~2.5 Years Ago, I Advertised Steemit To Well-More Than 500K+ People.

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I Wanted To Bring In More People...

From the moment I joined Steemit, I was desperate to help our beloved platform in every way I could think of. I felt almost obligated to share this goldmine with every human possible, and at the time, about 2.5 years ago, people did various things to promote Steemit to the "outside world" so to speak. People were handing out flyers in their neighborhoods, others were wearing merchandise with Steem or Steemit logos. Video creators made killer-promotional videos and people worked hard to spread the word as much as possible.

I had no crypto-experience and I had never heard of blockchain-technology before. I was just looking for ways to use my knowledge and previous experiences in different ways. So even though people came from different places, we all strived towards the same goal. To spread the word and to get people on board.

Being different, or at least feeling different in several ways, I had to do things differently. I forced myself to do things differently compared to other users and I was looking for exposure towards my own profile and my own articles. I needed traction and exposure and being a freelancer at the time, with brand building as my main focus and occupation, I figured that I would use social media to spread the word. Word of mouth is and has always been the single best alternative to get something viral, and I quickly decided to use my influence to promote Steemit in the best possible way I could. Without fluff, bullshit and empty promises.

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Things I Have Done For Steem(it).

Let me share some of the things I have done for Steemit, even though they in reality are things I have done for myself as much as for anyone else. At least according to my mindset and my visions.

• I have promoted Steem(it) in various places and in various ways ever since I joined Steemit in July 2016, with one goal in mind. To bring people in.

• I have written more than a handful guides, reports and "How-To's" in an attempt to spread knowledge and to improve the overall experience for everyone.

• I have been wielding a self-proclaimed title of a support pillar, to help and support anyone looking for aid. That alone equates to countless of hours in various chats and emails.

• I have tried to be a as good of an advocate or "ambassador" as possible for the majority of my time here. No matter the size of my wallet or my Steem Power.

• I co-launched the @asapers project in an attempt to educate and motivate newcomers.

• I launched a "push people" initiative based on our generosity to make minnows in an attempt to ultimately create something that could resemblance our first real middle class.

• I purchased some Steem-merch too, like so many others have done.

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However, what I have realized during my time here, is that most people seems to think of improving their own accounts before anything else, because the most important part is their own wealth and well-being. Even though I obviously understand their approach and mindset, it has often been the opposite of what I have been trying to accomplish.

It is obivously important to educate and guide the people we have on the blockchain, which I have done on many different occasions too, but the more important part is to bring in more people. We need more flesh and bones if we are trying to grow.

I say if, because I have been convinced otherwise more than once. Meanwhile I personally would love to see millions of people on Steem, there are many users out there who seems to be convinced of the fact that we would be better off with less people than we already have today. These people often explains themselves and their reasoning with the simplest things like:

"We need companies or wealthy people. We need investors. We need people who power up and grow their accounts."

I can totally see why some people would prefer to see investors on board, as it would most likely affect the value of our tokens in a rapid way. However, I personally believe that we need less whales to prosper, but my thoughts are based on what I believe would be the best for our platform in the long haul.

Millions of people on board would ultimately take a small piece of the pie and it would lead to a more even distribution. Hence, the so called little guys would have more influence and the value of the tokens would ultimately rise. I might be wrong with my assumptions and my beliefs, but this is what I've been working towards. This is what I believe would be our best shot to put Steem on the map for real, in our attempt to reach the top of the world.

Whales and heavily invested Steemians would be even more wealthy, as their investments would rise too, so they don't have anything to fear. Little guys with slim to none earnings would have all the motivation they need to contribute, because those slim to none rewards would actually mean something more than nickels and dimes. Hence, everyone would win and people would ultimately stay instead of leave.

This is the reason for all the advertising I have done. This is the reason for my attempts to create something substantial whenever I have tried to launch a project. This is ultimately the reason for me to be here. I believe in Steem and I believe we have a real chance of changing people's lives, in many different ways. Either physically or psychological.

It starts with us and our approach. It starts with our mindset and our mentality. It starts with our actions and our work. It also starts with the consequenses of our actions... Because it's one big learning curve for everyone.

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I was looking for exposure towards my own profile and my own articles

This sentence was written in the beginning of the article and I thought I'd explain this before going further. Yes, I am looking to grow my presence, just like I have always built my social media presence on other platforms. Reputation, credibility and influence goes hand in hand.

It's difficult to have any form of influence if you've never written a single article in your life, if you have 0 followers and never talked to anyone at all. That obviously affects your reputation too. And I'm not talking about the actual reputation score on Steemit, as it can easily be tweaked and fixed with any sort of vote buying. I'm talking about trust-factor. Credibility.

This is vital in any type of business, and truth to be told, we are doing business here, even if we're just using Steem as a pure hobby. Each token you possess, at any given point, has a place in this business. Some people have more influence and powers than others, but each Steemian who ever possess a token is doing business. No matter being aware or not aware of it.

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That is why I decided to use my influence I had elsewhere, to spread the word in the first place. As a user with the highest user level you can possibly have (manually selected by the staff), with a good reputation and being a pretty well-known user in that community, or in that marketplace, I chose to share my story on SEOClerks. (I know for a fact that some of our well-known users on Steemit joined due to my posts about it.)

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I shared my story, my thoughts and things I knew about Steemit, even though I had zero crypto- or blockchain experience prior to that. I shared things I had learned and experience during a very short time, and I obviously let people see my earnings too. To this day, these articles are still getting traction and exposure. To this day, people are still reading these articles and are being affected by them in one way or another, and that was exactly what I was looking for. They don't generate replies or comments often, and they never did, but they are out there for anyone to see.

I wanted to share a more up-to-date article (or multiple articles once again) and I spent more than an hour writing my first one a few months back. Unfortunately, it was rejected, probably due to the admins own assumptions and their own beliefs.

However, these articles are still generating traffic, just like many of my older guides an reports on Steemit does and have done for a long time. For instance this one:

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An article I wrote more than 2 years ago, that still got comments more than 1 year later from the post-date. This article generated a lot of traffic, and who knows, it might still generate traffic based on the google rankings.

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Source Moz

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We Are Crucial For Growth.

I won't go into any major details about backlinks because that's a story by itself, but I just wanted you to understand that people like @nathanmars with his 777-project, is doing this to spread awareness and to make #Steem go viral. His approach is to use Twitter meanwhile other Steemians are taking a different route. Social media plays a, if not the biggest part to boost our presence, and even though I've never really talked to nathanmars, I am glad to see that we are having things in common.

You see, it doesn't matter how many followers you have on Twitter och Facebook. If you can get only 1 of your followers to jump on board, they can and will eventually bring in one of their followers. It's a matter of snowball-effect, which makes it vital for people to participate if, when, and where they can.

The things I just mentioned are to bring more people here. We already have awesome people, initiatives and projects out there educating, rewarding and supporting authors on here. I won't tell you that everything is working perfectly because that would've been a lie, but we are improving. Just look at @fulltimegeek for instance. I know that some people are holding grudges against him and other Steemians for various reasons, but none of us can deny the immediate positive effect he has on the overall experience here.

I am personally a fan of FTG due to his mindset and approach. Just like I have things in common with nathanmars, I have things in common with fulltimegeek too. And while I'm being honest, I have many things in common with a bunch of other Steemians too. I'm not trying to convince you to follow certain people or to accept their behaviour. I leave that to each individual to decide. One thing you should remember though, is that we are only humans. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and we all have flaws and makes mistakes. However, we also have one thing in common. We all wants Steem(it) to flourish. It's just a matter of finding the right approach, so people start working together towards the same goals.

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