People illustrations by Storyset
One of the major excuses most Nigerians on hive make is that they don't earn enough from their creative endeavours. They post regularly and engage but it seems the curators always miss their posts, why?
I don't have a decent answer to this question and to be frank, I don't think anyone has one but several things are mitigating your earning potential, namely:
- the quality of your post
- visibility
Now, most people claim to put out decent articles, art, etc and that might be true to some degree, however, the big question here is: who is seeing your work? I am sorry to disappoint you but no one takes your content and places it in front of curators or whales to upvote. The reality is no one gets to read your supposed quality post and that's no one's fault but yours.
"But I share my links..."
Okay, let me burst your bubble again, no one clicks on links. There is a lot of nuance to promoting content that many of us (including myself) are not prepared or incentivised to undertake. For instance, I ran an ad some weeks ago on a post I made, and although it got many views, there were little to no clicks. There are two major reasons for this:
- I am not targeting the right audience
- My ad is not engaging enough
Now speaking about targeting the right audience (sorry I am going off a tangent), who is your audience? Who are you writing for? Most people never factor in this part and oftentimes most people are simply writing for themselves. That is good if you have a sizable stake to vote for your content (which is not allowed here) or if people find your anecdotes interesting.
Now most people on Hive do not come here to consume content. They are here to dump their post and wait for upvotes. It is how the platform has always been and it probably will never change. Everyone thinks they have something to say that is worth more than a penny. Curation is only beneficial when you have a sizable stake but most people do not have that, hence they post and delegate their resources to someone to do the curation work. So this already puts you and your content in a bad position.
Now the easiest way to bypass people's disinterest is to find a community of like-minded people, where you can share posts and receive feedback, and then you reciprocate. This is how most communities function. Unfortunately, most people do not want to engage or contribute meaningfully to anything but themselves. They won't even go the extreme mile for themselves. What they do is give the barest minimum and hope to maximise the outcome of their actions. It has never worked that especially for those who do not have the resources to be nonchalant about their hive journey.
They say it is only a fool that does the same thing and expects different results. The universe returns whatever energy you put out into the world. If you are lackadaisical about creating content then chances are you will never make it on this blockchain and by extension the creative industry.
I put out a post yesterday on some basic activities you can carry out on hive daily to maximize your time on the blockchain. It is not guaranteed to earn you hundreds of dollars in the short run but it will certainly make you more visible on the chain and it is almost impossible to ignore an account that is showing up every day doing its bit to support the community. This is the best time to put yourself out there because no one is doing it.
I do hope you take a chance on yourself. Don't leave room for buts and maybes. I understand that there are a few things about Hive that don't seem fair or transparent. However, I believe you can show up in a way that people can't ignore your contribution to the blockchain or your respective communities, and it takes less than two hours of your day daily. So there isn't any excuse.
I hope you hear me and make the best out of this experience. Cheers!
That's a very important question, who are you writing for? People write good content but oftentimes, it ends up in the wrong audience and they don't interact with people with similar content
That's like shooting one's self in the foot. It's impossible to build an active following without interacting with your audience. Which is why 80% of my on-chain activity is geared towards engagement.
I think understanding the ethos on Hive is also a good place to start. I basically try to view it into two parts, building and selling. Building means writing good quality post and selling means working on one's visibility on the platform. It's a process that gets refined over time with more iterations on both parts.
Most of the successful people on hive aren't even creators. They are the people that add value to the chain by creating projects and services for the blockchain. But yes creating content is one way to get there. However, there is more outside this creating content that I think we as a community should explore (for instance, look at what they Ghana community are building)
Indeed. Hive is bigger than just creating content. There are other ways to provide value and get rewarded for it. I think that's an important viewpoint to adopt on Hive while we navigate through the ecosystem.
If nobody is reading, why is it worth any upvotes? Seems to me that only something that people are looking at adds value to Hive.
This post has been manually curated by the VYB curation project
Wow... doing things differently will surely make a difference
There are lots of questions every authors needs to ask themselves through this your post. Thank you Nonso for sharing this insightful post...I have known that finding a niche community and being consistent there can also make a difference. Personally this has been working for me.
This is educative.
Thank you Nonso.
My take away is 'Who are you writing for and Who are your audience?
This is a critical question i need to work on.
I am glad you found this piece useful.