Crowdsourcing the Future w/Marketing Plan Announcement
Hello Steemians! Today we’re proud to announce the new crowdsourced marketing initiative for Steem.
We believe that the only way Steem growth can scale is for it to come from the community itself. So we’re going to create community-driven growth processes from the very start. That’s right everyone, we’re crowdsourcing growth for Steem.
The Benefits of Successful Crowdsourced Growth
- Growth of Steem will become independent of Steemit Inc, distributing more power to Steem holders, and letting marketing as a whole scale with the community.
- Putting control over the evolution of culture on Steem and Steemit.com in the hands of Steemians.
- We’ll have developed a turn-key solution for marketing ANY PROJECT on the Steem blockchain, not just Steemit!
What We're Doing
- We’re designing the protocols for effectively organizing the Steem community and optimizing the limited bandwidth of the Steemit Team.
- Clarifying and publishing the methodologies specific to Steemit, to be used when Steemit.com is ready.
- Accelerating the development of partner projects on the Steem blockchain.
We’re hoping to begin presenting these protocols to the community as soon as possible so we can start coordinating the early experiments.
Finally, for those of you who read to the end, the Steem Growth Plan for 2017 will be released early next week. From our perspective, Steemit is the navigator of Steem growth, but as you’ll see it will be a truly communal effort.
Mitchell Loureiro, VP of Marketing
I think giant posts for collaboration will be a great use on Steemit. Imagine hundreds or thousands of activities building on ideas, organising community efforts, etc. So in my opinion, the best way to do this is to have a lively page, meaning new messages automatically update on page just like in chat apps. Not sure if such a thing can be pulled off, but a reactive page is what's needed for flow.
I like the idea of crowdsourcing marketing, and it would be great if the community directs a portion of their daily voting power for grassroots marketing efforts.
That said, it would be great to know what exactly is the bandwidth / resources available from the Steemit Inc team too. I think frequent updates via development blogs and constant interaction with the community will be useful to keep the momentum going. Despite notions of decentralisation and such, it will be nice to have a central on-going discussion / vision that's clear on this website.
Lastly, I think the best focus for any marketing and development would be to emphasise:-
Let's supercharge these.
Edit: and not to forget user retention.. this is a more complex matter as it involves a level of utility, and I hope this will come in time.
Sounds good to me! Yes, the question isn't always "to decentralize or to centralize" but, "when is centralization helpful and when is decentralization helpful." Centralization by FORCE is bad, but if we as a community decide that certain things should be centralized for the sake of efficiency, I don't see a problem with that. That's what we mean when we talk about acting as a "navigator." A navigator is a centralized position, but it's not an AUTHORITY.
Thanks for the insightful comment Kevin!
Sure it can be done. Have a look at this page:
https://www.investing.com/commodities/gold-commentary
I would advise people to try thinking up solutions that can be implemented now using the tools at hand while considering that communities are coming relatively soon. TBH solutions that require alteration of the development pipeline are not just unlikely to happen, but not a good idea. Steemit.com is a content sharing platform with a filtering mechanism (stake-weighted upvotes), comments, and new features which will be coming more rapidly going forward. If the existing platform can be leveraged we will be able to move that much faster. Unless, of course, people want to build Steem-based apps that solve these problems, in which case we say, "Steem On!" :)
https://steemit.com/vr/@stealthtrader/the-future-steemit-digital-world
Perhaps the better question is, will it be too taxing on the network to do so? Not too sure about this.
If it's too taxing for a decentralized network to grow a network for which they derive most of the benefits, then we have a problem.
It's interesting, because this is also a simultaneous test of the incentive mechanisms of Steem. I'm placing my bets on the community.
That's a great way to think about it. And I think it's possible on this network. Would be great to have designers, developers test / build certain prototypes out. But maybe certain parts of the community have been trying this out.. activities around are not always all that apparent :)
Would be interested to know this as well @andrarchy. Interesting thoughts @kevinwong
it needs definitely a dedicated page, or a forum. "Active project/partnership discussion" or something
Ah yes, a forum would be great.. @jesta has been trying that abstraction..
I saw it. Looks practical https://steemdb.com/forums
If anyone needs a domain I have steemitforum.com . I just have a sloppy forum up there right now :)
Yeah I like it too
Surprised to not see any comments from the Steemit marketing team to this top comment...
andrarchy is part of the team..
@kevinwong Thanks for letting me know! Where can I see a list of everyone on the Steemit team?
Can’t really say I’m over the moon with this update. For this reason: I had to listen to it 3 times and still got lost in what I can expect. I can’t make anybody enthusiastic with this. I don't even know what this means:
Open market of growth proposals and Steem based projects
Cooperative idea sharing driven by a community based decision making process
Projects partnering with one another with the Steem community and with the Steemit team.
Designing protocols that will help organize the Steem community
Clarifying publishing strategies and tactics to be used once Steemit.com is optimized to capitalize on marketing efforts.
Influence and outreach with the community…hone methods…AB tests…choose the right community…in advance (WHAT?!)
Experimenting with methods accelerating the development of partner projects on the Steem blockchain.
It's just a bit too vague for me. I do love the enthusiasm you two clearly have for the platform but I feel that simplifying the language a bit would help a lot.
I have the same feeling when I'm listening to the politicians on TV. They can talk for hours and they are all excited. It's sounds great, but you can't understand or repeat a thing. To understand? No way. My take on this is more like : steemit hired two guys to tell us that marketing is our job to do and if it's fail it'll be our fault. But hey, who I'm here? And what do I know. I really hope that I'm not a bag holder here. Not sure at all.
I had 10000 steem waiting to power up after the anticipated marketing update this week, but after this train wreck I sold it all on bittrex, and will sell another 5000 on Friday when i get my power down. @ats-david needs to a blog post and rip these steemit marketing dudes some new assholes
I hope this is good enough for now...
SPECIAL REPORT
EPIC! ... and fun
Exactly how I feel! What did they actually say? I understand that much ....wait for new updates
The technical term is gobbledygook.
Hi @exyle as @andrarchy noted we're starting abstract. Yes, it can sound a bit vague now, but it will clarify later... this is about giving you a 'map of the territory' before we dive deeper.
Take #1 to #4... What does that mean?
It means developing a system for actually getting things done. For example...
Where do you post a growth idea?
How do you know if anyone wants to help you do it, and what should you do then?
How do we keep track of growth ideas?
How do we coordinate our resources (time, people, money) to ideas?
How do we judge the value of these ideas?
How do we vote on ideas? How do we stop failed ideas?
As you can see, the simple question of 'how do we organize the Steem community' gets very gritty, very fast. If we are asking and answering those questions for each idea, we're wasting a colossal amount of time and energy.
If we can make a streamlined system the first time, we'll be able to put all that saved energy into living better lives, and achieving more success.
The whole point of crowdsourcing is scaling, so we mind as well make it efficient from the start. But I didn't think it was appropriate to dive into this level of detail... which would be my mistake. Sorry for the misunderstanding, I'll strive to be clearer going forward.
MY brain would explode trying to decipher 1 to 7, this is the day I feel the worst ever about steemit , these guys better get thier shit together... or else
So freaking true @craig-grant !!!
Noted @exyle, thanks for the well articulated feedback. Not to make excuses but for stuff like this I think you need to start high level (abstract) and work your way down to the details. But we can always do better at simplifying our ideas and explaining them better. Thanks again, very helpful.
I call bullshit
A very good concise summary. Completely accurate.
I know what you mean Craig, however I'm witholding judgement, I have been highly critical at the lack of marketing. So some noise is good, let's hope in time it turns out to be the right noise.
Cg
they will figure it all out eventually, will take a few weeks it seems, the time they need for more development
Brian Page 2.0? Marketing "guru" tells us he will teach us how to market Steem but doesn't reveal how.
By that reference, I see you've been around (the graphene family) for a while. I'm beginigng tô get a strange feeling that Steemit is Bitshares part 2.................excelente superior technology, but poor business execution. Time will tell.
@exyle @andrarchy
This is how I understand it:
Open market of growth proposals and Steem based projects
= You can propose a project and the community will decide if you get the support/funding.
Cooperative idea sharing driven by a community based decision making process
= A place where ideas are gathered and then the community decides on the best ideas and on execution.
Projects partnering with one another with the Steem community and with the Steemit team.
= Bringing together people with one another and with the Steemit team, so that they can cooperate productively
Designing protocols that will help organize the Steem community
= The necessary infrastructure for points 1-3 to actually work
Clarifying publishing strategies and tactics to be used once Steemit.com is optimized to capitalize on marketing efforts.
= Better communication with the user base (you and me) about future moves
Influence and outreach with the community…hone methods…AB tests…choose the right community…in advance (WHAT?!)
= Ways to increase your influence and outreach with the help of the community / hone methods (no clue) / AB tests: test different designs of the Steemit website to see which get the most conversion / choose the right community (no clue)
Experimenting with methods accelerating the development of partner projects on the Steem blockchain.
= Find ways how to promote Steemit apps or other projects like Busy
Basically, they want to channel the energy that everybody is putting into helping Steemit. Until now, most efforts and great ideas have been lost into posts that have been long forgotten and nobody is reading anymore. A place where all this information is bundled, refined and used to build upon, will greatly help Steemit.
Hi @homosapiens,
You're on the right track with this. We have all this energy that's being lost into the void. That's just a waste. But a few guys will never be able to do what this community can collectively. And as said previously, us doing all the marketing alone won't scale.
So while the technology we need to have a more competitive product (communities, effortless onboarding) is in production, we need to create the protocols and systems that allow us to effectively use our time and energy.
We could lay out documentation on influencer engagement tomorrow, but what would be the point? We have no way of effectively coordinating, no way of deciding where to focus our efforts. Meanwhile all the brilliant ideas go unnoticed, because it would still be a top down approach. So instead we'd like to create the structures for putting all the great efforts to good use.
Given your comments, it seems you really get that, so good on you.
You are correct. Stick to the game plan, there are a lot of naysayers.
Indeed. The plan needs more clarity in my opinion. I do hope that the "Steem Growth Plan for 2017" that is to be released next week is going to be less vague. Energy and enthusiasm is great, but what we all need now is a precise mission/vision, business plan, SWOT analysis and to focus on projects that best fit the core competencies of the Steemit/Steem community and leading team.
Cheers and Steem on!
I'm developing 2 project that I hope will be useful - and I'm going to ask the help of the community to have them working.
This sounds great. Glad to see things like this being developed!
Sounds great. Feel free to use the comments of these posts to keep us updated on projects like these until we get a more robust and efficient mechanism in place for giving projects like these the support they need and deserve.
sure. thx @andrarchy
So, for two times in a row now, the major announcement has been that there's a major announcement that will take place in the future.
Also, what I got from this is that you guys have no ideas, and are placing the responsibility to come up with ideas and do the work on the community's shoulders.
Why are you two being paid again?
To be quite honest, there will always be future announcements, because I intend to share what we're doing here as much as possible. But that must be digestible, or what's the point? So it will always come in stages, in phases, if I can help it.
For example, I could give you an essay on the necessity of communities, on our current challenges with communities, on what kinds of communities are most likely to help Steemit grow, on how to reach those communities, on how to overcome the concerns of those communities, and how to organize the effort to actually pull on those communities... but what would be the point? Few would read it, and fewer still could act to solve the problems... or I could present the overview, and slowly dive deeper into each individual challenge, so by the end you know exactly what our challenges are, and what we're doing to solve them.
For example, we don't even have a central place to post marketing ideas, or proposals, or to coordinate our time and energy for those proposals once we agree we should be doing them.
So I'm focusing on laying the foundation. And that's going to take time, because we're building this to last beyond today, or tomorrow, or next month. We need a coordination system that can scale with growth. Because ideas, while great, are cheap, and implementation is very expensive.
I'm doing the implementation now, so everyone else can share the great ideas. Please bear with me while I lay this foundation.
Steemit - if you can't get paid for constructive comments get paid to troll instead :D
Implying this comment was trolling? It wasn't.
You're right. This isn't an inflammatory rhetorical question surely.
I'm genuinely worried, because the STEEM blockchain is the most impressive out there, and I'd hate to see it going to waste.
STEEM is a much better currency than bitcoin, for instance.
And I personally want a financial revolution sooner rather than later.
Well we have 3 options.
We can sit and wait patiently, doing nothing and letting others handle the growth.
We can play our own part, spreading the positive message of what this revolutionary tool can do for us, as suggested by the marketing team.
We can put pressure on people who are doing the work for us to do our jobs faster so that we don't have to work or find the patience and we can just piss and moan instead until we get what we want.
Personally I see option 3 to be destructive to the cause. I won't pretend I think what the marketing team is doing is wonderful but it's a start and it's more than I'm doing since I'm lazy (well also busy of course). But I can only be grateful for what they do since I'm not the one paying them.
excellent beanz
Forgive my ignorance but who is the marketing team?
2 guys in the post above. @zurvanic & @andrarchy
what i get from this post is that you guys are buying time, at least 3 more weeks before any more progress is made
Still such update is better than silence ☺️
i don't agree, silence is better than getting me all excited for a huge let down
Manage your emotions.
That is certainly not our intention. We are developing a system and trying to be as transparent as possible while gathering feedback from the community as we go. Change takes time and rushing to implement something that is imperfect and not a collaborative effort with the community is not a move in the right direction. We welcome any suggestions from the community that will help us accelerate the development of our system, because right now we're all working every day at maximum bandwidth.
I will be excited when you guys deliver something beyond words, until then these marketing updates seems like all a big waste of my time, and to think you are getting paid for this does not jive well either. Your videos would be better if you were looking at the camera lens more, reading is robotic
I appreciate your perspective and it's a reasonable one. We plan to deliver. Stay tuned.
thank you very much, I appreciate your time and attention
He is a day trader what does he know about communities. Don't worry keep chugging along.
They need to start somewhere....how about you give them a chance? Or are you the arbiter of truth and value?
I have no choice but to give them a chance, and a kick in the ass to get things going in the right direction
No choice? What on earth do you mean? What gives you the right to kick anyone in the ass? Do these guys owe you anything? They've had five frikin minutes, how about give them a chance?!
Suddenly steemit is full of marketing experts. I call BULLSHIT on every fucker who isn't being supportive and helpful. Anything that is not constructive is destructive and counter-productive. Give them a dam chance!
steem locked up in steem power = no choice
right to kick in the ass = crowd sourceing, and I'm in the crowd
Power down if you don't like it = You have a choice. Seeking support from the community is in the community's interest which does not equal the right for people to be counter-productive or kick anyone.
well said @benjojo - let us give them the time, trust and support
It would have worked better if he had an ear piece.
I can understand why craig-grant said so, but to be honest... this is way better than it used to be. I appreciate every move that tries to bring higher transparency.
Only results matter. Words are just words until there are results to show. Demand results because they are being paid to produce results.
Thanks, this is really all we were trying to accomplish. I agree with users who want results, but I don't think that's mutually exclusive to adding transparency through increased communication, a/k/a "words."
Hi, I'm really happy that there is some positive communications coming from Steemit. I wish you both the best of luck. I'm sure you'll get all the support you need from hundreds of Steemians eager to help.
So far your message has been easy to get behind and I think you are releasing it in parts to enable the message to get out properly and to give steemians a chance to digest it.
There have been enough hints that you will be supporting marketing efforts, I assume from the steemit steem account. If this is the case, that is great news and spending it in a way that gets the most value for the steem economy is absolutely essential. I would ask though, is it your intention to be fully transparent and tell the community what the end game with the steem in that account is? Is it to spend it on development, marketing and incentives until it is a standard whale (possibly in equilibrium with steem price rises to fund development much further into the future,) or completely gone? What is the anticipated time horizon for reducing it's size? I think this matters a great deal to larger investors and companies who are interested in Steem......therefore it matters to us all.
I believe the steemit developers are to be commended for their efforts to improve steem whilst maintaining the core interface (steemit) whilst still in beta. For the most part (non developers) we've had a stable beta product to play with for over a year. Really impressive. The steemit developers are obviously a major asset to steem. I know there have been difficulties and challenges among some witnesses and third party developers with respect to HF's, comms, documentation, some existing code and code changes. I truly hope the clear indications you've given that these issues will be addressed and extended to everyone with integrity who wants to build on steem, no matter the history so the professionalism, integrity and talent of the steemit developers can be left in no doubt.
Just an idea. I would make a list of all the things steemit has been asked to improve and a list of all the marketing objectives. Make a post with these lists. In three months we can all revisit the lists and have a community vote on each item.....massive improvements / some improvement / minimal improvement / no improvement / don't know.
I think it would be useful to know where additional attention may be needed and where a firm pat on the back is deserved.
I believe in your approach so far. I look forward to things of substance coming out of it.
Happy Steeming
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I'll definitely give these ideas a LOT of thought
thank you andrarchy. I really appreciate your efforts to take all our passion and thoughts and carve a meaningful, efficient and productive dialogue between us all.
Thanks so much. That means a lot
"I would ask though, is it your intention to be fully transparent and tell the community what the end game with the steem in that account is?"
Yes. Though we're trying to take things one step at a time, this is on the agenda.
This is great news. Thank you for sharing.
I know I should wait till early next, but couldn't resist asking anyway :) - Will Steemit Inc. offer financial support for community led marketing efforts? Also, any possibility of rewards for notable referrals?
Yup, you're going to have to wait :) What I will say is that IF we were going to do something like that we would first need to develop a robust protocol for determining what projects would likely produce a positive return and those projects will have to produce metrics which enable us to form such conclusions. I think it's safe to say that nobody wants us sinking resources into projects that will produce a negative return as that would be definitionally unsustainable.
Sure, no one wants to waste money on projects unlikely to produce a positive return. I'm willing to bet, a vast majority of crowdsourced ideas will be worthless. In the end, Steemit Inc has to lead the way. The community can help, but only to an extent. Every last one of the world's largest websites got there due to a single focused, efficient and motivated marketing team before attaining critical mass and network effect.
Hello @liberosist
Every last one of the world's largest websites got there due to a single focused, efficient and motivated marketing team before attaining critical mass and network effect.
That is only your opinion. It is not the case with Bitcoin or Facebook. It is the case with Amazon.
Steemit.com will be big when most people can get money in and out easy. The money you can use in the world easy is the money we all want.
Have a nice day
I agree. Though it has its place, the value of a democratic (non focused) approach to business initiatives is often overrated.
you use too many big words, it's not necessary and a big turn off to average everyday people
well, to the best of my knowledge.. i'm an everyday user... I haven't found any words too big to understand or that are a turnoff.
definitionally unsustainable
Pffft
quite clearly naysayers abound ... especially those who lack responsibility of leadership
They should have hired you for community outreach.
absolutely right....reputation, evidence, staggered support on delivery of targets etc
Sounds like you know what you're talking about. Want to chat in steemit.chat?
I'd like to invite you to interact with the Steemspeak Voice chat community on Discord. You will find a large community of Steemians eager to hear what you have to say, and share their thoughts with you.
https://discord.gg/qbrdCPU
I'll look forward to meeting you.
@andrarchy on this point I would point out when you take this to the extreme it kills innovation. If everything had to be costed, projected etc you lose momentum and great ideas can get buried.
Of course spend your money wisely but try to maintain a bit of flexibility and don't always get bogged down in metrics. Innovation especially in a new space cannot always be measured. And if unmeasurable innovation does not continue the sum of the parts will diminish.
A way to tackle this would be to have as part of the plan a fund for "interesting ideas", things that fell right but may not work out, an innovation fund which is assessed differently.
Sure, it's about measuring and balancing risk.
All of crypto is a moonshot, so were not averse to this approach. The value of metrics is that they serve as a selection mechanism... the kind of people who chart their progress are probably going to be able to run projects better, and therefore succeed.
That doesn't mean we won't support and nourish big, 'fun' ideas when we see them. An advantage of crowdsourcing is getting as many great eyes and minds on as many ideas as possible to find those worth trying.
Thank you guys for coming together and making an effort for Steemit
I look forward to hearing some concrete news on what Steem Inc and the Marketing Team have planned
For example, if you're making an official intro/promotional/tutorial video/s and want us all to upvote and share it, I'm sure the community will be behind you
If the developers are planning to roll out other platforms (twitter, instagram versions of Steemit) and wish for us to test them, or want us to spread the word, we'll definitely be glad to
Perhaps the developers are working on improving the features and layout of the main site by adding communities and more settings? Or improving coding to make it more efficient for community developers to get involved? Or ideas that'll improve the overall governance and efficiency of Steem Inc? Sharing these details will greatly improve our faith in the platform
There are some within the community who feel that the marketing direction isn't as clear as it could be right now, but make no mistake: everybody here wants this platform to grow and prosper. Hopefully when the roadmap is revealed we'll have something to rally behind and get excited about. Just give us something tangible and you'll have our full support
Well said!
Naturally, we're always here to answer questions and comments if there's something you'd like to ask, and of course at Steemit.chat as well. We try to be present for these posts. :)
This is exciting! Crowdsourcing growth and providing users with a package of resources should help this community's reach expand massively. Smart how it alleviates Steemit Inc. at the same time. Eagerly awaiting early next week! On the project front - I'll be sharing some good news within the next couple of weeks that @hansikhouse / @hitheryon and I have been working hard to develop in the design-realm of things. Steem on!
Have you guys ever tried your hands on UI designs? I think you guys will do a great job..
Yes! Interfacing both with digital UI and physically. Our goal is to get a design project integrated with steemit - in the sense of public art / architecture. We're in the process of forging partnerships to get the ball rolling. In a couple weeks we should have some good news to share!