I personally think we need to step away from the “do this and get paid” aspect, as it sets unrealistic expectations. Not everyone can come here and make money, and while that is an amazing benefit, it’s not all we have to offer.
I actually hope any new marketing takes the monetary aspects out of the equation and instead sells Steem on what it has to offer, rather than just earning money.
People play games, share on social media and talk about their favorite restaurants everyday without a promise of making money.
I think there is a huge opportunity for businesses to come here, invest and pay individuals to do tasks etc.. but “come here and make money” is selling Steem short in my opinion.
I do very much agree we have a branding problem, and I really think it is holding us back more than anyone wants to admit. Hopefully we can make some big changes 🙂 as I think we all know what a special thing we have here, we just have to get our shit together.
The connections I have on social media don't post where they do not make money. For the most part, they are content creators and use the online world to make their living. I don't have "friends", in the sense some people do on social media. I never used it before I started working with it and I am not alone.
If you are going for the random fb users instead of content creators, that is a whole different demographic. One of my friends who makes his living on ebay tried and quit steem, and told me, "None of my idiot friends would ever be able to figure out how to post here. They may be idiots, but they are my idiots." Those are the people who buy from him. You have to be very committed to this place to stay here long for pennies. And then learning curve is huge even with the dapps.
And then there are investors. I know some people trying to get small businesses here with the idea that they can pay to upvote their content to where it will rank on google. This makes sense to me as a use of this place.
If you are not making money here, the community aspect might be a draw. Where you think the money aspect is overdone, I feel the same way about the community idea. I think it is over-rated compared to what really happens here. I love the friends I have made here and some I knew from before steem, but that's not the reason I am here. The fact that we still meet in fb and discord shows the we have weakness in the interaction here.
While I understand that some individuals are here to only make money, my comment was stating marketing it this way just sometimes isn’t beneficial.
Who will read the blogs of these content creators? And where does the money come from to pay them? We need more than just content creators who come here to get paid, that’s all I was saying.
Well, I have never understood where the money comes from and I am always grateful the lights did not go out while I was sleeping. I've had about 5 places I posted to go under, and I hope this will not be one of them.
I understand that. The author rewards come from a pool that is mostly from inflation (from those holding stake in STEEM), my point was just that it’s not sustainable in my opinion so we need to attract all sorts of individuals. Not everyone will be able to come here and make a living from posting, but it’s a pretty amazing thing that many can. I just meant to continue to be able to do that, we have to become sustainable. Which means marketing ourselves in such a way. They get paid to blog aspect is great, but it’s not realistic for long term on a wide scale basis. Not saying it’s not a part of the Steem platform though, just that we have more going on then just that etc.