We all have this impression or certitude that Steemit will surpass Facebook in the longer run but with the stats below, is it really possible? Should we be motivated to be on Steemit on Monday or should we be worried of where we are investing our time and money?

Steemit has been founded in 2016 by Ned Scott and Dan Larimer, under the company name of Steemit Inc. The platform allows for writing blogs and getting paid in a cryptocurrency we call Steem. Now this Steem has a value and can be exchanged for other cryptocurrencies or dollars.

Facebook has been present in our everyday life since 2004 and does not need an introduction. Most of Steemians here surely have a Facebook account either active or dormant.

With all the grey areas in the terms and conditions of Facebook, users are increasingly worried about their privacy and how their browsing behavior is being sold to companies who need those statistics. Facebook is making billions selling those big data analytics to big corporations and the user is getting none of that share. Is this the price we are paying to keeping Facebook free?

Can Steemit provide the answer to the growing needs of the people for more privacy over their digital self and their investment. Can Steemit really return some of the rewards back to the people. Will Steemit survive long enough or will its rival crush it down.

The stats of Steemit

1. Traffic & Engagement 

Globally Steemit is currently ranked 4,238 and in the USA alone, it is in the first 3000 most popular websites. In a competition of billions of website, to be ranked in the first 5000 globally is a really healthy position, considering that the platform has been online for just over 1 year. 

There has been 46.77 million visits from June 2017 till August 2017 alone. This is almost 5% higher than the previous month. If this uptrend is maintained then the rankings will decrease and the popularity of Steemit will increase.

Usage of Steemit is almost same for desktop and mobile users. This shows that Steemit renders the blogs in responsive mobile friendly fashion and people find it easy to use on both desktop and mobile.

 Many of you must be asking what is this Bounce rate! Well it is a metric that indicates the percentage of people who land on one of Steemit page and then leave without clicking to go anywhere else on the website. 

With a monthly average of 15.59 million users and a daily average of 500, 000 visits, the platform has gained traction after June 2017 which was around when the Hard Fork 19 was announced. After that, the participation rate has been almost contant without any sign of improvement. 

Many Steemians joining are probably not making enough out of the platform and finds it hard to engage with the community. They have either been sold the wrong information or there is an evident lack of support and tutoring for new comers.

2. Geography 

As expected, the US has the highest participation followed by the UK and Germany. Korea makes it into the top 5 countries generating the most traffic and confirms the real surge in Korean accounts. They surpassed Canada and displaced Australia who is generating 2.81% of the traffic. Among the top 10 countries we have France following Australia with India, Netherlands and Japan. China has a participation rate of 1.51% and does not even make it into the top 10.

3. Audience interest 

Interestingly, most searched and read topics are mostly about investment and the stock market. Steemit is loaded with many articles written on cryptos and the general market. For those wanting to learn more about Steemit and the whole crypto market, this is a really nice place to do it and you are able to view the comments to find the authenticity of the articles.

4. Marketing Mix

How is Steemit promoting itself. How is it being accessed and by which sites people are getting to know about Steemit? Most traffics are coming from search engines and from accessing the site directly from Steemians. The organic search and the direct access result being almost same most probably indicates Steemians that are using the Steemit search to look for posts, which is powered by Google Search.

We can notice that there is 0.03% which is being used in Ads. Who are those Steemians funding those ads display? I know of one of those Steemians in the name of @jerrybanfield with how he is funding paid advertisement by checking the post 1,035,858 Facebook Users Discover Steem for $1,008.91! We can also help in this cause and help grow Steemit even bigger by participating in such collective ads paid events. Every cents matters to help promote Steemit further.

The same stats but with original figures. We can see that there has been a slight decline by traffic coming from other social platforms.

Among the social platforms, Facebook is leading the way by generating the most traffic followed by Twitter, which I know @nicnicy and @clixmoney spreading the words.

5. Search

Most search are coming from Google as even Steemit's search is powered by the Google engine.  The competitive overlap parameter is for people who have searched for Steemit and then visited the other websites. We could see that people looking for articles in search results also visit bitcointalk a lot.

6. Social

Steemit V/S Facebook

All the stats of Steemit looks pretty promising but what happens when comparing it to its rival? While Steemit is built on the blockchain and promise anonymity and no ads, Facebook sells analytical data of users behaviour and there are many conspiracies running around it over privacy concerns.

1. Rankings

Facebook is the number 1 social media site around the world and is also the most popular website. For Steemit to be able to compete with Facebook, it should be having over 1 billion users. Will Steemit it be able to sustain such a huge traffic and what will happen to the reward pool? Will it be able to share the rewards fairly across the whole spectrum?

Steemit is already having trouble with the retention rate by analysing my own followers list and that of some close Steemians. How the platform will evolve over time will decide the fate of the platform. This should be watched really closely to understand clearly the future of Steemit.

2. Traffic overview

Facebook had a total visit of 107 billion in the last 3 months as compared to the 46.8 million visits for Steemit. This is expected as Steemit is still in the developing stage and it lacks many of the features that Facebook offers. The Steemit ecosystem should be more integrate with time with more grading of the feed and in built chat system.

Facebook is also popular due to its powerful mobile apps which users can access anywhere anytime. Steemit has an unofficial app in the name of eSteem, which has been developed by @good-karma and offers great features and is under constant upgrade.

There is a lack of centralised communication from the Steemit platform developers and finding all the information can be very difficult. So many posts are written and curate each day and information is easily missed. Should the main representatives of the platform has a separate section for them?

3. Geography

Among all the major countries common to both platform, we can see that Facebook has 99.9% of the market at its hand. Will Steemit be able to steer away such a huge disadvantage? There is a long way for Steemit to go to beat Facebook. But can a major update to Steemit change everything?

4. Marketing Mix

Steemit is accessed directly by its link more often than Facebook where we can see that the latter's organic search is higher. People uses search engines more often to find results for Facebook as compared to Steemit. Both of the platform spends around the same on paid advertisement (0.09% by Facebook and 0.03% by Steemit) and does not rely too much on such form of media.

Conclusion

Steemit has a long way to go before it can overtake Facebook. All the stats points towards all the weaknesses that Steemit has to address to be able to serve users in the millions and billions. The game changer will come after the next Hard Fork named Velocity which can bring so many changes like making the account creation process more open. 

What do you think: Will Steemit be able to surpass Facebook and how long it might take?

Share your conclusion with us so that the community is aware of it and can help motivate the growth of the platform!

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