Talking about Steem with others

The SteemJet community is having an interesting contest, where they're asking about ideas on what people can do to promote the adoption of Steem around the world. I thought it'd be fun to write about a little, so here's my entry.

I wasn't sure at first how I myself would promote Steem... Until I realized I was already doing it! When I'm having lunch with coworkers, sometimes I mention cryptocurrency and Steem. Usually when people think of crypto, they think Bitcoin, but Steem is another crypto that has a lot more character and fun. Talking face to face with people I already know is probably the most effective way of spreading awareness. If I show friends my account and am talking about how I'm invested in Steem (albeit not a lot, but at least a little), then they're at least interested in learning more. Maybe they're more likely to join the community, too! At the least, it's a fun concept to poke around at. Usually the reactions are pretty funny, it can be a little hard to believe this is a real thing. I also show the accounts of some top Steemers with travel blogs and they're blown away how a travel diary can earn hundreds of dollars.

"So it's like growing money on trees?" (Image source)

But then I need to mention that it can be tough to get to that high level in the first place, either you have to spend a lot of real money on getting so much SP, or a lot of time, or both. But still, it's more rewarding than just sharing posts or commenting on say reddit or Facebook, and there are some great communities that have grown on Steem and you can learn a lot about random topics that are interesting that you might not otherwise look at. For example, I can now identify a lot of neighborhood birds now, when I couldn't before, and am somewhat more familiar with Belarus' politics than before. Okay fine, maybe it's not the most useful knowledge but still interesting.

Just talk about Steem over lunch! This is a picture of a random lunch. Source

So yeah, personal communication is a good way to spread awareness, maybe adoption, of Steem. It's easy and fun, but slow. If a community really wanted to accelerate it, and had a lot of money, they could potentially run digital advertising campaigns but that's a big investment especially if it's hard to measure direct results of it.