Steemit is NOT a Social Media Platform - So What Is It?
Is Steemit a social media platform? Is Steemit a blogging Platform? Is Steemit a place to drop links, promote products or just stay in touch with Friends?
Steemits home page states ‘Your Voice is worth something. Get paid for good content’
Why does this imply to you? What does this tell people signing up to Steemit?
I am asking you these questions because of discussions I have had with many other steemains. Over the last while here is some of the stuff I have heard that has caused me some concern.
‘How can I support all my friends?’
‘I need to vote for all of my community but I don’t have enough power’
‘No one sees my content’
‘Why would I post when I don’t earn anything?’
Let me try address some of these concerns and also answer the question, what is Steemit to me?
What Steemit is to Me
Steemit was the first decentralised app to be created on the STEEM BlockChain. To me Steemit is an online blogging platform. It is a place where authors can publish content. Personally I would compare it more to Medium than Reddit.
I would even compare Steemit to Wordpress and I would not class it as a social media platform, but a publishing platform. A social media platform is a place to distribute and discuss content, not publish. like a magazine is for publishing a shop is for distribution.
Steemit allows you reward your favourite authors and content with upvotes that have a value attached (by means of payment in STEEM and SBD)
Bearing in mind what I think Steemit is, now I can address some of the stuff I have heard
‘How can I support all my friends?’ – Do all of your friends want to be bloggers and authors? If so you have your work cut out because at the end of the day, we all only have so many votes and can only spread the joy so far. If you chose to vote for all of your friends because you want to encourage their blogging then you need to decide if you treat them all equally.
Is it fair on the ones that really do produce awesome content that they get the same vote as the friends that do not? How do you make sure you do not upset your friends?
If all of your friends do not want to be blogger and authors they why are you voting for them? If you believe Steemit is to reward great authors and content then the issue of supporting ALL friends is solved. That is not what Steemit is for or about.
‘I need to vote for all of my community but I don’t have enough power’ – It’s great that you have a community you want to support and grow. Community is and will be the backbone of Steemit but not everyone in a community will have the ability to produce great content and as a community leader, you need to seek out the best authors time and time again.
If content is not worth the vote then don’t give a vote. Instead use the community to educate the author and help them improve their content. If they don’t want to be blogger and authors they will leave. To me this is fine, because Steemit is a publishing platform not a social media platform. A community should not be just about votes. If it is, then it’s just a voting circle, and not something I really approve of.
I have also noted from some community leaders that as they are such nice people, wanting to help, they get suckered. Wanting to help everyone in their community will lead to them being scammed time and time again because there are always people trying to take advantage.
‘No one sees my content’ – Did you drive any traffic? There seems to be a misconception that Steemit will also bring the traffic and readers to your blog post. This is something I have do disagree with. This is something you use social media for. Yes Steemit has organic traffic, but you are in control of your destiny and should never give control to a third party (like Steemit, or even Wordpress)
If you start a blog on Wordpress, how do you get traffic? Do you sit back and wait to see what happens with the mind-set oh I wrote it so everyone will read it? Lol cos if you do then you have a lot to learn.
It doesn’t really matter where you publish your articles, if it is on Medium, Wordpress or Steemit. You should promote your own content. Promoting your content does not mean going to Discord and spamming every room and sending DMs to anyone you can. That is SMAP. You need to learn to use social media to promote your content that you have published. A little bit of social media marketing knowledge will go a long way here and I will cover that in a different article because there are ways you can easily boost the traffic to your blog.
‘Why would I post when I don’t earn anything?’ What are you posting? Does your content interest me? Do you solve a problem for me? Is your blog entertaining? Because if it does not fit into any of these then I am not going to vote for your content. It does not provide any value. Steemit is not a social media platform but a publish platform. If you are posting snippets of your life, well unless you have an extraordinary life then chances are, most people don’t care.
But if you are posting great content and not being found then there are things you can do to, which maybe you are not doing. Like promoting your content and using social media marketing or being active within communities. And active means engaging, not dropping a link, saying a quick hi and then leaving.
Conclusion
Personally I think the home page on Steemit is deceiving. It does not talk about blogger and authors or publishing but indicates that anyone can earn by voicing their opinion. Ok it does say “good content” but that’s rather loose I think. And this had led to many people using Steemit like a social media platform and not a publishing platform. Now steemit is full of people sharing content that has no value, giving out they are not earning anything.
STEEM and Steemit are different, just like DTube and Steemit are different. DTube is for video and Steemit is for blogging. This leaves me with another question for you. Should Steemit only display posts made via steemit.com and exclude posts made via other DApps created on the steem blockchain?
I would love to hear your thoughts and your feedback on this. Please do leave your comments below, I can’t wait to hear what you have to say. What is Steemit to you?
I am also pinging @eastmal, @mrday, @said-nuruzzaman , @sevenfingers , @tezzmax, @steemit-jp, @midfrost and @abh12345 I would especially like to hear from you on this topic
Don't forget to vote for your witnesses - @abh12345 and myself run the @steemcommunity witness server. Please do consider us for your vote. You can use this link to place your vote https://steemit.com/~witnesses but as we are not in the top 50, you will need to enter our witness name @steemcommunity and then press vote
I think I have to be visiting this particular post everyday, cause it talks about everything every newbie needs to know. Why did I join Steemit? And all other similar questions. I've also been thinking about that motion you moved about steemit being a social media or not, but I tell you, Steemit is so versatile. Thanks for sharing this @paulag.
Steemit was a dying platform that I thought could be so revivified by the intentional step towards engagement through social interactions.
I was clearly in the wrong, so whatever it may have been is now completely irrelevant.
As I said on the discord server, either our voice has value, however short our song, or it simply does not.
There's no middle ground.
So, I got the hint and I'll leave the platform, take with me my headstrong anti-societal opinions, and leave the ants to, like factory-chicken, peck at eachothers over the scraps of a medium whose functioning remain wholly incomprehensible for the inoculated minds.
Thank you for your time, and your attention. 🙏
why would you leave the platform? My opinion is only my opinion and that is why I asked the question, to see what other people thought. I knew when making this post, that it would be on the controversial side, but not so much it would make someone feel like they should leave, but instead make them want to show me a better way and I do think that that has been achieved. I value you attention and opinion so pinged you to hear how you feel on the matter.
we have had some very interesting replied to this topic and each and everyone of us have a place here on steemit. Without people to engage in discussion what would steemit become?
Not everyone is a blogger, and when I came to steemit first, I thought I had no change because I was not a developer, look how different it is now. And that is because people like you, come with more ideas and prove steemit to be more that originally thought.
Social interaction is something I support greatly here on steemit and I believe our attention also has value in addition to our voices
Hi Paula, I agree with most of the points you brought up, except for what you wrote regarding Discord not being ideal for content promotion. I think the key issue using Discord is how you promote your content.
We both know eachother's content and we both value its quality as well. You don't read all my software articles because you probably don't have time for that, and the same is true for me. But when we read eachother's content, we (almost) always enjoy and value it.
Looking at the "promotion" of my own content, for example my
Learn Python Seriesepisodes, what I do, is that sometimes but not always I mention a newly published articles of mine to you. My 'strategy' is that I think about the importance and relevance of any article I publish with respect to the people that could be interested in it. For example, I know you're not a Pythonista, yet you are interested in data analysis and visualisation. When I've published a Python tutorial that might interest you somehow, I notify you about it.Notifying you is never SMAP (cool typo? on purpose? never seen it before but like HODL, I like it!), because we are friends. We talk about lots of stuff, about our life, about our content. And we became friends months before, because we have genuinely invested in getting to know eachother.
So that might be one additional "tip" for Steem newcomers interested in marketing themselves: join Discord, read people's content, interact, be genuinely interested in the other person, become friends. And then "promote" your content. Don't connect just for being able to "promote" later! Do it because you care personally. Be you. Be intrinsically interested.
Paula, I'm sure this doesn't come as a surprise to you, and if it does (nah, it doesn't :P) then please don't feel offended for this confession :P , but I talk to other people as well, on Discord, not just you. (Don't cry now, please don't! :P)
And for each and every person I was the one to first interact with, I was interested in them as well prior to contacting them. That could be about anything. Their content for example (that's how I met you, plus your a sweetie pants), or their initiatives (that's how I met @elear and @jedigeiss), the quality of comments (@lextenibris), the originality (@traf), the joint Discord connections (e.g. @espoem, @amosbastian, @omeratagun , @littleboy etc. etc. etc.), the "joint interests" (e.g.@emrebeyler and @wehmoen regarding Python coding, yes @wehmoen I mean you, you need more Python in your life! :P). Or @stellabelle for being so well-known and interesting and smart with her skills and character. And @ausbitbank for being a rockstar supporter. Or @someguy123 for being such a cool entrepreneur. @ghasemkiani for publishing his persian-english book translations for which he cares deeply (he's also a good self-taught programmer and medical doctor, really friendly as well!) And @cnts , who I haven't talked to for over 6 weeks, who is a real friend and a generous person and who I miss having around.
I could go on for hours about all the people I know from here, and sorry if I didn't mention you but I did think about you. Yes you too miss EPIC and miss Jules. And you too, yes you...!
All those people I know because I interacted with them. I simply cannot chat with them all daily, that would be impossible. But I did once, and will again. Not a single one of them I ever contacted to "article SMAP". But many of them I shared my articles URLs with.
Interact! :-)
@scipio
Glad you liked the type, lol I think I will leave it and say it was done on purpose.
discord is awesome but does not server every niche and many authors don't have a strategy and just send links to post after post, even when they are ignored.
Believe it or not, I did not cry reading that you talk with others...funny cos I didn't want to tell you I also have other friends and peers on discord in case it made you cry lol.
Many of the people I speak with on Discord, I too reached out to. But before I did, I knew who I was reaching out to and why, as I assumed you did. I also ensured that I was either referred to the person or I engaged with them in public chats first.
Thanks for the reply but you left my question unanswered, what is Steemit? and should Steemit.com drop posts made via other DApps created on the blockchain?
Not having answered those questions before, opened up an opportunity for another comment interaction! Perhaps that was strategy too? :P
Steemit, to my perception, isn't like any other platform, and in that sense it's completely unique:
due to the existence of crypto / monetary rewards on Steemit, lots of emphasis is put there, and I don't think that helps the platform growth nor content quality, at least in its current form. Those direct "contribution rewards" are completely missing elsewhere, and since it's influencing user behavior on Steemit beyond doubt, both from a quality ánd SMAP perspective, this aspect alone puts Steemit in a league of its own;
the existence of bots on Steemit, a way to automate things, is of course also completely unique, at least compared to other "social media / publishing" platforms. I don't think the possibility to develop and deploy bots is "bad" per se, but currently most bots are not "original" either.
I'm completely amazed why Steemit Inc doesn't severely upgrade Steemit.com, not to mention the new account sign-up process. So much more could be done with it...! The Steem & SBD market cap (price * circulating supply) partly positively correlates with the amount of active users of the Steem platform. It can also be perceived as the "company's worth".
The way I'm looking at the Steem ecosystem, is that it's still in its infancy stages. It's characteristics as a publishing / blogging platform are only tiny fractions of its full potential. Look at the speed of the steem (graphene) blockchain technology compared to other blockchains. Look at the amount of "transactions" (where a transaction is not just financial, but can be anything, including a post, or a follow, or whatever). And the community using it all.
Already via Discord (another thing: why do we need an external private messaging environment???) I personally have had a few arrangements for me to (co-) develop Python tools for others for a Steem/SBD compensation. Why can't we have "smart contracts" in direct platform-supported way to make such agreements between users? Look at the new Utopian moderator payment system (which TheScipMeister thought of originally), where we have the system auto-commenting and upvoting those comments, on behalf of the mods. Same principle, in essence, as SteemDunk: expand on that tech, and we'll have an opportunity for subscription based payments / smart contracts, all at the core of the platform. Look at @someguy123's @privex-io : how cool would it be, if we could just - from within Steemit.com - tick a few Privex server options, add a domain, get that server and auto-pay for it subscription-based with Steem/SBD? We could add any product or service to that ecosystem.
That way, blogging, would be just one possible option of the Steem / Steemit ecosystem. A gigantic system of "Crypto Commerce" added on top of it would be another, possibly a far more valuable one. Look at the BTC price, look at BTC circulating amount. And look at SBD price, and its circulating amount. The amounts of both are in the exact same ballpark; prices are not. But Steemit / Steem / SBD has even more potential: we have the blockchain tech, the community / active users, so if we realize and implement that "Steem / SBD Crypto Commerce" ide of mine... just imagine what the Steem / SBD price and market cap potential could be if you look again at BTC's....
@scipio
(PS Paula: I kindly took your idea / question to another place :P )
wow lol maybe I should not have asked. There is a big difference between steem and steemit and the potential of the blockchain is massive
I completely agree that Steemit isn’t social media. I compare it to a website blog similar to your wordpress analogy. You are correct in your view on traffic and overall viewpoint as well. At least in my opinion. Thanks for the share! Resteem
Thanks for the resteem and stopping by
its not a social platform.. its not a blogging platform either.
its a place where.. bots roam free.. bots vote.. bots earn cash (lots of cash).. and bots will get you to the front page. in short, bots rule!
Sadly it's one way to see things, AND it's getting closer to being the only way.
bots are a real problem that is for sure, but lets imaging this was not the case, then what is steemit?
i was inclined to say blogging.. but its more social media due to the connections (friends?) and upvotes (likes?).
Bots are not the problem in general, because they are also very useful for many users who have a lot of Steempower. For example somebody has 100 000 SP and he wants to spent everyday 20% of his Votingpower. Because the User has so much Steempower and the effect off each upvote is massive he has to devide his Votingpower into smaller peaces e.g. 5% upvotes. Therefore if he wants to spend 20% of total Votingpower he would need to do 400 x 5% upvotes. That is a huge amount of work to do everyday the user won't be able to achieve this and therfore Votingsbots are a good thing when it comes to spreading your Steempower to the community.
The other point I like to mention is that Steemit will soon become the hivemind update. This feature allows the creation of private and public communitys which also be managed by moderators. So they will have the power to decide which users can join the specific community and therefore he could also decide not to support Votingbots.
People with high vote should manually upvote people instead of giving auto upvotes thats wickedness... If every one does that wjo gets paid..
I think the problem comes when Steemit is compared to FB or G+, where people can interact with their friends. I have posted before on how users can just interact with their friends, but few seem to do that; they see the money and hope for riches.
Upvoted and added to the next MAP Resteem post.
thanks for the resteem. FB and G+ are not publishing platforms, there are social media sites and I think understanding the difference is very important for moving forward
True, but I was thinking of all those who promote Steemit on those platforms precisely as an alternative.
I still have the feeling that Steemit is turning into an aggregator of all the other Steem platforms and apps being developed. To be purely a blogging platform would require some changes to the UI; even some editorial previewing such as Utopian.
It's a discussion worth having, and if there is a coherent wish-list of what bloggers would like to see, then we can find out if it feasible on Steemit or whether another front-end is needed.
oh I like where this is going. a front-end for blogging only could be awesome
Well... make a wish!
Too late here, and too tired, but one thing that needs careful thinking (and careful encoding) is whether a cohort of curators is needed, how they would function and how they would be chosen. I think a curation vote (or factor) would be needed that is independent of rewards.
Also, need to separate one's blog stream from resteems.
Also, need to see trending by comments as well as (possibly) trending by curation-factor.
Also... oh, enough for now! :-)
are you working on this already ? Sounds like it is something you have been thinking about?
Even in interaction it still subjective to the person you are interacting with
How can u explain the people that are celebs on youtube and make so much money without interaction? And they in turn dont suppport anyone
what is steemit to me? good subject, quite controversial where unfortunately subjectivity comes into play! and we will all have a different opinion, steemit for me is a social network where I share information with others, I call it social network because I can interact with everyone through this section of comments, which can not do for example in a magazine, now well, When I joined this platform I was told about sharing quality content, which is also very subjective, what I like does not have to please everyone, I understood that later, I also understood that I should not vote for all my friends because it would end my voting power.. so after so many things, I decided to enjoy the platform healthily, reading and learning as much as I can, for now I publish little, but I do interact a lot with the people I follow. Even with all the doubts I have about steemit, I like it and I enjoy it. Happy afternoon
Sorry for my mistakes, I use a translator
There is much subjectivity involved and yes we all have our opinions.
To me you have it right. Enjoy finding good content, learning and interacting because with out people doing that, steemit aint much
Thank you for your comment
thank you for your kind reply
Hi Paula, in this context, one thing I would like to also include is that STEEM also opened the doors for development task or works. In one of the words of Ned, he said that 'STEEM' took on a life of its own (driven and produced of course by the community).
So what is Steemit? I do agree that it is close to medium - a thought also mentioned by @dragosroua.
So in the context - what is Steemit? For me, it's a platform built on top of the STEEM blockchain. Nothing more than that. Whether it is for publishing or distributing content, I really don't want to differentiate. For me, it's about discovery - discovery not in terms of just publishing content - bjt a discovery about yourself.
How well do you know yourself? What are your likes and dislikes? What do you have or can do that can add value to the platform? Am what I doing adding value? What needs do I have?
thank you @eastmael. You are quickly becoming one of steemits success stories so I am delighted you took the time to respond.
I would agree with what you have said, Steemit is a discovery in all terms :-)
Thank you Paula. One thing that I've been planning to do is to look back. I know that the #steemitbc and #blockchainbi community are two of the communities I consider home.
I am speechless and don't know how to respond. I know that it's too early to tell. Success is a tricky word. :)
very assertive, authoritative, has more value as a woman of Ireland, This is the perfect post is read by people who do not understand steemit.
#Greetings from elnazry ...
I am ready to vote for @steemcommunity as witnesses.
thank you for your support