Fishing for None Fishes - Promoting outside of Steem
I've been wondering recently, how many Steemians promote Steem outside of Steemit or Busy? I'm being serious about the question, because it seems to me that many of the cheerleading posts are mostly meant for vote farming, and that seems pretty silly to me. Silly and completely unproductive.
What's even worse, or at least it is to me, is that there is a group of people who believe this is the only way to garnish support. I've read quite a few times, that us Steemians are obsessed with writing about Steem, but that observation was never meant to be a compliment.
It's important for me to clarify my position on this matter, since I am one of those Steemians who writes about Steem quite often. I'm not saying its not good to do so, I'm saying that if a post about Steem is just straight out cheerleading, that post is as valuable as a fork to eat soup. If the post was never intended to leave this ecosystem, as to be shared with other platforms, then the post in my opinion is quite worthless.
We can and maybe should help
I've been trying for a while to bring more attention to the Steem ecosystem. I've done my fair share of recruiting too, even went after some youtubers at some point in time and I'm glad to see that they are still around, still posting. However, I'm not sure I stand in some sort of majority. As a matter of fact, I'm willing to bet there is probably just a handful of people trying to put the word out there at best.
What are these for???
Let me ask you, in case you've never thought about the reason behind these little buttons. Why would Steemit Inc want people to share Steem articles on other platforms? To brag? To virtue signal? To troll? - I'm being ridiculous because I suspect many Steemians have never thought about the idea behind these little buttons.
The big idea, sort of speak, is to bring more traffic to the platform, increase the users and help everyone who participates of the ecosystem effectively increase their stake. It's really that simple. As a matter of fact @transisto a while back had a bounty for any Steemian who could get an article about Steem trending on Reddit. Well... Why would he do that?
The answer once again is simple, as an investor he is trying to increase his ROI(return on investment) and for that he needs for the platform to grow. A smart investor understand that he/she won't "moon" as they say simply by writing articles, but by bringing more people, more investment to the platform and creating what's called the network effect.
Wikipedia - Network Effect
A network effect (also called network externality or demand-side economies of scale) is the positive effect described in economics and business that an additional user of a good or service has on the value of that product to others.
So, whats the plan I'm proposing?
Start using those little buttons. Are you also on twitter? on Reddit? on Facebook(I puked in my mouth a little bit)? Then share some articles, tag some people, do your part.
Yes, some Steemians may not have the investment capital to buy up the cheap (imo) Steem at the moment, but that does not mean there is absolutely nothing that a good Steemian can't be doing.
I've recently started to tag some people on Twitter, because, Why not? I even wrote an article about someone who is semi-famous and tagged him. Professor Gad Saad is someone who is very active on twitter and he has a big following there as well. I figured, What the worse that could happen? As it turns out, I got a couple of retweets from some of his followers. I would call that a small win.
Listen, I'm not saying for anyone to be making posts about Steem and sharing them on twitter or anything of the sort. That could also be a bit lame. I'm proposing that if you are making some great content, you share it on the other platforms linking back your post to Steem, that is all, make some noise, simple as that....
Anyways, a small call for action, something that takes a few clicks and can help us get back up in valuation. I think its worth a shot, don't you?
Other posts by yours truly
• Songwriter Shop Talk Steembirds Full Recording• Good news everyone, Tether is going to moon!
• salt needs to learn how to bark
• Join me tonight for Songwriter Shop Talk Featuring The SteemBirds
• I'm buying me them trophies
I have onboarded quite a few but the problem is that they are coming from other platform on to a new one that is bare bones in comparison, very complex for the average to understand and, a lot of work. About 1/3 of the people I have onboarded are still doing 'ok' and even soe who bought significant amounts of Steem struggle, even with my support. For many, the learning curve and investment is just too large.
When it comes to sharing indiscriminately, I am still not ready to do that with many of my Facebook 'friends' (i hardly use the platform now) so I target those I think might be interested directly.
Too many are pulling people in with the promise of money but have no way to support them directly themselves nor, support them on the complexity side since if they understood the platform, the promise of money is not really the best way since most are unlikely to earn much or at least, not very quickly.
I was pushing very hard for a long to get people on and when they are here, supporting them in chat but, at the end of the day, they have to (currently) be willing to invest themselves and we can see how few truly are.
I had a great conversation with @darn-atstarlite yesterday regarding growth. I happen to share his view on this subject, the first million is the hardest, the second million is a little easier and next thing you know we are at 80 mil.
When will this happen? Will it happen? don't know, I hope so.
It's easy to forget we are early adopters, because it seems we've been grinding at it for so long. For some reason time on Steem goes both slow and super fast.
Does it not feel like it to you?
Absolutely. When onboarding happens for realsies it is going to explode. That is going to take a lot of development to make happen and most importantly, a great deal of simplification. A lot of simplification. This will of course slow future earnings of most users coming on as simple means, easy for anyone to give it a go.
These are the golden years, the cocaine-fueled 80s... people just don't recognise it as such until the comedown and the 1000 dollar a gram becomes 10 dollars for a few rocks of dirty crack.
You just made my morning!
hahahahahhaha
Hi Meno. Great blog. I continually share my steemit work on twitter and FB. Almost everyday; although, yesterday it would not give a proper link. I would happily recruit other poets and bring them over here but getting attention if you are a newbie is very hard and then there are limits to our BW and VP. I have seen a lot of people come on, get frustrated, and leave. I don't think the problem is recruiting; it is retention.
At the moment almost all the attention goes to the established steemians and a lot of the newbies quickly adapt the why bother mentality. Steemit is top heavy; not an anti-bitbot person but it is clear that too much of the rewards are filtered through them and they actually tend not to build a user''s SP. We want people to want to build SP. The balance is off. I have started my own initiative with #poetryweekends to try to spread rewards around to poets with a smaller wallet. I am working on the solution too. I don't just mean to be a complaining jane.
We are very small platform, really. Only a million accounts and we both know, a lot of those accounts are dead. Steps need to be taken to build a stronger base on steemit; then the platform will grow. Like with an economy, there has to be a strong middle class. We are very, very top heavy. Bringing in new people just to have them peel off and never come back is not good for business.
Looking forward to a situation where a newbie can function on the platform in a more meaningful way and then I'd be happy to recruit like nobody's business:) I am pro steem but I know how hard it is for a new person on here.
Thank you for the thoughtful comment Pryde. I agree with the observation that retention is a big problem, the truth is that most who join, do so with very high expectations, but at the end of the day "making it" regardless of our personal definition is somewhat obtuse.
I applaud the fact that you've taken it upon yourself to try to do something about that, I think that's fantastic, but we need thousands of Pryde's in here, and maybe, just maybe, those are the ones we are fishing for?
I started something myself, its been growing, just like any project it slow to take off, and right now I'm trying to scale it up without killing anyone on the process.
@helpie <--- maybe you've come across this account.
Btw, if I may be so bold. Are you on discord? I'm attempting to gather enough community oriented people to cultivate the right culture.
I am on Discord but I don't go on there very often. Single mom and I have to guard my time but I have followed you and @helpie. I will stay abreast:)
It makes sense. Unfortunately, some of us are very limited in our resources. Basic things like a good phone or a regular internet connection. Last night, i was trying to socialize with the C2 /Colmena people in their discord and we had like 3 blackouts in our area. It's just embarrassing. In any case, by word of mouth the group i belong to (mostly university people) have been growing and we are now almost 70 and adding up. We are now #equipocardumen / @equipocardumen. Most of us live in Cumaná, Venezuela and it's been a hell of a ride to try to catch up with the demands of the platform and the problems we have to sort out to be able to even comment a post, let alone post regularly.
I guess we do what we can to spread the word, with all the limited resources we have.
Yesterday i was stoop up by a friend and colleague who was going to start her account on Steemit. She does not have internet, i was going to let her use some of my minutes. She could not make it. Transportation issues. But she will be part of the platform soon, and she has been telling other people she knows.
It's great that you are reaching out to other forums.
we all want to see steem hit $10
We can all help in different ways..
;)
Of cause, it does.
I've been doing this for long too, it works like magic, I have some people I introduced to steemit as a result of sharing the link to my posts on other platforms.
When they saw that the user get paid for posting, they start calling and asking questions about how it works.
I implore everyone to use this method, it works like magic.
Thanks @meno.
cheers my friend
Thanks
Was transisto planning on paying the person that got the article trending and managed to contain the PR to spin it in a positive manner in the comment chain? I'm familiar enough with reddit to know it would be a fucking longshot as the general sentiment there has turned against crypto, but I might be up for attempting something later.
Well, I'm not sure anyone even got close to succeding... truth be told reddit is censorship central today and I avoid it like the plague...
However, it does get a lot of traffic, so his idea was good...
Rofl, someone did get to the #2 spot.
God bless you. https://steemit.com/@biblegateway
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.. "so to speak." Albeit in a perpetual state of "beta," - it is built - and if it is worthy, they shall come in mass. Dead horses do not appreciate further beating whether or not they feel the pains of such abuse... All in good time, my friends... All in good time...
Oh yes, absolutely. My strategy seems to not be working though. I had an interesting conversation though with someone who was slightly intrigued by it. It usually ends up boiling down to considering it to be risky compared to their current steady but small income stream, which also is a pretty large time sink. And these are people like musicians and artists that could really shine I think... And at the same time I don't want to emphasize the money too much, of course it's a great motivator but I want to emphasize the potential for it to be big instead... Ah well.