RE: How a "trending" topic is bringing thousands of viewers to Steemit
You are on point with the views to votes inconsistencies. I feel the example you shared was not even such a bad one though.
My most recent post has less than 1 view per every four votes.
I regret to sound ungrateful, because obviously I'm happy about the $40 dollars, but I know that I would prefer 169 people to have read it and only 39 to upvote it, even if it reduced my pay out to a couple of dollars.
I'm often seeing posts with hundreds of votes and no comments, which I believe you are completely right when you say can spark some skepticism in the mind of anyone viewing from off-Steemit.
How do we fix it though? I tried reducing the size of my post and even putting the words 3 minute read within the title to get more engagement from those who haven't the time, but that has shown to be unsuccessful.
I'm hoping that when the achievements mentioned on the road map arrive, they will encourage users to actually pay attention to posts rather than just upvoting them and moving along. We shall see. But I know for me, I appreciate user engagement and people taking the time to read what I have spent my time writing, just as much as I value the monetary rewards- if not more.
Well done on hitting the first page on google by the way! And without SEO.. You are doing a good thing for Steemit.
Thanks for this comment.
I agree, the example I took at the time was a quick scan of the trending page, and definitely not a knock at @krnel (I certainly hope it didn't come across that way). Many of my posts have 15 views and 80 upvotes, so the same thing happens to me as well. This trending 20 questions situation (way more views than upvotes) is a rare instance, and showed me that it is likely content that is connecting with people outside of Steemit.
It seems as though this is starting a conversation with regard to the views v.s. upvotes. Some people have possible solutions as well, so hopefully there is something that the majority can agree is good for Steemit.
Yes, I noticed some good comments on the post.
I think this revelation has got me very curious now. I may go and look at my recent posts and see if there are any that have had views from outside of Steemit..
EDIT: I had a look and I noticed three pizzagate posts that had 500-800 views in contrast to only a 100 or so votes. There was also a recent satirical post about a Trump impeachment that had 50 or so more views than upvotes in spite of a voting trail picking that one up.
I think you are bang on the mark about trending topics gaining attention for Steemit. I am going to make more of an effort to make posts relating to current trends, as well as word my titles in a manner that matches what people will be typing into the search bar on google.
If it helps Steemit, then it helps us all.