RE: Steemit is NOT a Social Media Platform - So What Is It?
Hi Paula, I agree with most of the points you brought up, except for what you wrote regarding Discord not being ideal for content promotion. I think the key issue using Discord is how you promote your content.
We both know eachother's content and we both value its quality as well. You don't read all my software articles because you probably don't have time for that, and the same is true for me. But when we read eachother's content, we (almost) always enjoy and value it.
Looking at the "promotion" of my own content, for example my Learn Python Series episodes, what I do, is that sometimes but not always I mention a newly published articles of mine to you. My 'strategy' is that I think about the importance and relevance of any article I publish with respect to the people that could be interested in it. For example, I know you're not a Pythonista, yet you are interested in data analysis and visualisation. When I've published a Python tutorial that might interest you somehow, I notify you about it.
Notifying you is never SMAP (cool typo? on purpose? never seen it before but like HODL, I like it!), because we are friends. We talk about lots of stuff, about our life, about our content. And we became friends months before, because we have genuinely invested in getting to know eachother.
So that might be one additional "tip" for Steem newcomers interested in marketing themselves: join Discord, read people's content, interact, be genuinely interested in the other person, become friends. And then "promote" your content. Don't connect just for being able to "promote" later! Do it because you care personally. Be you. Be intrinsically interested.
Paula, I'm sure this doesn't come as a surprise to you, and if it does (nah, it doesn't :P) then please don't feel offended for this confession :P , but I talk to other people as well, on Discord, not just you. (Don't cry now, please don't! :P)
And for each and every person I was the one to first interact with, I was interested in them as well prior to contacting them. That could be about anything. Their content for example (that's how I met you, plus your a sweetie pants), or their initiatives (that's how I met @elear and @jedigeiss), the quality of comments (@lextenibris), the originality (@traf), the joint Discord connections (e.g. @espoem, @amosbastian, @omeratagun , @littleboy etc. etc. etc.), the "joint interests" (e.g.@emrebeyler and @wehmoen regarding Python coding, yes @wehmoen I mean you, you need more Python in your life! :P). Or @stellabelle for being so well-known and interesting and smart with her skills and character. And @ausbitbank for being a rockstar supporter. Or @someguy123 for being such a cool entrepreneur. @ghasemkiani for publishing his persian-english book translations for which he cares deeply (he's also a good self-taught programmer and medical doctor, really friendly as well!) And @cnts , who I haven't talked to for over 6 weeks, who is a real friend and a generous person and who I miss having around.
I could go on for hours about all the people I know from here, and sorry if I didn't mention you but I did think about you. Yes you too miss EPIC and miss Jules. And you too, yes you...!
All those people I know because I interacted with them. I simply cannot chat with them all daily, that would be impossible. But I did once, and will again. Not a single one of them I ever contacted to "article SMAP". But many of them I shared my articles URLs with.
Interact! :-)
@scipio
Glad you liked the type, lol I think I will leave it and say it was done on purpose.
discord is awesome but does not server every niche and many authors don't have a strategy and just send links to post after post, even when they are ignored.
Believe it or not, I did not cry reading that you talk with others...funny cos I didn't want to tell you I also have other friends and peers on discord in case it made you cry lol.
Many of the people I speak with on Discord, I too reached out to. But before I did, I knew who I was reaching out to and why, as I assumed you did. I also ensured that I was either referred to the person or I engaged with them in public chats first.
Thanks for the reply but you left my question unanswered, what is Steemit? and should Steemit.com drop posts made via other DApps created on the blockchain?
Not having answered those questions before, opened up an opportunity for another comment interaction! Perhaps that was strategy too? :P
Steemit, to my perception, isn't like any other platform, and in that sense it's completely unique:
due to the existence of crypto / monetary rewards on Steemit, lots of emphasis is put there, and I don't think that helps the platform growth nor content quality, at least in its current form. Those direct "contribution rewards" are completely missing elsewhere, and since it's influencing user behavior on Steemit beyond doubt, both from a quality ánd SMAP perspective, this aspect alone puts Steemit in a league of its own;
the existence of bots on Steemit, a way to automate things, is of course also completely unique, at least compared to other "social media / publishing" platforms. I don't think the possibility to develop and deploy bots is "bad" per se, but currently most bots are not "original" either.
I'm completely amazed why Steemit Inc doesn't severely upgrade Steemit.com, not to mention the new account sign-up process. So much more could be done with it...! The Steem & SBD market cap (price * circulating supply) partly positively correlates with the amount of active users of the Steem platform. It can also be perceived as the "company's worth".
The way I'm looking at the Steem ecosystem, is that it's still in its infancy stages. It's characteristics as a publishing / blogging platform are only tiny fractions of its full potential. Look at the speed of the steem (graphene) blockchain technology compared to other blockchains. Look at the amount of "transactions" (where a transaction is not just financial, but can be anything, including a post, or a follow, or whatever). And the community using it all.
Already via Discord (another thing: why do we need an external private messaging environment???) I personally have had a few arrangements for me to (co-) develop Python tools for others for a Steem/SBD compensation. Why can't we have "smart contracts" in direct platform-supported way to make such agreements between users? Look at the new Utopian moderator payment system (which TheScipMeister thought of originally), where we have the system auto-commenting and upvoting those comments, on behalf of the mods. Same principle, in essence, as SteemDunk: expand on that tech, and we'll have an opportunity for subscription based payments / smart contracts, all at the core of the platform. Look at @someguy123's @privex-io : how cool would it be, if we could just - from within Steemit.com - tick a few Privex server options, add a domain, get that server and auto-pay for it subscription-based with Steem/SBD? We could add any product or service to that ecosystem.
That way, blogging, would be just one possible option of the Steem / Steemit ecosystem. A gigantic system of "Crypto Commerce" added on top of it would be another, possibly a far more valuable one. Look at the BTC price, look at BTC circulating amount. And look at SBD price, and its circulating amount. The amounts of both are in the exact same ballpark; prices are not. But Steemit / Steem / SBD has even more potential: we have the blockchain tech, the community / active users, so if we realize and implement that "Steem / SBD Crypto Commerce" ide of mine... just imagine what the Steem / SBD price and market cap potential could be if you look again at BTC's....
@scipio
(PS Paula: I kindly took your idea / question to another place :P )
wow lol maybe I should not have asked. There is a big difference between steem and steemit and the potential of the blockchain is massive