Taking Steem to the Streets

Introduction

I rarely have a waking hour where I'm not thinking of Steem. As I'm either in the discord chat, writing content, curating or dabbling in code. In fact, I like to go deep down the rabbit hole and once I'm in, I find it hard to pull myself out.

And I hate being distracted with FOMO and FUD of other crypto's so it's just you and I Steem. (Plus a little BTC because we don't have a USD trading pair yet)

Now such intensity leads to much thought and I position myself as an ideas machine. So today I'll share with you my latest idea to get Steem out on the streets. Literally.

Taking Steem to the Streets

Promoting Steem

I was recently reminded that we are in a Steem echo chamber and are largely still working on word of mouth to gain new members.

And I rarely see crypto news clippings talking about Steem and apart from a few stunts from the promo-steem team, I can't see us gaining any real traction on our current path.

Personally, I host a local meetup group, and have created the Steem Australia website as a way to introduce the Steem message to the general public and more specifically as a portal for the local mass media. [WIP]

But this isn't enough, as we need to think bigger.

Yes we need to get Steem into the mainstream media and out onto the streets, but one-on-one conversations will be too slow, so we need to recruit an army to help get the word out.

Recruiting an Army of Steem Promoters

Now you'd think with over 700k Steem accounts we'd be pumping by now, but sadly most of these accounts lie dormant and of the remaining active users, you'll find most are just happy to write their words for the day and take the money.

Which is fine, as that's what Steemit promotes, 'write content and get rewarded' but I feel people still lack the vision needed to take Steem to the next step.

What we really need is an army of believers out on the streets promoting the Steem brand on a daily basis.

What if these people already were out there?

And were looking for an opportunity to make extra money on the side while enriching the Steem Community at the same time.

It would be a WIN-WIN, wouldn't it?

Well, I've got great news, because there is an Army of People waiting for us to show them the way.

The DLive Revolution

I must admit the first video platform I discovered on the Steem Blockchain was Dtube and at the time I thought it was a great addition to the blockchain albeit a bit laggy and unreliable.

But recently I sat in front of my laptop for an hour watching an impromptu DLive mini-jam session by well known Aussie Indie Artist @benleemusic.

It was fun.

The session wasn't laggy, and Ben Lee could interact with the crowd asking for suggestions whilst getting upvotes as he played his way through a heap of tunes.

In fact, this particular DLive jam session made over $200 SBD that day and peaked at around 60 active connections which isn't bad for an hours work and very little promoting.

And although I enjoyed the show my mind was racing at the possibilities.

What if @benleemusic wasn't in his studio, but rather was busking on the streets?

Would this still work?

Buskers attract crowds

It's becoming more and more commonplace for buskers to take video footage of their performance either streaming it to various live services such as Periscope, Facebook Live, and even Twitch or uploading later to Youtube.

However, there is always a friction point and that's people actually parting with their money to give the busker a tip.

But what if, the watchers of those live streams were Steemians, with handfuls of free upvotes to splash around?

What if DLive became the go-to destination for buskers worldwide?

Making it Happen

Did you know my local City of Melbourne, has 1 million transient people strolling the streets every day?

And most will end up in the busy Bourke Street Mall where most of the Buskers hang out. So the potential reach for Steem Branding is huge just in this one city alone, if we can figure this out.

The Kit

If you believe in this idea and want to get Steem and DLive out onto the streets here are a few things you'll need:-

• Information Flyer - Just an A5 sheet of paper with some information about Steem, Steemit and Dlive should be enough. And don't forget to include your Steem account name for follow up questions.

• Mobile Phone - Fortunately, Dlive recently improved their Mobile UI so live streaming shouldn't be too hard to figure out. But test it first as you might need to show the Busker how it's done.

• Mini Sandwich Board - Obviously we'd like a little Steem and DLive logo action to be displayed so you could pre-print some mini sandwich boards made from a piece of laminated A3 sheet of paper.

• Of course, a few DLive stickers would be handy too, but that's a nice to have.

And that's about it.

I'll add my templates to the Steem Australia Portal when they're complete, so check here if you want to print out what I create.

Making First Contact

Most buskers are approachable, so my plan is to walk up, toss in a few coins and ask if I can live stream a performance.

This will be the proof of concept so, it'll be a good idea to make sure there are a few fellow Steemians online to help bump up those votes.

And once the performance is finished, take the time to show the buskers the results and offer to split the money with them if they open an account.

If they seem interested hand them a flyer, with a little more detail about DLive and how it works and be sure to include your handle so you can make good on your promise to split the rewards.

Regardless of the outcome, be sure to throw in a few more coins as a tip.

Then move onto the next Busker, and rinse and repeat.

Final Thoughts

Steem is in a strong position right now, but there will competition coming, so we need to secure our position if we want to remain number one in this space.

And as more tools become available, we'll collectively find more ways to promote this great platform.

But until then keep writing, developing and curating so we can ensure the cream rises to the top.

And I'll leave you with this Viral Busker Clip with a mere 120 Million YouTube views, and let you ponder, what if Steem and DLive logo's were on his buckets.

Ideas are just thoughts until you take action - @just2random

Top Image source: Pixabay

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Posted on Utopian.io - Rewarding Open Source Contributors

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