Social Media Cultures: Steemit, Facebook, and Change Over Time
Why I posted on Facebook about my back pain instead of posting on Steemit
This is the first time I've ever created a movie with a screencast portion and multiple camera angles. I hope you enjoy it! The content below isn't exactly a transcript, but served as my notes for the video.
Hey Steemit.
Have you ever had someone tell you, "You're doing it wrong?" when it comes to how you use a social media platform? Each platform develops a culture. Twitter, Facebook, Medium, Reddit... they all have their own, often unspoken, community expectations of how the medium will be used.
The interesting and somewhat exciting thing about Steemit is we haven't yet defined what those expectations are. Even more interesting, as we define them and reward specific behavior, they will adapt and change as people respond to new, creative ideas.
Let me give you an example.
Yesterday, I had really fun time at a friend's pool party (there were a bunch of big data nerds, so they didn't mind this nerd talking on and on about a new blockchain-based social media platform). Driving there and back and throughout the day, the lower back pain that has been bothering me the last couple of weeks started getting a lot worse. I could feel pain in my right leg as well. After some googling around last night, I posted a message on my Facebook.
Really useful comments from my friends and family started pouring in (see the video). I got some really great advice and learned about Piriformis Syndrome in the process. Tomorrow I'll probably start looking into physical therapy options so (hopefully) this doesn't become a chronic thing.
Why I Didn't Post This Question on Steemit
I now have, I think, a couple bots following my Steemit blog. Busy people have decided I (so far) put out consistently useful content which they want to promote. They're (so far) willing to risk their reputation in exchange for their time. If I put out spam and they upvoted it, that would look pretty bad. Time is the scarcest resource of all, so I get the trade off.
Putting this question about my back pain on Steemit would have been a stark contrast from the content I've already created. Would those who follow me get upset if it got upvoted by influential accounts while their detailed analysis of something important only got noticed by some minnows? I think, as Steemit exists today, they probably would. I see Steemit currently as a mix between Reddit and Medium and, unless we build out a Quora like category, asking questions about your personal health on a platform like Medium would be a bit odd.
Since Steemit doesn't yet have friends and family lists and notifications, I figured I'd get a much better response on Facebook from people who know me and want to help. I think I was right, because I had a surprising number of comments when I woke up the next morning.
So what does all this mean for you? Have you determined the culture of Steemit well enough to know what type of posts are acceptable and what posts aren't? Is it okay to post whatever you feel like it, regardless of the rewards, specifically if you have people following you and expecting consistently great content? How will that impact perceived value over time?
I don't yet have the answers, but I do know that I want to provide value. That, to me, is what will bring long term success. The more value we provide, the more the network effect increases the value for everyone.
I hope you enjoyed my ramblings today.
Steem On.
Ace in the hole with this one - great observation. I've been having similar thoughts myself about the appropriateness of certain posts, and which platform would be the best for any specific thing I want to ask or tell. You can sense the audience you want to present these kinds of posts to, which in turn gives you a sense of which platform will give you the results you want.
I also like your assertion about whether or not your trust or reputation as a Steemster would be, I guess, compromised since the expectation of your followers might be more specific than if you post something like that out of left field.
Also, I don't know where you live, but this is the kind of intelligent discussion that some friends of mine and I are looking for for an upcoming project we're working on, and if it ever becomes an opportunity for you, I think having you join in periodically might be beneficial for everyone involved. I can expand on that if you're interested.
Sure, sounds interesting. I'm on Google Talk / Gmail via
luke.stokes. Unfortunately, so much time is getting sucked into Steemit already, my business is... well, let's say it's getting a little more difficult to clock full 8 hour days. :)I haven't really figured follower expectations and part of me wonders if I ever will. Ideally, I'd like to post about what interests me and let the chips fall where they may.
Ok cool. We're actually going to be putting something together this afternoon, so that should help give an idea of what we're after. I'll check back with you when we get it posted so you can take a look.
Interestingly, @dan and @ned originally conceived Steemit to be a platform for asking questions like that you posed on FB and, more importantly, for receiving accurate (as determined by upvotes) answers. Only later did it evolve into a complete social media platform. So, personally, I would welcome that type of content here as well.
Very interesting! I'm not sure if I made it clear in the video, but I think once the friends list functionality gets built out with notifications, I could see it working at least as well here as it did on Facebook (assuming enough friends and family join Steemit). I could also see a Quora clone or skin for the blockchain being built which would better facilitate this type of interaction. The idea of a reward based system for providing accurate answers sounds fantastic, but would probably only work if the people rewarding the answers 1) have accurate knowledge of the topic and 2) have enough SP to actually give out meaningful rewards. As the VESTs get more distributed and the user base grows, I could definitely see this becoming a thing. Thanks Sean!
I hope really soon some improvements on steemit can be able to us chat directly 8]
In the mean time, check out https://steemit.chat/channel/general
i do believe that great content should be the way to go regardless of the social media platform. cos, i dont know to many people out there ,that would want to spend their precious time reading or watching bad content. so i do strongly believe so
Bad content?
Simply Great Information and Presentation
Thank you! I had fun doing the multiple camera angles and figuring out all the video editing.
Please watch this video - hope it helps.
I appreciate you trying to help, but please understand, to me, this seems like spam, promoting ideas which I do not feel are helpful for humanity. To understand more on that perspective (including my history of six years in full time ministry), see this post: https://steemit.com/religion/@lukestokes/losing-eternity
Interesting topic and a very good first video.
I can understand the bot guys :-)
Thanks! I did one other video explaining this stuff to my friends, but this is the first time I played around with iMovie and figured out how to splice together two different camera angles while not totally jacking u the sound. Putting in the screenshare of the Facebook section was difficult also, but once I got working, I was so stoked! I feel like I have a new tool in my toolkit for communication now.
I have back pain too brotha.. I think it's from carrying a 50lbs all the time on the pipeline, but it sucks because even holding my kids my back will start to hurt really bad :(
Sorry to hear that. I started doing PT last week, and it's helping so far. I also went for a jog yesterday which I haven't been doing lately at all. I'm confident I'll get past this, and it will be a temporary thing.
Yeah, I think you were right in choosing Facebook over Steemit for that particular question. And I don't think you would have gotten the quality or quantity of responses if you posted it here. You did a good job of finding the Steemit post in it anyway. :)
When I was looking at new posts earlier, I saw one that aims to make a twitter clone built on Steem:
https://steemit.com/steem/@picokernel/pre-alpha-introducting-screem-the-first-alternative-social-network-for-steem
I think the idea has some interesting possibilities, though it wouldn't solve the dilemma you have with the bots. I commented on that project that they might want to add a unique tag to posts made through that interface. Perhaps bot operators in the future might want to look towards ignoring posts made with certain tags.
Very interesting. I'll keep an eye on it. Check out @trogdor's comment about about something similar.
Get that back well! Good share man, don't think you ranted.