GK's Steemit Journey: How Steemit Changed My Perspective - Removing Maximalist Marketing

Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest... blagh blagh blagh. I never thought I would get to this point, but these platforms are over crowded and over cluttered. They dont have intelligent handling of data, and the interaction options(like, follow, etc) are comparatively meaningless. People with an agenda moved in to capitalize on these easy social media targets, and they used a term I call "Marketing Maximalism" to do it.

What is Marketing Maximalism?

Marketing Maximalism is the idea that anything you can do is something that you should do. Since there are only benefits of doing these actions, people spam them gratuitiously.

No one starts out as a marketing maximalist unless they're unsure what they should be doing, or if it pays off. The amateur will apply many methods hoping that one will work, where as the rewarded marketer will continue to seek multiple strategies to accomplish their goals. They tell their followers to Upvote, Comment, Tag a friend, Repost, and print out a copy of your post and pin it on their wall. Its too much!

Steemit moves away from maximalism by creating genuine opportunities for interaction. Genuine, meaningful interactions lead to consideration in responses. By bringing an element of mental and financial investment, people are more likely to hold others accountable.

Steem has considered this already and implemented somewhat of a democratic system. People vote for their leaders, they vote for their favorite content and they downvote things that provide no value, or hurt the platform.

In contrast, facebook only stops people who seek to overload or spam the system. For sites as large as Facebook or Steemit, this level of oversight can only be accomplished by 1000s of moderators.

Without moderation, you get maximalism.

People will say "Please upvote, retweet, tag a friend and share!" This leaves followers rolling their eyes. Attenuating your followers to these options may be helpful when they are 100% disengaged. The peripheral route of motivation works best when your audience is only partially cognizant to the material. High pitched songs, bright colors, familiar faces work best.

In contrast, when the audience is fully engaged and reading intently, you use what's called the direct route of motivation. This means you are able to comprehend the context of the message and apply your cognition to it. Facts, stories, explainations, and games work best.

Removing Maximalism from Your Posts

1. Don't ask your followers to do things that they might not want to do. ^{(This includes using one of their limited upvotes)}
2. Be real. Don't tell people that you're the #1 source of information on cryptocurrency, if you have 20 followers.
3. Remove fluff words and purely self-serving language.
4. Thank your followers often for curating your posts, and connect with them outside the platform on Discord or steemit.chat

If you have any other tips around these topics, please bring them up in the comments.

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