Organic Growth versus Guild-Backed Growth versus Whale-Backed Growth on Steemit
The goal of this article is to describe the various growth dynamics that are at play in the Steemit ecosystem, to the extent the author understands them, obviously. It assumes that your role here is “content producer”, and not “investor”. Both roles are perfectly valid in the current Steemit ecosystem, but I’ll try to keep it only at the content producer level.
My Personal Experience In The Steemit Ecosystem
It’s been a little over 4 months since I joined Steemit, and boy, what a journey that was. I started with literally zero, and right now I’m at approximately 11k Steem Power. It could have been 13k or 14k if I wouldn’t start powering down a few weeks ago (partially to support my witness node and partially to support myself). In terms of followers, I’m at 469. My reputation is 71.
By any measurements, these are significant numbers, especially since all this growth happened in a very short time window and on a descending price trend.
How did I get here?
In all honesty, it was a combination of guild and whale support.
A couple of weeks after I started to post regularly I was noticed by @curie and they supported my posts for about a month. After that, I got the attention of another guild (I don’t know which one, probably SteemGuild, but I’m not sure), which also supported my posts, with a lower amount of voting power, but also for a longer period of time, like 2 months. As of yesterday, their support seems to be halted.
Also, since my very first post, the #introduceyourself entry, I was supported by @ned, who maintained his support almost constantly for the last 3 months. I also got a few consistent votes from @dantheman during January, a few occasional votes from other whales, like @blocktrades, @nextgencrypto, and a few Steemit Developers, like @abit, @riverhead and @jamesc. Sorry if I forgot somebody.
A couple of months ago I also announced my intention to become a witness and I was immediately supported by a few prominent members of the community (among them @ned, again, but also @clayop, @smooth and a few others). For those of you who don't know, witnesses are paid to produce blocks.
To all of the supporters above, I’m very grateful. They made my Steemit experience much more fulfilling and enjoyable.
If my work here have been supported only by my followers, I honestly think my SP would have been maximum 2-3k. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Organic Growth in Steemit
What should you expect in terms of organic growth in Steeimt? And by organic growth I’m referring to the type of growth which doesn’t involve whale hunting, nor guild affiliation, nor getting involved at the core of the community by becoming a witness.
Well, not much. According to steemd.com stats, the combined stake of users, superusers and heroes ($6 - $600 account value interval) is about 5%. Although they represent about 47% of the total number of active users.
The next level, superheroes, have a stake double the size, 10%, but they’re under 3% of the entire ecosystem.
And the top level, legends (or whales), are controlling 36% of the Steemit stake, while representing less than 1% of the entire ecosystem.
These numbers are a good incentive for head scratching. Let’s move forward.
Guild-Backed Growth
Guilds are groups organized around the common goal of supporting each other posts. @curie, @steemguild, @steemtrail, all of them are guilds and they are doing an interesting job. Some of these guilds are putting together so much voting power, that their vote can equal the vote of a legend(whale). Especially in the beginning and a few months after you’re in, the support of a guild is very encouraging.
But here are the drawbacks: after the guild no longer supports you, your rewards can go down dramatically. From an average of $10/post, you can get under $1/post. Also, guilds are time consuming, subject to human error and they’re also inherently biased towards their own members.
Whale-Backed Growth
Another source of growth is your relationship with a whale (legend). That person may become genuinely interested in what you’re posting, or may have some strategic interest in strengthening your position within the community. It may happen and it’s quite natural. The same drawbacks observed at the guild-backed growth are applying here as well, with a few additions: the chances that one person will suddenly change his preferences are much bigger than the chances of a group to suddenly change preferences, so you may fall down much faster and from a higher place. Also, you may get a lot of heat from other members of the community for “fraternizing with the whales”.
The Dynamics
The factors at play in the dynamics of growth in Steemit seem to be, according to the short descriptions above:
- time to market (how fast can you get to a position of influence here, let’s say, above 50k SP),
- return on investment - ROI (how big is the reward you get when you get into the position of influence, see more under the table)
- consistency (how consistent and efficient is the strategy)
| Growth Strategy | Time To Market | Consistency | ROI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organic | Very Slow | Strong | Big |
| Guild-Backed | Fast | Moderate | Average |
| Whale-Backed | Very Fast | Very Small | Average |
Now, let's talk a bit about what I understand by ROI. It's mainly the position of influence dictated by the amount of SP you own in the Steemit ecosystem, but it also factors in two other relevant factors: reputation and influence. Reputation is not necessarily the number near your name, it's something else.
Reputation means your activity here is recognized across the entire ecosystem, not only in a few isolated groups. Influence means your opinions and suggestions are taken at face value, that your followership have trust in you.
Those two metrics are exchangeable in other ecosystems. You can either take your followership with you on other platforms (if people really care about what you write) or you can use the reputation you gained here to become an authority in a certain broader niche. Either way, those two metrics cannot be obtained in guild-backed or whale-backed scenarios. Those scenarios can help you to establish yourself faster, but the quality and consistency of your presence here, in the long run, is the one that really matters.
Of course, making some relevant money (let's say, between $600 and $1200 per month) just by writing on Steemit is still a nice deal. Very few places on the Internet offer you this amount of payment for your writing, especially if you're a freelancer, work your own hours and have no specific requirements for your writing. It's still way more than ok.
But the real goal, the real opportunity here is to pack your SP with reputation and influence also, specifically because those last metrics are "fungible", transmissible in other ecosystems. And, in a boomerang effect, this "fungibility" will hit back the entire Steemit ecosystem with more respect and more members, and that will make your SP grow significantly in value.
Although Steemit is a revolutionary way to do social media, the good ol' "work hard" paradigm is still relevant here. You may make a fast buck, but if you really want to hit it big, then you have to put in the hours, the days, the weeks and the months. Organic growth in Steemit is very, very slow.
But it's also the most rewarding one.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
Yes, steemvoter seems to be down. That's why your posts are not autovoted by me :)
As for the topic of your article - precise assessment, of course.
There is the fourth approach, though. I call it Banding together. Some content / posts / authors get constantly and massively upvoted no matter what they produce.
I am not complaining. Just stating the obvious. The platform allows it. It is one way to get your initial investment out, I guess :)
I opt for the organic growth with an occasional chip-in by guilds and legends.
For the later - I call it being nedded. When the reward is more than, let's say $5, there always is a ned topping the upvotes list :)
Now, how do you attract the ned? Bot hunting, anybody? :)
Interesting breakdown... I guess I have always leaned towards the "organic" approach, as a blogger and content writer for some 20 years. Alas, most of the time, my determination to succeed "through hard work" seems to have outlasted the platforms I have chosen... it seems like very few web properties truly plan for the long run, and "slowly but steadily" is not in their vocabulary.
Anyway, I really like Steemit as a venue... enough that I have taken my "general blogging" out of mothballs and resumed, here. I just hope nobody shoots the goose that seems to be laying golden eggs...
I hear you. :)
Very interesting post.
I have been traveling down the organic route, and because im not particularly regular poster rewards have been varied.
I've noticed an uptick in the amount of bots voting for me recently, but the actual amount of views on a post remains low. But if one or two get a kick out of what I post, then jobs a good 'un.
Bots have been at the center of a quite heated debate here lately. I'm in favor of bots, but backed with some significant AI, some sort of delegation of my voting power based on what I consider relevant criteria.
Thanks for your usual sound advice. At least Ican understand it. Well done dragosroua.
Thanks :)
thanks for sharing all of this detailed feedback, happy to see you receive so much continued support, you really contribute quality posts!
Thanks for being around as well :)
Thanks for trying to explain... it still seems quite mysterious and hit or miss to me. My long term goal here is to produce good content that a growing readership will actually read and benefit from.
To that end, I've been really glad for your coaching with tutorials and challenges focusing on various writing strategies.
My "rewards" have seemed to be highly dependent on the specific content and tags, as well as the random factors of whatever whales may have been swimming by and taken notice. I appreciate all of that, but it would seem to me that greater consistency in response from the audience would be more motivating for writers.
Having said all that, I guess I'll just keep "Steeming on" and observing and trying to learn. Thanks again for your instruction and support and for your witness activities. 😄😇😄
The ecosystem is still very small to create that type of traction we all want and expect from organic growth. The numbers at the beginning of the article are just about that.
The slow process of transferring voting power from within the guilds and whales hands to a bigger membership will take some time.
Let's not forget that we are all, basically, paid beta testers here.
This post has been ranked within the top 50 most undervalued posts in the first half of Feb 21. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $3.41 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Feb 21 - Part I. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
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Very interesting read.
I have been on Steemit for about 4 months too, my growth had been fairly organic and I think you hit the nail on the head for expected returns for the organic growth path.
The one great part about the organic growth is the opportunity you get to develop you're skills as a writer. If your in this for the long haul I think this is a brilliant place to work your apprenticeship as a blogger, writer and curator. I am not a particular fan of bots as I don't believe they can seek out good content. Their algorithms are no replacement for real people. On the other hand curation guilds are a great idea and I am in favour of them.
Welcome to Steemit! :))