Analysis: Promoted Content
I have made an analysis of the promoted content and how much return people make on their investments there. I have gone over almost all the promoted content yesterday, and recorded the following information:
profit of the article at that time
number of followers of the author at that time
money spent on boosting the content
And then after 1 day has passed, I checked them again, I've recorded the following:
profit of the article now
number of followers of the author now
I have a sample size of 45 articles, but I've only looked at minnows posts, people with less than 70 followers, since popular people with 100+ followers get huge profits anyway so that would distort our analysis.
So I was curious how much profit can a minnow make, how much return in investment, and how effective is the promoted content. The posts recorded, were pretty random, and some of them were good quality, some of them were bad, so I was not biased in the content quality.
I got the following results:
| SBD OLD | SBD BOOST | OLD FOLLOWERS | NEW SBD | NEW FOLLOWERS | MONEY DIFFERENCE | PROFIT | FOLLOWER DIFFERENCE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 107.06 | 98.17 | 10 | 115.05 | 10 | $7.99 | -$90.18 | 0 |
| 25.99 | 31.02 | 13 | 26.86 | 13 | $0.87 | -$30.15 | 0 |
| 0.5 | 30 | 3 | 0.55 | 4 | $0.05 | -$29.95 | 1 |
| 0.5 | 30 | 15 | 1.8 | 15 | $1.30 | -$28.70 | 0 |
| 98.22 | 27 | 23 | 102.43 | 24 | $4.21 | -$22.79 | 1 |
| 1.41 | 21 | 36 | 1.31 | 36 | -$0.10 | -$21.10 | 0 |
| 0.02 | 21 | 18 | 0.06 | 19 | $0.04 | -$20.96 | 1 |
| 4.35 | 20 | 60 | 4.49 | 60 | $0.14 | -$19.86 | 0 |
| 0.5 | 13 | 4 | 1.59 | 5 | $1.09 | -$11.91 | 1 |
| 3.47 | 12 | 52 | 3.56 | 56 | $0.09 | -$11.91 | 4 |
| 2.82 | 10.38 | 12 | 2.65 | 14 | -$0.17 | -$10.55 | 2 |
| 18.51 | 10 | 59 | 18.58 | 63 | $0.07 | -$9.93 | 4 |
| 96 | 10 | 43 | $90.60 | 43 | -$5.40 | -$15.40 | 0 |
| 0 | 10 | 5 | $0.00 | 5 | $0.00 | -$10.00 | 0 |
| 0.37 | 10 | 24 | $0.92 | 27 | $0.55 | -$9.45 | 3 |
| 0.01 | 10 | 32 | $0.01 | 32 | $0.00 | -$10.00 | 0 |
| 0.03 | 9 | 23 | $0.03 | 22 | $0.00 | -$9.00 | -1 |
| 0.01 | 8.04 | 30 | $0.00 | 30 | -$0.01 | -$8.05 | 0 |
| 0.66 | 8 | 68 | $0.83 | 71 | $0.17 | -$7.83 | 3 |
| 0.18 | 7.38 | 17 | $38.43 | 18 | $38.25 | $30.87 | 1 |
| 0 | 7.01 | 33 | $0.17 | 33 | $0.17 | -$6.84 | 0 |
| 34.13 | 6.73 | 46 | $37.70 | 51 | $3.57 | -$3.16 | 5 |
| 0.04 | 6.66 | 38 | $0.06 | 39 | $0.02 | -$6.64 | 1 |
| 4.83 | 6 | 53 | $4.48 | 55 | -$0.35 | -$6.35 | 2 |
| 0.06 | 5.02 | 62 | $0.06 | 63 | $0.00 | -$5.02 | 1 |
| 11.54 | 5 | 67 | $11.88 | 67 | $0.34 | -$4.66 | 0 |
| 0.01 | 5 | 35 | $0.00 | 37 | -$0.01 | -$5.01 | 2 |
| 0.76 | 5 | 59 | $0.84 | 63 | $0.08 | -$4.92 | 4 |
| 0.03 | 5 | 59 | $0.03 | 60 | $0.00 | -$5.00 | 1 |
| 0.1 | 5 | 68 | $0.12 | 69 | $0.02 | -$4.98 | 1 |
| 0.96 | 4.04 | 42 | $1.01 | 46 | $0.05 | -$3.99 | 4 |
| 0.05 | 4 | 46 | 0.05 | 46 | $0.00 | -$4.00 | 0 |
| 0.08 | 4 | 46 | $0.08 | 47 | $0.00 | -$4.00 | 1 |
| 0 | 3.5 | 9 | $0.00 | 10 | $0.00 | -$3.50 | 1 |
| 4.58 | 3 | 7 | $4.88 | 7 | $0.30 | -$2.70 | 0 |
| 0.04 | 3 | 8 | $0.04 | 8 | $0.00 | -$3.00 | 0 |
| 0.04 | 3 | 51 | $0.03 | 55 | -$0.01 | -$3.01 | 4 |
| 1.89 | 3 | 26 | $2.01 | 30 | $0.12 | -$2.88 | 4 |
| 0.07 | 2.3 | 47 | $0.07 | 47 | $0.00 | -$2.30 | 0 |
| 0.46 | 2 | 43 | $0.45 | 44 | -$0.01 | -$2.01 | 1 |
| 0.1 | 2 | 36 | $0.14 | 40 | $0.04 | -$1.96 | 4 |
| 6.64 | 2 | 25 | $6.24 | 25 | -$0.40 | -$2.40 | 0 |
| 0.04 | 1.86 | 51 | $57.02 | 56 | $56.98 | $55.12 | 5 |
| 45.42 | 1.83 | 58 | $46.46 | 58 | $1.04 | -$0.79 | 0 |
| 0.14 | 1.59 | 2 | $0.32 | 3 | $0.18 | -$1.41 | 1 |
Then let's see the results:
| . | MONEY DIFFERENCE | PROFIT | FOLLOWER DIFFERENCE |
|---|---|---|---|
| AVERAGE | 2.4727 | -8.4947 | 1.3778 |
| MEDIAN | 0.0400 | -5.0200 | 1.0000 |
The results are very very bad, newbies have all lost money on average, and they barely made any new followers. Now in this analysis it's better to look at the median values since the first elements cause data spikes and skew the data.
But regardless, newbies are doing pretty bad, and there were some good quality stuff there too. And considering that most data points consist of low SBD boost investments, they still could not make money.
This doesn't mean that if you invest 100-200 SBD in promotion you will get money either, I haven't analyzed those posts, but I bet they lost money too.
Promoted content in it's current form, doesn't boost our chances for our content to go viral. So either the system gets redesigned, or more whales and sharks will have to vote there, otherwise it is a failure.
Disclaimer: The information provided on this page might be incorrect. I am not responsible if you lose money from the information you've read on this page! This is not an investment advice, just my opinion and analysis.
How did I not see this earlier? I love stuff like this!
This seems to add up. I feel like promoting my posts hasn't helped a ton, But it might of helped me a little bit!? I like that you did this with so many posts. Plus the complicated thing is all the variables going into it! I wonder how those influenced the results. Perhaps minnows don't "advertise" their post outside Steemit much?
don't you think, it's maybe a little bit early to tell?
Perhaps, but what worries me is that whales are inactive in general, a large portion of whale accounts are cold storage and were never used.
So the whole system relies on people to vote, but if the people with most SP don't vote, then we barely earn money, and inequality will be big.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@luminousvisions/authors-should-upvote-most-comments-made-on-their-post
A whale not voting just redistributes that unused voting influence to everyone else who is voting. The amount of money to be distributed daily has nothing to do with how many votes were given out that day nor the total SP of the accounts giving out those votes.
So whales not voting only increases inequality of reward distribution if you believe that non-whales are more likely to vote in a way that promotes inequality than the way whales would vote. Personally, I don't think the voting patterns have much of a correlation to the amount of SP the user holds. Or, if anything, I think it could even be fair to say a whale would be more willing to vote in a manner that promotes better distribution for the sake of the platform's future (and thus their investment).
must have taken awhile to put this data together
thanks!
Yes i did it all manually, but it was not a waste, since I wanted to see how profitable is the Promotion system.
It turns out it isnt at all, so I will not promote my posts until it gets better. We need more whales upvoting stuff there, otherwise it's useless.
I've been checking the posts I read and most people are not using the promote feature, especially those whose posts do well historically. I also went through a few of the top posts in the promotion section, and noticed they weren't making significant money, considering the amounts invested. I think that the first day the feature was available was the window to make money. As it is now, it's bound to fail.
There will be an equilibrium of some sort where people will pay something to go to the top of the list. If the price to go to the top of the list were $1, everybody would do that. So the price would rise. Right now, with @ned promoting crap to the top to push down the FUD article, the price is way too high.
Yes, I think also that the market will fix it, Boost Amounts will go down significantly, and most people won't spend more than 1-2$ to get there. Only the top 10 spots are somewhat useful (/tag), the others are useless anyway.
Your data mirrors my own experience. I promoted three different posts and two of three were busts regarding ROI and the new users I did pick up came from engaging with them, not from the promoted post.
I don't think I'm going to participate in the promoted list moving forward until there is some compelling reason to do so.
I can relate to you. I was just about to spend 50$ yesterday, but then seeing people spend 300-400$ only to get back 30$, doesn't look like a good investment. Even the ones on the top 5 spots, they've lost money too.
This makes sense..
So here's an important question: will the market learn how to use promoted posts more efficiently? or does it have to be redesigned?
I'd support a 2-column thing, where we see promoted posts alongside the normal stuff. Or do it like ebay, where promoted stuff is mixed in but colored green.
Nah that is covert advertising, then it will be hard to tell if a post is genuinely succesful or just some scammer decides to put 1000$ to promote his latest ponzi.
I think this is fair, I am personally tired of endless ads, and if people want to enjoy an ad-free experience this is better.
I think the market will work out, and Boost prices will fall. But if for some reason it doesn't then the whales will have to participate more ,or perhaps redesign the vote rewards, or the SP system.
We shall see how the Steem platform can be improved.
Interesting Not sure when you gathered this, but Ned and some others paid some pretty high fees to promote some content today. Maybe check it again!
Thanks for the vote, it provided you a minivote.
I'm not a conspiracy nut, but it looks like that content was promoted to push down the FUD article about @ned and @dantheman selling STEEM.
But they are known people, they would have made profit anyway. I am talking about minnows, and how much ROI can they make on their investment.
I deliberately excluded whales and popular people from this research to see how efficient it is for minnows.
No I am saying Ned used the promotion feed today, to the tune of 200.000 per post he promoted, not sure we will see that activity every day! :)
Oh I see, well some people had a lucky day then, most whales hardly vote only a few whales are active regularly and vote.
How timely! I was wo dering if I should soend some sbd to boost a couple of posts. But after checking out the payouts/boots etc in the promoted category decided against it. Thanks for the analysis. I find that tags like #payitforward, #minnowsunite and #steemsquad are much better for increasing visibility on posts, if they are good. :-)
I think we need to wait a bit. There is no enough data so far. I think that result will be approximately same, but there is another value of promoting. The burning of SB can help to support market .
I would rather see categories on the top of the website because scrolling down across all promoted posts and trending posts with low content value for me is annoying.
its a mess so far. I want to check only my favorite categories.
You're absolutely right. It doesn't do a thing.
I tried on the first night, and I though it did.
But then I tried 2x times, and no increase from normal exposure.
I spent around $120 SBD, and down the drain it went LOL.
Thanks for the analysis. Upvoted / followed. Take care. Peace.
Success ratio is 2-3% which is very low.
It's almost nonexistent, even with promoted content, and there were some good quality posts too.
So I guess just old fashioned hardwork will make one succesful on Steemit. No shortcuts.