With the value of Steem continuing to drift lower, is there something fundamentally being missed?
#Promo-Steem: Promoting #Steem
Is there something fundamentally being missed?
As the value of #Steem continues to drift lower, is there something fundamentally being missed when it comes to Marketing and Promoting #Steem?
Despite banging my head against a brick-wall on this subject over the past +18 months, I still strongly believe that #Steem is missing a golden opportunity when it comes to getting a foot on the ladder of Social Media.
It's all about the image
It's not rocket science to appreciate that when it comes to Marketing and Promoting a product, image is the key.
You can have the best product in the World in a market that you are trying to break into, but if your image is not right, then you will struggle to break into it.
#Steem is no different.
Is #Steem sexy enough?
A simple question you have to ask yourself is .... "...is #Steem sexy enough to the outside World?"
Sure, I have absolutely no doubts at all that there are some unbelievably talented technical people working on some of the most highly cutting edge developments on the Blockchain and for this I applaud all the hard work and dedication they are putting in.
This is not the issue.
The issue is that you can have the best technology, but if no one know's about it, what's the point?
Is #Steem over thinking it?
More often than not, the best ideas and best products are the most simple ones to take to a Market.
You only have to look back over history at those products that have influenced Markets.
They have generally been the ones that people say after the event how simple they are.
When it comes to #Steem are people simply over thinking it and attempting to in essence re-invent the wheel.
Back to basics
Let's go back to basics and look at what #Steem really is.
#Steem is a very powerful tool that allows rewards to be distributed to those that the Community feels brings added value to the Blockchain.
These rewards can then essentially be used to either "lock-in value" in the Blockchain or cashed out to pay for what is in essence a wage.
Culture of seeking the optimum Return on Investment
When I first joined the #Steem Community, it was awesome to watch rewards being distributed to those adding value to the Blockchain, however this was soon replaced with a culture of seeking the optimum Return on Investment.
Sadly, I strongly believe that this culture of seeking the optimum Return on Investment has come at a very high price.
#Steem needs to find itself again
As the value of #Steem drifts lower, I strongly believe that the #Steem Community needs to find itself again and go back to what it was doing +24 months ago.
It needs to believe in itself and believe that it has the power to change the World via Social Media for those ones that maybe less fortunate than the rest.
Thanks again for reading.
Stephen
!!!
You nailed it, Stephen.... not sexy enough! Word!
And when you give them constructive criticism and
"step on somebodys toes" you are in danger of gettin'
flagged.... Professional?
Thanks for the support.
I am way too old to be worried about not being liked.!!
I would much rather speak from the heart and let the Community value what I say.
If they love it. Fine. If they hate it, that's also fine with me.
All I can say for sure, is that the Market will decide in the future who was right and wrong.
An expensive price to pay if someone wanted to throw their weight around the Community just prove a point.
Regards
Stephen
Words of Wisdom!
Thank you Stephen.
Keep on ;)
Steem has 24% inflation. That is the primary reason for price to go down when we have a wall of 100mn liquid steem sitting on exchanges.
Inflation should be reduced down to 2-5% as the case with BTC and ETH.
This is a very interesting point and one that I have been concerned about for over 2 years.
To maintain what is essentially a zero sum gain in the value of #Steem a considerable amount of "fresh cash" has to come into the #Steem Ecosystem just maintain the effects of Inflation.
That is also not allowing for any Power Downs which are being done in some cases, just to keep the wheels turning.
Thanks for the contribution to this Blog.
Excellent comment.
Stephen
Here is my recent post showing computations
https://steemit.com/actnearn/@prameshtyagi/actual-steem-inflation-is-way-above-planned-inflation
How did you arrive at a 24% inflation rate? The emission rate is just above 8% right now and it is reduced by about 0.5% per year until it reaches 0.95%. I understand that the conversion of SBD to Steem increases the supply but that is offset by the fact that the emission rate is lower during the times that SBD is "printed".
In reality the emission rate is below 8% right now since the SPS is printing SBD instead of Steem. In the aftermath of the bear market crash from the end of last year a huge amount of SBD was converted to Steem during the following months but that was a one off event. Saying that the inlfation rate is 24% does not paint the whole picture.
pls check my recent post for that
https://steemit.com/actnearn/@prameshtyagi/actual-steem-inflation-is-way-above-planned-inflation
You've raised good points. Let me add to the discussion.
What's fundamentally missing? I believe the main reason why STEEM failed to maintain market value is this:
Not catering to the demand side of the equation.
Without utility that has real world use-value, there aren't enough strong reasons for anyone to buy STEEM apart from speculation, as I explained in this post.
I am working on a feature that could be added to Hivemind Communities called Native Ads, which I believe is just one step toward creating utility value for STEEM/SMTs. I would love to hear your thoughts on it.
When I first signed up, it took me a while untill i figured out how the system works and I didnt know about the tribes after one month or so. I think this system is so difficult for an average joe, if you want to succeed you have to make the system easy, its so complicated. Instagram is easy and people share in it easily. I dont think not all people on steemit who sign up, know about the tribes and dtube and dsound right away. No one knows about the good potential it has and I dont see any one advertising it in other social medias like Instagram.
Thanks for the comment and contribution to the Blog.
Stephen
Steem is a strange thing. The more time I spend on this platform, the more often I experience a kind of physical sensations, caused by acute discomfort. A sense of unease. Something's wrong here? The feeling started when I realized that more than half of my followers are probably bots (man, I was so naive). you can imagine how demotivating this felt. You become skeptical. You see hundreds of posts coming back with the same message: how do you become successful on Steemit? Give me 1 SBD and I will resteem your post. How do you increase your visibility? Etc. Everything centered around one specific word: money. Money is what brings people together here.
How did I present this platform to friends? I didn’t say: “Do you know Steemit? It is an amazing platform where you can share your life.” Often it was more something like: “you can make money by blogging.” 90% of the people came here for that particular reason (including me). I have always blogged and if we are honest, there are many better platforms to do this. Sites that are more user-friendly, with a nicer layout and with an amazing community. Money does strange things with people. You can clearly see this here.
I sometimes wonder if this was the original intention of the developers. Facebook also started with good intentions. They wanted to connect people. They probably didn’t realize that, so many years later, young people become addicted to their daily portion of dopamine. They couldn’t know that people get a false picture of society. Young people, in particular, are faced with fear, depression or loneliness. And their self-image goes down too (Instagram scores even worse in this area).
And then I ask myself the question: aren’t we creating the devil himself? Innocent looking 'likes' already have such a huge impact on society. Replace those 'likes' with the word 'money' and you get a very dangerous combination...
In short, I wonder if the world is waiting for an initiative like this. Is there still room for a new kind of medium where dopamine kicks just make you happy for a second? Should we not learn from the past and realize that we are making the same mistakes again. Are you happy here? Is it really necessary to reward people with money? Would those million users still be here?
Of course, it goes without saying that great things happen here. If you only look at the many applications that are being developed here, Steemit can be a jaw-dropping experience. And that is the mysterious attraction of Steemit. It’s has a kind of magnetic power. Why am I coming back here? I still do not know for sure. Probably because I am like everyone else. Looking for 'success'. Looking for confirmation. Looking for something that I think will make me happy.
Very well said, You said everything from the worst and best.. but every platform has its negative sides, social media, games even tv shows has negative effect.. and as you said even the biggest social media site brings negative effects but thats the way it is and it depends to us if we allow ourselves to get affected by negativity..
Looking back maybe a year ago many steemians affected by the bots who sell votes but who's the one who create bots and buy votes its the people in this platform I think... "I'm not saying all"
And because of the vote buying many content creator get discourage especially the newbies (including me). Back then By seeing low quality contents and spams on the top with high value rewards pissed me off and because of that I lose my interest in creating content..
The problem here is just like the problem of the world about climate change and pollution, and the worst is people keeps on complaining instead of making action to prevent the problem they have done...
But by the #newsteem I hope many things gets better here..
Excellent comment!
Stephen
Thank you sir @stephenkendal for appreciating my comment..
I just read this, and commented on.
You might take something from it....
https://steemit.com/curation/@markkujantunen/curation-reward-maximization-in-light-of-the-greater-fool-theory
I think that the belief still exists, but the passivity from last few months got us here. No new features, on the marketing side just adding ads to the platform and nothing else extraordinary. Even if now with the SMT development, HIVE communities and quality content control things might change a little bit, there is needed a wider strategy to climb faster the ladder. Hopefully someone is working on this already, for our sake :)
I have no doubt at all that we are on the right track with this platform. I just continue doing what I am doing. The image of STEEM and generally spoken the image of any product is very important for its success though.
We all are the image of this platform. So let's do an excellent job!
I couldn't agree more with you. Having a wonderful product and the image is not being put out there, there is no use to endear people to it. I still strongly believe that more awareness is needed to get people on board and see the potentials in Steem. I have always admired your aggressive approach to promoting steem. I want to do my bit too.
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Steem has literally been a life saver for me. While I haven’t actually cashed out any Steem, it’s given me something to focus on when things get rough.
The current price of both Steem and SBD is a joke.
And yes it’s a marketing issue.
Splinterlands can only do so much. Steemit inc needs to do a lot more to restore confidence in the platform.
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