Report as Steem Representative, 04.05.2024
Today I will not report on my daily activities, I think it is easy to find out about all this by looking at my profile. I would like to focus on just one issue.
Recently, my next paid campaign to promote Steem on Instagram ended. First, I will briefly mention its results.
This time, I was promoting this reel. It is worth noting that every time I improve the targeting parameters and my campaigns become more and more effective.
The goal of the campaign was visits to the profile. I managed to get 59 visits for UAH 1,428 ($37), that is, only 63 cents for 1 visit.
I also gained 11 new followers thanks to this campaign. The target audience was English-speaking people from some countries in Europe, North America and Australia.
And now I can move on to the question itself.
After each new campaign, interested people start asking me questions in private messages. Usually, the questions are quite simple and strongly depend on the region where a person lives. For example, when I ran a campaign targeting Africa, people were mostly interested in whether Steemit was really profitable or a scam.
But this time the questions were more difficult. People were interested in what Steemit can give them that Instagram, Facebook or TikTok cannot. Why should we sign up for Steemit and even more so buy STEEM?
That turned out to be a good question.
For people who take 2 seconds of their time to watch some video and immediately scroll on, Steemit definitely has nothing to offer. The situation is similar with those who literally live on Instagram. There he communicates with friends using video conferences and publishes reels. For such people, ease of use and the maximum spread of the platform are important. Content rewards? It's great, but it's kind of hard, you also have to write something...
And then I remembered about "Proof-of-Brain". This saying is often seen when talking about "early" Steemit. Steemit will never be as massive as Instagram, because in order to earn rewards, you need to put a lot of effort into creating each post. And this is good. It is important that it remains so. Steemit has the potential to be a great place where people know how to write interestingly and at the same time always have something interesting to read. Here you can share the necessary information and here you can find it first-hand.
Partial confirmation of this is the results of my last paid Instagram campaign. This time the target audience was people whose interests include writing and blogging. And bingo! I have never received such interest and such interaction. All thanks to the fact that people who are interested in writing do not like short content so much. Now I am confident that my advertising campaign can be scaled.
However, we should take steps to make it easier to interact with the platform, which will allow us to attract more interested people. And the first point here is the visual editor. I'm just convinced that Steemit urgently needs a visual editor to make it easier for people to type and design their posts.
That's all for today 🙂. I know that the whole civilized world has already celebrated Easter, but unfortunately, we have this holiday tomorrow. Therefore, taking this opportunity, I wish you a good peaceful day and a festive mood!
Thanks and let's each of us do something for Steem💪.
Great company. There are not many places where you can not only write a blog, but also find people who would be interested in reading it. I am convinced that the interaction (this includes the activities of all the curatorial teams) that is currently present in Steemit is its main value.
If a person is creative, then his creativity needs feedback. When a person receives this feedback, he becomes addicted to communication, like a drug. Just like me 😅
Я теж дотримуюся такої думки. Коли людина пише, а на допис ніхто не реагує, то здається, що ти щось не те пишеш чи пишеш нецікаво, чи це нікому не потрібно. Тоді немає мотивації продовжувати далі.
You've summed up everything well, and the commenters have further elaborated on your points. The only thing I would add is an elaboration on this point.
Absolutely, you need to understand the chain and invest your time here to fully enjoy writing on Steemit. Without that investment, it wouldn't be as enjoyable. Personally, I've never been addicted to any social media like Steemit before. It's a healthy addiction, and I keep learning new things every day. I'm incredibly grateful to Hira for introducing it, and to each of you for allowing me to explore and interact here. Love, love Steemit!
P.S: You are a good Steemian and equally good SR. There is no doubt about it :)
I have a similar situation. I have never used social networks because they take up a lot of time that could be used more rationally. Can you imagine, I don't even have the TikTok app installed on my phone! But Steemit is something completely different. Yes, there are content rewards, but that's not the only thing that keeps me here. Steemit is a place where your brain works, where it has something to learn and it is at the same time a unique place to share experiences and thoughts with people from all over the world.
I am also very grateful to her for giving us you 😊.
Thank you, you are more than kind. I'm so embarrassed that I'm going to run away somewhere now 😀
Not under the table, I hope :)
Thank you for your motivation. I owe it to you big time!
🤣 Not this time.
Steem is never like Instagram, simply because Instagram is a place for people who mainly showcase themselves, get paid for promoting various products, and last but not least, demonstrate a high standard of living that few people actually possess. Yes, things are almost similar here; people showcase their lives, but unlike Instagram, here my feeling about people is much more real. Moreover, in the fast-food culture of Tik-Tok and Reels, attention is certainly hard to retain, and reading is something that takes more time.
In my deep conviction, this is good 😀. We should develop in our own unique way.
I have the same feeling. When you read people's diaries, you don't see this ostentatious wealth and bathing in money. On the contrary, here people share real problems and achievements.
And more intelligence is needed 😄.
Interesting results from your Instagram campaign.
Thanks for the feedback. I believe that Steem needs a larger and coordinated paid promotion campaign. I think it would even be appropriate to use a certain amount of funds from the DAO for this. But I would not even vote for such a proposal myself, since it is impossible to control whether the funds are used as intended.
I also aimed to promote STEEM as a good asset for investment, because it is one of the few cryptocurrencies that, thanks to author and curation rewards, even in a bear market, is able to level losses and bring profit in the long term. But unfortunately, when it comes to investments or tokens, Instagram blocks the possibility of advertising. Therefore, I focused on an audience that is interested in blogging and writing. At least until I come up with something else.
This is a good plan...
Are you able to follow through and track people joining Steem through your Insta promo campaign?
It would be interesting then to work towards calculating a Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) through this and other types of promotion.
I have thought about this question before.
In Instagram, it is possible to target the campaign not on visits to the profile, but on visits to the site. In this case, I know how many people followed the link. However, it is impossible to verify how many of them have registered, since registration takes place on the steemit.com website.
Speaking of personal correspondence, only 5 people out of 59 who visited the profile wrote to me with questions about Steem. But it is not known whether any of them decided to register.
I think that in order to find out how many people registered thanks to promotion on Instagram, we need to create a separate landing page with the possibility of registration. But here one cannot do without the help of programmers.
Warning: This comment is unrelated to the post I'm replying to 🫢
I can't remember when (probably years ago) that you said to highlight people we think are good authors... I think that this is a good author that you might be interested in.
Hi @the-gorilla
I think you leaving a note not warning 🙂 The author you recommending sounds good. She is sharing quality blogs and I appreciate that too ❤️
Warning: This comment is also unrelated to the post I'm replying to 🙄
I may have been premature in recommending hnubdona to you. Sadly, the post that you voted on has already paid out 😟
Now following @hnubdona.
It looks like sc02 picked up one of her other posts.
Sadly, I think that her account isn't genuine. I don't know if you've seen this thread but I've also discovered that the photos she's shared with her in them are also fake and probably generated via AI.
I don't want to give away too much detail in case they correct it next time, but this photo is particularly telling (open in a new window for full resolution):
In particular, notice how the bush is in perfect focus... until it is near to her head. Which has clearly been doctored. If you look closely at all of her travel photos, the same mistake is made.
This indicates that (s)he's happy using AI to create deceiving photos, which almost definitely means that (s)he's also using AI to generate the content.
She also said that she's got no children and followed it up with a despicable lie in the hope I'd feel empathy and stop probing. Which I didn't. I believe that she has no children. The previous version of her profile, she claimed to have a 3 month old, but at the time her baby was allegedly born, she was posting about travelling and there was no mention of being pregnant or having a baby. Quite an oversight.
So in summary, I apologise for recommending this user and don't think that her AI deceiving ways should be rewarded.
Another one that @o1eh and I have been promoting recently is nadinad who has the same hall marks as this user (including some "behind-the-scenes" "coincidences (which aren't coincidences)). She's also transferring her STEEM and sending them to HIVE using graphene-swap. It's something that I didn't even know existed until (s)he did it - https://hive.blog/hive-167922/@trayan/using-graphene-swap-the-easy-way
If you look at the users who transfer to graphene-swap, it's the people who have been farming Steemit in order to buy HIVE.
So unfortunately, I think that her votes should be removed and we should never trust a new user ever again.
It's very unfortunate, I think this is what in particular makes me think that this is why it is necessary to see a certain level of activity on the platform from each new user, before assuming that they are a genuine user, because it is the activity, when posting , which allows us to explore whether they genuinely do...
In addition to everything, the details you explain are very good to be able to study the cases.
Greetings friend, very good job, in my case I continue learning with you😊
When it was first suggested that these accounts aren't genuine, I said:
Which makes me sad. But unfortunately, it's where I am.
It's an impossible challenge. I think that users probably leave quicker if they don't see a reward for their efforts. Whereas that initial incentive of the Newcomers' programme has probably kept some good people on the platform. The proportion of good people vs. scammers though? Almost certainly mostly scammers.
I know that you've been working hard to ensure that there's a certain level of engagement beyond Achievements with Newcomers, but I wonder if a Newcomer shouldn't receive their "Validation" until a minimum of 3 months use. So they can continue the achievement programme, etc. with no guarantee of rewards (so that they learn about the platform) but there's no "badge of accreditation" until that time is up. No labels at all. Just a "Well done, that's great, do the next one."
Currently, the rewards for the Newcomers' Achievement programme aren't the incentive for the scammers. It's that label of "Validated" which gets them into Contests, Engagement Challenges and that coveted prize of a potential steemcurator upvote. Many communities insist upon this accreditation now which is driving them to you / us.
They're learning with each piece of "evidence" that is shared. Next time, they won't make this mistake as they'll be looking for it. This is their profession and they're getting very good at it.
As an aside, it's perhaps interesting that it's never even crossed my mind to "investigate" most of the people that I speak to the most. And these are also the people that have been around for as long as I have and in many cases, longer. Reinforcing thought of "never trust another new user ever again"!
It's really sad. And the other user you mentioned? Well, I had also resteemed his/her post!
I am relatively new on the platform myself, but when I saw that the account was receiving support and guidance from our esteemed veterans, I thought I should also play my part. So, I took on a little mentor role, forwarding the same goodness that I had received at one point.
But I just feel so violated now. What a shame to play with other people and abuse the system.
This is truly disheartening!
It’s the reason newcomers find it so difficult. We’ve all tried to find new authors but maybe the best route is to let them find us. If you look at both of those accounts, the only comment on somebody else’s post was them commenting on each other (themselves) and the one to you - presumably an attempt to guilt trip us. Whoever’s running these accounts seems to be shameless about their emotional manipulation.
I’ll write a post at some point about AI generated profiles. I’ve only spent a couple of hours working on it but I’ve got some reasonably good results so far.
No había visto esto 😱 y bueno aunque es impactante noe sorprende, con la llegada de los sbd muchas personas están vueltos locos inventando de todo para appderarse de los votos de los curadores en especial de los más grandes.
En steemit deberíamos tener un nivel de apoyo para losas nuevos muy distinto al nivel de apoyo de un usuario que ya tiene más de 4-6 meses por ejemplo.
Hay usuarios aquí que demuestran lealtad y fidelidad solo a steemit hacen buen trabajo y son dejados a un lado por dar apoyo a alguien que viene llegando con el fin de solo aprovecharse de la blockchain, cosa que me parece un poco injusta.
Me alegra mucho que personas como tú estén metiendo la lupa es casos como estos, puede abrir la puerta a un buen filtro para usuarios en la plataforma.
No todos ven a steemit de la misma manera, estamos los que creemos y hacemos de steemit nuestra casa y nos comprometemos con ella y están los que solo ven en steemit una naranja para exprimir y exprimir.
I think that there's a subconscious level of support like this. It certainly takes a long time to earn that level of trust on a consistent basis and it's probably impossible to achieve by using multiple profiles.
The better people always seem to rise to the top. Sometimes it happens quickly, sometimes slower but with some consistency and original thinking, the better people eventually stand out.
On closer inspection, the photos are clearly recognisable as fakes. Thanks to your eagle eye! :-)
On the one hand, I'm glad that you had the same experience as me. On the other hand, it's really particularly sad in both cases.
It did actually cause me a bit of conflict... on one hand (I've got to copy your expression here), we don't want people pretending to be somebody else, and using AI to generate content. On the other hand, the content appeared to be authentic and well written - creating a better impression for external people visiting the site, and presumably search engines. Which made me wonder, should it be allowed? (Of course, the reward element complicates things further.)
I'm pretty sure I've debated this, or similar with @remlaps before where AI could be used to attract new users. It's the "cheating" element that bothers me.
The lure of SBDs...
You are actually correct sir, I even noticed the point that steemians who are on the post of admin and mods are only selecting the posts of near and dear ones, it may be their members of the family or friends due to which the other steemians are not getting rewards for their hardwork. There is a lot of partiality in choosing booming votes and the votes given by community curators.
I haven't had a proper look at this yet but it's something I could potentially introduce as part of my proposal. Initial research suggests that there are significant security implications by introducing a WYSIWYG editor... but... there was briefly an editor implemented so it's possible that the code is dormant somewhere, awaiting a new lease of life.
Great effort @o1eh and really interesting results. I'd be interested in following some of the new members if you can point them out to me (either here or on Discord).
If this code was deactivated, there were probably reasons for it.
I was wondering if it's possible to take a visual editor from ecency.com (it's open source if I'm not mistaken) that works successfully and "bolt" it to Steemit?
Unfortunately, I run campaigns, but I don't know who and how many people register on Steemit. I look for interesting new authors by looking at Achievement 1 in the Newcomers' Community. One author I noticed, you already recommended steemcurator01, is hnubdona. I can also recommend nadinad.
Thanks, I'm interested in being involved in the development of something big 🙂
With the editor, I need to be mindful of NodeJS and dependencies versions. Updating one can knock out many others and I don't know how acceptable adding more packages will be. So we'll see 🙂
Thanks for the tip of nadinad. I've been searching for good, new authors and found hnubdon through my curator-helper tool (which didn't have enough RC to post) 🙂
Ah, look who curator-helper's also recommended:
how are you friend I am really glad to see you on the platform. I went to your profile and saw your posts, your positions and I got really motivated to work on this steemit. Thanks a lot for explaining why we should work on steemit. We who are new users will be really encouraged to see your post. Please give us more good information in the future.
I'm glad I gave you some motivation. My first posts were of low quality and earned 0 cents. Then I took an example from successful bloggers and tried to write longer and more interesting posts. No matter what, don't give up!
Of course I will not give up. I am also trying to increase the creativity of my posts. I actually want to work on this platform for a long time. Please pray for me. And thank you for replying in the comments. Stay well.