Steemit/STEEM INVESTMENT ADVICE NEEDED
Note: I posted this yesterday with very little user feedback, and only minnows posting their advice.. I am hoping a second post will capture some more useful comments. Time of day, and when you post is a factor when trying to capture an audience. It would be greatly appreciated for anyone to make more suggestions.
In an earlier post I mentioned I brought 3 people to steemit.com. All are inactive. My friend who is an invester wants to join the community. So that now makes it 4 people. He just signed up and will wait for authorization. He like many others has seen the massive “gains” in crypto-currency and wants a starting point to get in. I guess he is not ready to shell out over $10,000 CAD to get started.
So here once again I am presented with an option for Steemit.com. I just sent him the sign up link, but I really am concerned. I want him to have a great impression and start seeing some kind of gain. I’m not the type to give bad advice, so I’m not sure how to teach him the ropes of Steemit. There are such diverse crowds here, and to be honest it’s better to not have a vested economic interest in STEEM. Reason being, I have no gripes with anyone. So now I do realize that there are much of a majority who do have a vested economic interest. This includes my good friend who is signing up. So investment wise, I can tell him STEEM is fast, has SMT’s coming out, and is transaction free. Already STEEM has Bitcoin at a benefit.
What can I say, the beauty of diversity community wise can be a double edged sword. Booster services have taken headline, circle pool rewards, bot wars etc etc.. My question for the community is this: How should I get him started in this community; especially if he is going to invest money into it? I don’t mind the flagging wars, the whale vs whale etc.. but when someone comes in with money and wants to invest it, well that’s a different story. Any tips from some dolphins or whales would be much appreciative. Like I have stated before, I use steemit as a personal blog. I like to share my life and stories in a somewhat anonymous form. When someone comes to the platform as a investment, well it’s a little out of my comfort zone.
- Any suggestions would be great to follow from more veteran sources (investment wise).
Sincerely BB613
Do you have some idea of what your latest recruits intentions and expectations are for the Steem platform? By this, I mean do they actually want to use it as a social media network, content creation channel, or business tool... or do they more want to be a passive investor who just needs convinced of the value of the Steem blockchain and token?
I ask because one negative aspect of some investors is when they are interested in the greatest return on their Steem Power and attempt to achieve it by heavily self voting their own posts and comments with little community contribution, solely in a (usually successful attempt) to increase the "interest" on their SP. While short term this may be lucrative, it absolutely devalues the platform as a whole in the long run. Investors with no time or interest in utilizing their stake responsibly should be passive, delegating power to good causes and waiting for capital appreciation in the form of token price increase - not "dividends" in the form of author and curation rewards.
An interested investor probably just needs to do the kind of due diligence and have the vision and forethought they would when investing in any company. This just entails reading a lot of Steem content, finding interesting projects and use cases, asking questions, etc.
I think the best pitch is in the potential of the Steem blockchain and token far beyond what it is today. You can point out many of the projects and sites built on Steem that are improving and growing today. New users tend to think Steem and Steemit are synonymous, but Steem is so much more. We have Steemit, Busy, Zappl, eSteem, dTube, Steepshot, ChainBB, Utopian.io and more.
What sites and services does the investor use online today? Forums? Disqus comments? Pinterest? Youtube? Twitter? Facebook? Kickstarter? Fiverr? Patreon? All of these types of implementations can be realized on the Steem blockchain. Any existing site someone uses could probably benefit from implementing Steem. One great example of this is the photo site www.bescouted.com. It's a perfect example of an existing site that implemented a Steem backend to add a wonderful additional monetization strategy for it's users and contributors.
A bright Steem future creates one unified account and login for limitless sites and networks. The content and data users contribute is open and non proprietary. Imagine if MySpace had fallen out of favor but FaceBook was just a new front end and everyones accounts and content were immediately and effortlessly carried over from the shared database? Crowdfunding, from Kickstarter to Patreon to GoFundme can be done directly between parties. No middlemen, no fees. And with Steems rewards pool system, you have the option of supporting via vote! Direct Steem transfers are possible of course, with no fees and near instant confirmation, but if I was a comic book enthusiast (not a hypothetical... I actually am) who liked to back a lot of publishing projects on KickStarter, I could opt to instead put all the money I would have spent on backing into Steem Power, fund projects with my now more valuable and influential votes, receive the rewards... and never touch my initial principal balance which is in fact growing in both size and hopefully value!
For any new users who actually want to utilize the platforms, I think the best advice is to try to forget about the monetary aspect completely and use it for enjoyment. Don't spend hours fretting about optimal voting and posting strategies for ROI. Find a couple projects or communities of interest that you are passionate about and engage. That being said, the user base is very small which limits engagement in many topics, so people at the forefront need to be of a certain mentality to keep going and pioneer the new systems. While Steem has had a large attrition rate in its infancy, most of those lost users will return with growing popularity. Or they'll find this cool new site and go to create an account only to realize they already have one because it's built on"that Steem thing" they tried a couple years back.
For new cryptocurrency investors Steemit is a great place. It really is a gateway to crypto. At this early stage crypto is obviously a huge topic and has the broadest community. In time this will fade as the concept and technology becomes more mainstream allowing us to stop talking about the system itself, and just use the system to talk about other things! But Steemit was my start to now owning at least a bit of multiple coins, having accounts with most major exchanges, understanding and using a variety of wallets, purchasing a couple cloud mining contracts, etc. I could have learned about this on other forums, but here I actually earned a bit of crypto to trade and invest simultaneously, and the community is generally more helpful because positive behavior is essentially incentivized. This source of knowledge alone can be enough of a draw for for your investor friend, whether they decide to actually move fiat money into Steem itself or some other token they learned about and studied on a Steem based site.
Thank you for the most in depth response to date. You can be well assured I will be studying your response and forwarding the information you have graciously taken your time to forward to me. My friend is an investor and like you said is looking for a gateway into the crypto-currency space. Unlike me who is using the platform for "fun", my friend wishes a ROI and I want to help him but cannot do so because I never viewed steemit as get rich scheme (or at least make money off of). Once again your advice is sound. I will explain to him delegation services. STEEM and steemit are very confusing for anyone joining the platform. A considerable amount of time is needed to understand ANYTHING.
It really does take a lot of time and exposure to wrap your head around everything, but I think that is a great sign of just how much potential is here!
An investor looking to delegate Steem Power for ROI does have a lot of options. Personally, I'm not in favor of delegating to a service that in turn resells your power and cuts you in on some of the profits. Yes, it's a steady income stream and your power doesn't "go to waste" but if the people leasing that power use it irresponsibly then you are also devaluing all of your existing Steem with the harm done to the platform. Again, it's a choice between capital appreciation and dividends when put into investor type terms.
I feel it's much better to delegate to a project you actually believe in that is growing the platform or making it a better place. Something like Spaminator or Utopian. You get no immediate return, but if it contributes to Steem success and token appreciation that's what matters.
I'm a fan of bescouted.com as well. I think it's a great early example of outside Steem integration. They have made an offer where power delegated for a predetermined period of time will result in receiving some of their own SMT when those launch. They responsibly use that power to reward within their own community and build it up - adding user base and value to the Steem ecosystem. I'd imagine some other projects may do the same or will be and those are the type I seek out in contrast to delegating power to accounts which will lease it to anyone. They at least represent a middleground between the altruistic no return delegations, and the paid to lease type businesses.
Yes, a lot of things to weigh. I am not sure if he will be buying his STEEM POWER which in essence is investing in the platform. He is not a blogger type.. just looking for pure ROI (which is risky with fluctuation of price). I have no idea how much money how much he will put in (if any). I don't want to promote something that is a money maker when I haven't invested nor am I convinced at this point too. However with that being said there as been enormous benefit to learning about crypto etc. He might en up enjoying blogging about finances or the like and upvoting his own post for exposure. I wouldn't want him to get flagged either so thats another thing to explain lol ;)
I had a crisis with my account, getting an error message I did not understand. I went to the "help" section of steemchat. I got the most kind and heartfelt effort. They couldn't answer my question either, but they gave me the encouragement I needed to keep trying. Don't give up! I eventually after eight days figured it out myself (after a lot of research)! The people and advice are here and willing. Be patient. Best of fortunes.
Thanks for the comment, although I'm not sure relevant to my post lol
Sorry about that I thought you were looking for advice, and immediately related to the frustration of not getting answers. The help forum in steemchat and asking questions in comments on relevant posts has been really satisfying. Posting questions for me, has gotten upvotes but no answers. Thank you for replying anyway. Sorry for misunderstanding.
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thanks man ! keep up