold, and one needs to be able to do everything in a nutshell. Today’s creative threshold has been subverted and broken through by social media such as Plurk and Facebook. Everyone has begun to write some very simple messages. There is nothing wrong with this - because only those who are capable of writing will continue to stay on the blogging platform.

Taking the Medium platform as an example, it has gathered a group of readers who have a heavy demand for information. These groups like high-intensity reading. At the same time, because of the English interface, it may filter out some groups who have difficulty reading in English. But because there are no ads on this platform and the layout looks bright, creators can focus on content production.

Summarizing the experience of writing on Medium platform, Tenz recommends that everyone should be able to write continuously and regularly, and old articles should also be promoted and shared frequently, which can bring some unexpected new traffic. SEO, SRO and the use of Medium App are also very important. Although many people want to escape from the clutches of Facebook, it cannot be denied that Facebook is still the main source of traffic today.

As Tenz once [said](https://medium.com/tenzblog/%E6%96%B0%E8%88%8A%E5%AA%92%E9%AB%94%E7%9A%8 4%E6%96%B0%E5%87%BA%E8%B7%AF-%E5%BE%9E%E8%AE%80%E8%80%85%E8%A7%92%E5%BA%A6%E5%87%BA%E 7%99%BC%E7%9A%84%E6%80%9D%E8%80%83-%E7%B3%BB%E5%88%97%E6%96%87%E7%AB%A0%E5%B0%8E%E8%A 8%80-4b56e401c350): “Let’s love readers again and find a new way out for the media.” It may not be important to argue whether blogs have really declined, because the answer to this question is actually in your hands.

I also agree with Tenz that we should continue to write and write regularly. Therefore, I also organized a LINE group with a few friends I just met today called “Medium: Treat me if I don’t submit the manuscript”. We encourage and cheer each other up and move forward hand in hand on the road of writing!

★ Content Hacking Activity Preview:

• January 2018 Content Hacking Lecture (CHL3)─Create your content marketing strategy

• February 2018 Content Hacking Lecture (CHL4)─Creating calls to action for your content

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Further reading

• Medium users gather at will: Subscription is the product of the future, if you want to make money from writing, the first thing is discipline
• Experience from participating in the 2nd Content Hacking Lecture (CHL2)─Deconstructing previous experience and becoming your own editor-in-chief
• Experience from participating in the 2nd Content Hacking Lecture (CHL2)─Write a blog with your own style, and the ranking can also change the content

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