Promoted Posts: Will it work? If not then what will?
Steemit has had as close to a fairy tale start as one could hope for, and now what lies ahead is more challenging and will define the future of Steemit. If one could use a single word to describe what concerns Steemit right now, it will be LIQUIDITY.
Today we are see the new promoted post section appearing on our steemit accounts, but will this be enough to counter the liquidity issue? I doubt, and here are my reasons for it.
- Most people on steemit are here to make money out of it.
- Sure some people will invest money for their posts to be read by more people and eventually earn from it.
- But even as the steemit user base grows, on internet in general, there are way more readers than writers.
- So the investment from writers will not be much and steemit economy will remain a closed ecosystem.
There is a need to link steemit with an ecosystem which is much larger than steemit and which can use steemit to earn money. This ecosystem, as you all can guess is, advertising. But with bringing in advertisers will bring it's own challenges.
One of the suggestions I've read across on Steemit is that brands can buy Steem Power to become whales and up vote content. But that will be very bad for your steemit feed and it could end up looking like this:
Another, more constructive way to bring in the advertisers could be to introduce banner ad's on posts. It could look like this:
The advertisers will be charged for ads on impression based and the cost of impressions will be calculated through an algorithm that accommodates the popularity of the post. More popular the post higher the price of the ad impression.To pay for these posts advertisers will need to buy Steem from the Exchange and it will bring in the liquidity needed.
There's another thing Steemit might need to look into, like I mentioned earlier, there will always be more readers than writers on internet. The UI of steemit need to accommodate this reality. One improvement that comes to mind is the proper allocation of tags. There can be a certain number of tags which are fixed and posts need to be catagorized under atleast one of these. Let's call these Master tags. Then there can be Sub tags, which can be used as search terms for posts.
This is my view for taking Steemit to the next level, what is your opinion of it? What more can we do to make it better, please share your suggestions and feedback.
It isn't a question of "will it work", the answer is not binary. It will add to the overall ecosystem without taking away from anything. The market will naturally establish a price for the promoted content tab and that price will be based upon the effectiveness of the tab. One thing is certain, the price is greater than 0.
agreed, it is definitely going to add value, thus is a good addition to the community. My idea with this post was to look into the question of liquidity in a longer run, so investigated it's effectiveness in those terms. But it's good to know that we're working not with a sole goal of liquidity but also making the community more democratic.
Forget the promote button ... I like the new menu!
Me tooo!
following!
@dantheman how about a system that will award more for finding out good content out of low reputable users than betting on the same steady trending authors. It would be something like betting when you play in favor of a team that constant wins the championship vs the outsider. I think something in the lines of that will benefit steemit the most. And will make it fairer for those that have some great and original content as they will be more likely to get a vote or two more in comparison to what is happening at the moment. We tend to be the "dollarvigilante" land.
sincerely @skapaneas.
Good points to bring up.
I'm not a big fan of ads though... but that's not the users who get to decide what the future of ads on the platform will be...
As for the forced topics, I disagree. That is too limiting to force someone to choose from a limited list of "MASTER TAGS". More freedom please.
Take care. Peace.
There is one thing I'm sure the promoted post accomplishes is that it allows a chance of discovery to everyone. So if I feel my posts would have gotten more upvotes, had more people read it, then it's way to get those views. Rest the quality of work will decide.
^vote^
thanks
On one hand I hate the idea of promoted posts, it's one part of social media that should be left to facebook, that and the type of spammy add articles from future advertisers.
On the other hand it could be a great way for curators to boost their income and that of the writers.
but to be honest i won't be visiting the promoted pages to find new content.
I too think, there's no real motivation to go to the promoted tab. It could end making rich richer. But it doesn't appear to answer the liquidity woes.
I plan to try to promote one of my future posts. Just waiting to see how effective it is.
That brings up the point of promotion analytics,though I'm sure it must be coming out any time now. @dantheman is it?
I have just joined Steemit last week, and it does seem to be a little too late to use it to earn anything.
Your take on the issue is very interesting, what do you think about affilitation? It could give more freedom to the writers to decide which posts they'd like to have an advertising in and in which posts not.
I think since pay out and ad prices are correlated, either there shouldn't be an to disable one or if there is one it should have an impact on the pay out. Otherwise we'll again be struggling with liquidity.