There's a lot of confusion for users who are new to the STEEM blockchain, so I decided to make short videos to help new users out. Most of the videos out there are rather complicated, not concise and too long, so I decided to make my own. These videos will be less than 5 minutes with 3 minutes being the goal. I chose to put this on youtube to help users who are not familiar with STEEM already. If you feel like this video and think it is a good introduction and you want to see more like it, please watch the video on youtube to help promote it.

WHAT IS THE STEEM BLOCKCHAIN?

Steem is a blockchain protocol that is designed to support social media content. The blockchain stores social media postings in the form of text only. That means the information on the blockchain is immutable however, outside of the physical text, the content that users create is actually hosted on a server elsewhere and is not part of the block chain such as images and videos. So the type of content a user wants to create is limited by the services that utilize the STEEM blockchain.

Currently there are three popular ways to access the content on the STEEM block chain.

www.steemit.com
www.busy.org
www.dtube.video
www.utopian.io

All of these sites access the SAME information, just through a different interface and have different purposes.

WHAT INCENTIVE IS THERE FOR A CONTENT CREATOR TO MIGRATE TO THE STEEM PLATFORM?

This is a complicated question to answer, so we need to look at a model to help us draw parallels from. Let's use an example of a youtuber who creates vlogs and makes money from advertisements or through buisness connections from the very fact that he has an audience. Will that person benefit from steemit?

The answer is Yes.

In this example, the youtuber is making money off of advertisements from views. If the content creator uploads to youtube, and then create a post on one of the portals that access the blockchain, such as steemit.com, the creator would theoretically expose their content to steemit users and engage more people. There is one caveat to that though. The steemit community is much like the comment section of youtube, where engagement with your audience is key. If you simply draw a link from your youtube videos to one of the access portals such as steemit.com, you'll realize that you will get zero connection with the steemit audience.

But if you DO commuinicate with the steemit community, you'll find that you will increase your viewership AND you will also make a few bucks from their upvotes, something I will discuss in another video.

WHO BENEFITS THE MOST FROM MIGRATING TO THE STEEM SOCIAL MEDIA ENVIRONMENT?

Social media benefits everyone who uses it, but in different ways. For the everyday user, steem is a way to connect with a growing community of people who are trying to produce the best content they can because they are being rewarded with the blockchain's cryptocurrency.
But portals such as steemit.com or busy.org behave just like any other social media environment. There are those who are

• just hanging around to consume content, which is the majority of users.

• those who are just starting out and the quality of their content varies from ametuer to pro.

• those who utilize the social media environment as a service it was intended for

• and finally, those who are using it as a way to make money through education and entertainment.

Youtube for example, started as service for video hosting, then as the content volume grew, advertisements brought in large amounts of money and then youtubers began making money by creating content that the majority of people want to consume. This traffic resulted in a surge of advertisement profits for youtube.

However, the BIGGEST group that can gain from migrating to the STEEM social media environment are those who are just starting out and the quality of their content is still amateurish. The reason is that it is easier to connect with the STEEM audience and it is a better place to AB Test how you deliver your content. This allows you access to an initially smaller audience group. Provided you work hard to improve your delivery and content, you will have a much easier time getting your message to people through the STEEM blockchain.

WHAT IS THE MOST SUCCESSFUL FORMAT ON STEEM?

It depends on which way you want to access the blockchain. Curently the most popular way is through steemit.com or busy.org, which are both text or blog based formats.

So if you are a content creator who is looking to maximize their cryptocurrency earnings, then you have to engage your audience through writing.
Services such as dtube.video are youtube clones, but usership is rather low and they are still growing as as service.

That's it, next video, we will discuss the inner workings of the STEEM block chain and how rewards are dished out.