Many social media sites aside from steemit have monetised content that are either paid out from advertisements or by making sponsored posts or videos. Steemit changes this system entirely and allows people’s content to be paid out according to what other users deem it worthy of. Now steemit is never going to have ads placed alongside posts but as steemit rises in popularity it raises the question; could we see sponsored posts on steemit?

What is a sponsored post?

The most common places where you will see sponsored videos or posts is usually YouTube and Instagram. You may see it briefly on Twitter here and there but not to as big a scale. These are when a company will reach out to a content creator and pay the creator to make a post or video on one of their products. Primarily you will see this with YouTube vloggers and Instagram accounts that are to do with beauty and make-up, with these creators promoting the product for the company by making a post on it. By law the creator is required to state that the post or video is sponsored but they make money from both the sponsorship and the usual monetisation that they would gain, as well as the company getting promotion.

How could we see this on steemit?

While I said sponsorships are primarily seen with beauty and make-up, there are a lot more genres that can have sponsorships. From video games to even cryptocurrency related products and services; many people who create YouTube videos on cryptocurrency will receive offers to check out their sites on video for a price. Since steemit is already a social media platform based around cryptocurrency, it fits the demographic for cryptocurrency services to pay for some of the top creators to make sponsored posts on their service and as steemit grows in popularity every day it is possible that we could see this happen.

Couldn’t sponsored posts just be flagged?

It is very possible that people with a lot of steem power could just come along and flag the sponsored post so that it is worth nothing and becomes hiddens. However, I have thought about this and it is only the company that is affected negatively. Even though the creator has had to forfeit the rewards that they would receive from the post, they still have the money that they have been paid from the company and therefore have no real incentive to stop doing the sponsored posts. It is the company that suffers and wasted there money on a post that will no longer be seen. Which would drive companies away from paying for sponsored posts on steemit as they are not benefiting in anyway.

Would companies be afraid to pay for sponsored posts on steemit?

In some ways I think that companies might be scared to pay for sponsored posts on steemit, as even on other platforms where they happen there is a very love-hate relationship towards them. Since steemit has no real regulatory figure, and all the content is regulated by the users, those that hate sponsored posts can just flag them until they disappear. This is one feature that separates steemit from other social media platforms since a flag on other social media websites usually has to go through a process of being checked.

Could we see sponsored posts on steemit in the future?

As steemit rises in popularity it could be possible to see sponsored posts if companies see that creators are amassing large followings and that it could be worthwhile to pay for a sponsored post to go out to their followers. However, I think that there could be some fear from companies as mentioned since the posts can be flagged, a system unlike other social media sites. This does not negatively affect anyone in the steemit community, even those who have created the sponsored post since they get paid to create it. With a variety of services in cryptocurrency like cloud mining, it's very possible that we could see sponsored posts for these because steemit hits a similar demographic.

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