Marketing experiment for business sector. Resteem this post for a chance to win 100 SBD. All upvote proceeds donated.
Yes, simply resteem this post and you may be the lucky winner of 100 SBD.
2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th place winners will win 10 SBD.
Yesterday we discussed one of the ways the business sector which is now coming into Steemit, may elect to promote their products and increase their customer base.
You can read this concept in the post.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@bycoleman/where-does-all-the-money-come-from-on-steemit-fully-answered-will-it-continue-yes
We all want Steemit to stick around for the long haul. One of the ways I surmise this will happen is that the business sector will come to know the immense value that Steemit has when it comes to customer relations and communication. This post is an experiment towards that concept.
Here is how it works
- Simply follow me and resteem this post. You must follow me to be able to win.
- All proceeds derived from upvotes on this post are being donated back to the rewards pool.
- The number of resteems will be divided in half (rounded down). The Steemer who resteemed that position will win 100 SBD
- Resteems 5, 25, 50 and the last resteem will win 10 SBD.
- This contest closes when the curation awards for this post are closed (by Steemit), 168 hours after I submit the post.
- Awards will be paid within 48 hours after the close and more likely within a few hours.
In total this contest will pay 140 SBD. All transfers to the winners will be public and visible in my wallet and the winners' wallet.
Examples.
If there are 3 total resteems, then the person who makes the 1st resteem will win the 100 SBD (3/1 = 1.5) -- Rounded down = 1. Resteemer 3 will win for being last. No other awards will be transferred.
If there are 350 total resteems, then the 175th resteemer will win the 100 SBD, all other positions 5, 25 & 50 will be paid 10 SBD.
If there are 725 total resteems then the 725th resteemer will win 10 SBD for being last. Resteemer 362 will win 100 SBD. 5, 25 and 50 will be paid 10 SBD.
If there are 50 total resteems then the 50th reteemer will win 10 SBD for being the 50th AND 10 SBD for being the last.
The exact order will be determined programmatically by analyzing the time the resteem occurred per the transaction entry into the blockchain (which I have absolutely no control over) and can be verified by anyone who wants to look at this data which is public and immutable.
If you take a moment to review any of my other post and feel they are worthy of an upvote, I would certainly appreciate it, but it will have no bearing on this contest.
If you leave me comments I will read them. I promise I will try to respond back to everyone. I may elect to up vote some replies, please don't hate me if your reply is not upvoted, I still apreciate all comments and especially those that speak directly to this concept and how it may or may not be used as a marketing tool and any benefits or problems you foresee for Steemit, Stemian's and the business sector.
I will not be promoting this resteem in any paid manner including paying for any resteem post, paying for up votes or privately asking for any promotional help.
I am pretty new to Steemit and have a humble following of 128 at this time (but I love my followers), so this contest may struggle just a bit to get started -- Let's find out -- We'll know in exactly 7 days.
Update 2/4/18 - 7:17 CT (USA)
This post has now been resteemed 51 times. So winners 5, 25 and 50 are known.
But do not despair, the grand prize and last place are still up for grabs.
In addition I am adding another winners slot based on a random seed.
I will be letting you know the exact formula in a later post, but it will based on the number of replies, the number of resteeems and the total number of followers I have at the time the post is closed. The formula will prevent this award going to anyone who has already won one of the other slots.
This new winners slot will be worth 10 SBD, so this contest now pays 150 SBD. (I'll add the .5 SBD to my wallet of course.)
This contest has been designed to discover the nature of the platform and its participants as much as to receive feedback from all who stumble by it -- Is this unwanted marketing to be avoided at all cost even though is may provide great opportunities to both business and the winners? Is this just something you would certainly be OK with as long as the proceeds were donated back and it is not run by robots that spam your feed?
All critique is welcome and I will try to summarize my findings when it concludes.
No changes have been made above the **** Update line *** The blockchain of course can confirm.
UPDATE 2/18/18 -- 2:30 CT (USA)
The GRAND PRIZE OF 100 SDB is still unknown as well as the random slot for 10 SDB and the last slot for 10 SDB
IMPORTANT --- Any resteemer that is not following @bycoleman at the time the contest ends will be ineligible to claim the prize and thus it will be forfeited.
Any and all forfeited prizes (including the grand prize) will be redistributed randomly via a formula based on total resteemers, total followers of @bycoleman and other such events which when combined cannot be manipulated.
It will not be possible for anyone to manipulate any of the the random slots.
This contest is still very much alive for all!
No changes have been made above the **** Update line **** The blockchain of course can confirm.
***** UPDATE 2//9/18 19:13 CT (USA) ***
The final random formulas can be reviewed and downloaded here
http://colemanair.us/shared/MarketingContestFormulas_021018.xls
Download the .xls spreadsheet for complete details and and examples of the exact formulas that will be used.
It is theoretically possible to need 6 random slots, but highly unlikely. Each of these 6 formulas is shown below.
Random Slot
1 Will be seeded with the ID # of the last Account created as of the contest close.
2 Will be seeded with the number of accounts in the steemit block chain at the time the contest closes.
3 Will be seeded with the ID # of the last comment (or post) in the steemit block chain at the time the contest closes.
4 Will be seeded with the number of comments (or post) in the steemit block chain at the time the contest closes.
5 Seeded via Slot 1 + Slot 2 Seed values
6 Seeded via Slot 3 + Slot 4 Seed values
@byColeman
https://ColemanAir.us
Craig
Contest update: 48 "valid" resteems (resteemers also following @bycoleman), 57 total resteems
1st resteem: @geeyang15
(current) 25th resteem: @zuul (this could change, there were several resteemers between 1 and 25 that did not follow @bycoleman - presumably if they follow @bycoleman before the post pays out, their resteem would count as a valid entry - interestingly when I used several of my accounts, including @zuul, to resteem I had glanced at steemd.com/@bycoleman and thought we were already past 25 resteems because I had not noted that several resteemers failed to follow @bycoleman - I thought I was just making a point RE multiple accounts, while in fact I had managed to unwittingly snag one of the payout spots... for now... if that does in fact hold up I will use the 10 SBD to purchase Steem Power to go toward my weekly delegations to new users. Also note I could snag a second payout spot easily right now considering we are sitting at 48 resteems if I wanted to as I have... more than 2 more accounts lol)
SQL query used for reference:
I think this would boil down to rules interpretation in the end, and I would hypothesize that your interpretation is incorrect, thanks to the blockchain. Now unless I missed something, @bycoleman has not specifically confirmed or denied anything that could be even remotely construed as an attempt at a rules interpretation. But looking at the blockchain, one can see that he found and determined the resteem winners through position 50, about 19.5 hours before you posted your claim that there were only 48 "valid resteems" -- a claim that I certainly dispute.
I could speculate much further and also go into detail on how I interpreted the rules, but I'm not sure that would be such a good idea until after the contest has officially ended.
Feel free to check it out for yourself. You can verify this yourself on steemd.com and by checking users and following lists manually, but it would take a lot of time to confirm that SQL query is returning the correct results. Check it out - here are the two lists side by side - on the left are "valid" resteems (resteems by users who are also following @bycoleman). On the right are all resteems, including those where the user did NOT follow @bycoleman.
I checked the first name that appeared in the total resteem column but did not appear in the valid resteems, and it is correct - he is not following @bycoleman:
Ok, if you couldn't infer what I was trying to get at then I'll have to provide a detailed rundown. I didn't want to do this right away because there are probably lurkers who are going to get some ideas out of this and try things before the contest ends. Before I get into that... I checked manually from geeyang15 down through hasnain06 and have confirmed those timestamps; that took me about a minute per person on average. I don't need to check further because the question of what happens with resteem position #5 will cascade down through the rest of the lists.
My position is that because the blockchain has recorded it, all resteems are valid and all resteemers' positions are locked, regardless of whether or not they have followed, i.e. the list on the right is the correct list to use, and the only list necessary for identifying potential winners. The rule "You must follow me [@bycoleman] to be able to win" is an eligibility requirement, and if someone ends up in a winning position but has not followed by the end of the contest, they would become ineligible and forfeit their prize. It would then be left up to @bycoleman to decide what to do with the forfeited prize money.
The most similar real-world scenario to my position would be that of U.S. TV game shows, in which at the end of every episode viewers can see a disclaimer stating "Contestants must meet eligibility requirements to receive cash or prizes" or other similar language. If a game show contestant were found to be ineligible, you can't undo the fact that said person appeared on and participated in the show, but you can refuse to pay any of their winnings. Likewise, the fact that someone resteemed can't be undone, but if they would land in a winning position and ended up ineligible, @bycoleman can absolutely refuse to pay.
Obviously dante01 didn't follow, and he should be a winner if he remembers to follow before the contest ends -- that much we can agree on. Now if he were to be DQed for having a follow timestamp later than his resteem timestamp, under my interpretation of the rules that would be an eligibility issue with a single person. Under your rules interpretation, there would be people who could benefit from moving into one of the winning positions by making the argument that cryptoeater, arctan, cgrave, and others also resteemed before following, and therefore should also be DQed alongside dante01 and removed from your list on the left. It's an argument that certainly sounds absurd, but would be technically correct.
Your rules interpretation also presents another big problem -- if you're going to add "invalid" resteems back to the left list because they followed several days after resteeming, then it should also work the other way around -- a person could voluntarily DQ themselves by unfollowing @bycoleman and then they would need to come off the left list. Now I'm not saying that this would happen, but it's theoretically possible that a group of friends (or a single person with multiple accounts) would manipulate their follows to ensure that whomever they favored to win would end up in a prize-paying position. Not only would the manipulation of follows have the potential to reflect poorly on @bycoleman (to say nothing of how it could affect public perception of a much larger company), but in a higher-stakes situation (which I'll get to next), I'm pretty sure that this would enter legal territory involving tampering with the operation of a contest.
So the next thing I thought about was a higher-stakes scenario: suppose that instead of @bycoleman running this contest as an individual with a 150 SBD total prize pool, a major corporation ran (or more likely sponsored) an identical contest but with a 15,000 SBD (or USD equivalent) prize pool. That's one big prize of 10,000 SBD and five smaller prizes of 1000 SBD -- 100 times the current stakes. Now, there will almost certainly be a major compliance company like Enteractive Solutions Group (ESG) involved, and they would be poring over every little detail (timestamps, follows, resteems, etc.) in addition to having a set of legally binding official rules. And given two possible ways to administer the contest -- my rules interpretation or yours -- which one would ESG go with? Would it be with: (1) a set of rules that is straightforward, has a clear-cut method of determining winners, and is as tamperproof as can be reasonably expected, or (2) a set of rules that exposes the contest to possible
manipulationtampering and/or coordination by the entrants, with said tampering/coordination being implicitly encouraged? I'm confident that ESG wouldn't consider administering such a high-stakes contest using your interpretation of the rules -- there's just too much potential for bad publicity and legal actions to arise, both for ESG and the sponsoring or co-running company involved in the contest.At the end of the day though, @bycoleman is running this contest and whatever rules interpretation he has -- whether that's yours, mine, or something else different -- is the rules interpretation we both have to accept and respect. The reason I've gone into this level of detail is because as the title of the contest post states, the contest is an experiment for the business sector, and the opinions I've stated here reflect what I believe would happen with companies being involved in a contest like this. Hopefully @bycoleman gets a lot out of the feedback that we've both been providing.
Final formulas have been posted.
Thanks for all the help @doughtaker
You know what is funny this hadn't even occurred to me, though of course it makes a lot of sense. I choose the alien eyeball as my profile picture in no small part because my thought processes are very often alien, as in they are totally outside of the "obvious" interpretation. Often this actually is a good thing (in creative endeavors) but in this case I think your logic is both solid and more appropriate to the situation. Obviously @bycoleman agrees :) I think part of why I didn't even see this as a possibility was your interpretation meant the original rules were incomplete. There was no provision for what to do if one of the winning resteem count spots was a user who did not follow @bycoleman. He has updated the post with these rules now :) I am actually glad you are in the #25 spot, it was not my intention to actually claim a prize spot when I activated a few of my alt accounts and followed/resteemed - I was just trying to show @bycoleman why a contest of this nature was kind of a fool's errand on Steem blockchain :)
Cheers - Carl
Indeed -- there is a lot of feedback here. I was unaware of it entirely since it did not hit my replies inbox.
Thank you VERY much (both of your) for taking the time to analyze this so deeply.
Please see my initial response addressed to Carl's reply
Per the contest language I posted.
I am looking into the "un-follow" circumstance, but my current belief is the only way to ensure fairness is that an "un-follow" will not change the re-steemer that has won the slot but only if they are eligible to collect the prize. Any prize positions that cannot be claimed will either be given to another contestant randomly or possibly distributed to all who had no other winning slot.
With that said, the initial statement on the 51 restreemers still holds true, but we do not know yet whether they can collect the prize until they meet all the criteria.
Your thoughts are very welcome. And yes, this was certainly an experiment.
I am not entirely sure what you are saying here. There are two requirements to participate in the contest - a valid participant has to follow @bycoleman and resteem the post. I shared the SQL query above, you are welcome to check my work. I returned all users that had resteemed the post AND were following @bycoleman at the time I ran the query, and I returned the timestamp (UTC time) of the resteem. This is a matter of public record. The only thing that would seem to be open for interpretation is whether or not someone who initially failed to follow @bycoleman (but did resteem the post) would become a valid entry if they did realize their error and followed @bycoleman before the post pays out. I would assume that yes, they would be a valid entry then - and if that assumption is correct, the payout positions that I listed above would change. There were several individuals who were among the first 25 to resteem, who did not follow @bycoleman. Cheers - Carl
Your assumption is correct as long as they meet all criteria at the time of the contest close, then they are potential winners.
See the other replies made in the last few minutes also.
At the time I posted the 51 resteems, I was looking only at the number of resteems and not as to whether they met all other criteria. This was a premature announcement indeed.
My goal is to make this a fair as possible and minimize manipulation potential, which is huge due to people having access to multiple accounts. I am in the progress of running a query directly (thank you @carlgnash for the head start on this.)
Also, I expect to release the final random formula on the 6th day of the contest.
Thank you everyone for the great help on this.
Final formulas have been posted.
Thanks for all the help @carlgnash
Thank you @Carlgnash for this information and the work you have put into the query and of course for electing to donate back to the new users. This attitude is what makes Steemit so very special today and will allow it to even more so tomorrow!
I also tidied up the main query that returns all valid resteemers, this now has a count column:
e.g.:
Thank you Carl,
This marketing plan would not even have the 53 resteems if I had not gone out and engaged VERY actively with new users (introduceyourself) and very new posts in bitcoin and cryptocurrency I replied with honest and useful comments and garnered far more followers than the resteem effort on its own.
Part of my summary and detail write-up on this marketing test will use a query that identifies those who I contacted first vs those that just found me.
Preliminary findings show paying directly for resteems has little or no real value and the effectiveness of a resteem fades quickly after 36 hours or so.
Of course you knew all of this. :)
Part of the reason I resteemed this post in the first place was to give it even a fighting chance - I have over 2000 followers and influence that is disproportionately large considering my relatively small stake of SP; I have a lot of high stake followers and my position as @curie community rep and regular top Curie curator make me punch outside of my weight class. This type of "contest" is pretty despised here on Steem, for good reason, and I was reasonably sure this post couldn't overcome that. Interesting experiment nonetheless.
Finally got the summary findings written if you are interested.
https://steemit.com/promotion/@bycoleman/marketing-experiment-for-business-sector-150-sbd-contest-summarized-results
You are correct. On its own without me continuing to engage the community with useful replies, it would be nearly worthless to an individual. However as a business entity, it may still have significant worth.
Yes, I know that you have earned the right to be a @curie curator and from what I see, you have done a great job.
Hi @bycoleman,
I should've written this right after I resteemed your post but I had to head out to do business and run errands. As such, much of what I have to say has either been mentioned by someone else and/or already figured out by you. But I do believe I have new feedback for you as well.
Your move to make the post and contest was certainly a bold one, but also one that produced a double-edged sword on multiple fronts. I won't cover everything in my comment, just the stuff that stood out the most to me.
You had 128 followers when you started, and as of the time I'm writing up this comment you're up to 181. I ended up as one of your new followers because your post got resteemed into my feed, and I would think that many of the other new followers also arrived here by the same means. To me, that looks like a very successful effort to increase Steemian awareness of you, and you've still got 6+ days left on this current campaign.
On the flip side, there is the question of what quality of new followers are you gaining as a result of this. With Steemit being what it is, my hunch is that a significant portion of them are here for this contest, and only this contest. Once the contest ends, they'll leave and you'll never hear from them again. These "dead" or "ghost" followers don't exactly help out a business much, in my opinion. Hopefully I'm proven wrong and you do end up with a significant number of new followers who stick around to engage with you in the future, whether that be through comments or even just periodic upvotes to your future content.
Then there's the timing game, which has already been pretty thoroughly discussed. I'll readily admit it -- I tried to play the game. After I read through the post and understood how the contest would work, the next thing I did was open up Notepad and made a note to remind me to resteem your post on Feb. 10, with less than 20 seconds before payout. My original plans then changed because I checked real-time info on how many resteems you got, and a small window of opportunity presented itself for me to go after 25th place.
I'm sure you know now that if there is something to be pulled off within a contest, someone will discover it and try to do it -- or in this case, multiple people to correspond with the multiple opportunities. But hopefully, the goodwill that you've created, along with the publicity and awareness that you will gain from this contest, will lead to future returns that are far greater than the prizes you've budgeted. I will be rooting for your success.
Fantastic reply @doughtaker!
I really appreciate your time on this comment.
You are so very correct on the quality of followers gained. Preliminary analysis has already shown that the vast majority of the new "followers" are nearly empty accounts with little or no value. Multiple accounts are controlled by a single entity. I must admit, in my naivety in regards to Steemit, I did not know that some people controlled MANY accounts.
On the timing of waiting to be the Nth resteemer -- This I new would happen, and I watched to see just how it would unfold. This is why these are pretty small payouts compared to the larger 100 SBD at 1/2 the total.
I also look forward to seeing those who will rush into the contest at the end. Of course the last person will not win the grand prize. And I'm really hoping those who do in-fact control multiple accounts will bow out or donate their proceeds back to the platform via a campaign that helps the minnows or someone in need, or perhaps another resteemer in this contest.
This contest is providing a wealth of information on the character of the platform participants as much as anything!
At this point the results are reflecting a significant increase in followers with marginal capability to offer returns to the business entity running a similar campaign, but it is still really early.
Again, thanks for sharing insights!
Craig
This is really good example of how marketing will be done. And I am seeing this kind of approach will be carried out by any business sectors you foreseeing that eventually joining the platform and communicate their product.
But in the same time stick to the way steemit platform works "no commercial advertisement" in the post. I don't know if this is the right way to describe it. But if this happens, it will be a very positive impact to the platform, particularly community members who would be beneficial from this so call marketing approach in term of chances to earn/win something out of it. Where it will be the reason driving them to run the marketing communication unintentionally through follow and resteem the post.
Again you nailed down your hypothesis by giving a direct example of how it will work. Can't wait to see it coming true. Waiting for your next constructive post. I think I have follow you, but I'll double check it, just to make sure I have. Will resteem this post as well. Good luck with all you are trying to do.
Thank you for the well thought out comment! @rencong
It is pretty early to tell how this is going to go, but I can tell already I believe any business that wants to employ a similar contest will definitely expand their followers in a hurry.
I started this post with a 128 follows on a Saturday. If a business with 10,000+ followers wanted to release a new product they could easily do so without even directly mentioning the product in the post! All they have to do is start a fire and people will come looking for the source.
Thanks for participating!
I am personally interested in seeing if this post draws the flag ire of one of the major players on platform. I give it a 50/50 chance. Following with interest - feel free to reach out if you need any "assistance" ;) Much love - Beelze
Yes, this is certainly a possibility. That is of course part of the experiment. I know that a business would not last long if they did anything like this as directly as I did, but I am looking for feedback as much as anything.
I believe that the business sector will in some manner or another pay the authors and witnesses to keep things churning a few years down the road.
Yes, I may indeed need some help --but my motives are pro-Steemit.
As the gatekeeper of Gozer I am very interested in such tactics. When I create the Post to End All Posts, there is a critical mass of resteems which must be attained. The gate between worlds depends on this. You can understand why I follow your posting with interest.
There is no @bycoleman, only Zuul.
Thanks for the reply and following this post.
All proceeds for this post are being donated back to the pool.
I must say Carl, you take on a lot of personalities!
Followed, upvoted and resteemed
I'm here for the money
Perhaps that makes me a test subject
Lol
Will watch out for other posts
Thank you for participating and even more for telling me why. Honesty is perfect!.
You're welcome
And thank you
@iamthegray Haha. Me too! Lol
Ill be interested to see the results, which i hope you will share with us. It would be good to know the marketing value of a platform like this.
YES, I will be sharing the result, including a summary of both negative and positive comments.
This was a VERY direct approach and may garner some heat.
Thanks for the comment!
You say you will donate the proceeds, yet have declined pay-out, so all votes to this post will be sent to @null and burned. I wonder if you are aware of that? As far as I know, you are simply destroying steem rather than donating it back to the reward pool. It would be better (I think) to actually take the proceeds and then award the earned steem to someone.
Anyway, I am now a follower and have re-steemed this post.
Hi @happyme
Here is the official statement on this from the whitepaper. I certainly hope this has not changed.
Oh sweet. I always read that it gets BURNED. Is that the 1st white paper or the 2nd that you got this from?
It is dated August 2017. I believe this is the latest.
Ok, sweet. I think all the stuff I had read was based on the old paper then. THANKS!
No problem -- very glad they are not getting destroyed!
Hi. Upvoted and resteemed. Always happy to support your endeavors. I think I have an idea how this thing works as a marketing plan for businesses coming in. But I'll wait for your future posts on this subject to find out if I am right or not.
Gems, good to hear you my friend. I'm VERY interested in your plan.
Thanks for the support in this experiment.
Very good contest and love to see how it goes. I have Follow and resteem to be part of this experiments.
done all the procedure
Thank you - Good luck!