.jpg)
This post is not the DHF marketing proposal post! I will be sharing all the information on the marketing agency campaign created for us in the discord channel, link below, and i will be asking for community feedback before i create the final proposal.
BACKGROUND:
I have been working with a number of marketing agencies in these last 2 months to create a suitable marketing proposal for HIVE. Marketing has been a big talking point for years now with no solid efforts to bring it to HIVE (or STEEM). Instead we had to satisfy ourselves with the ages old „if you build it they will come. Forgetting that „if no one hears about it, no one will come.“
That is why i find this proposal essential.
There were plenty of obstacles along the way during these last few month while discussing HIVE with a number of these agencies. I overestimated my abilities a bit by thinking i would be able to deliver in a week what hasnt been done in 5 years. It took me a little under 2 months and i consider ourselves lucky with the strict crypto advertising requirements still in place.
Some agencies were interested initially until i started mentioning that we are „an alternative free-speech platform“.
Some were interested until i mentioned cryptocurrencies.
Some were interested completely to the level i was feeling i was talking to an answering machine instead of a person due to their overwhelming positive attitude void of any concern.
Some had too many projects per individual employee so i turned them down...
Some simply didnt understand what HIVE was....etc.
After going through about a dozen of them i think i found the perfect match for HIVE. „Ignite Visibility“.
This agency seems professional, experienced, is open to new tech, has a number of crypto enthusiast employees (some familiar with STEEM) and has a number of high class clients, off the top of my head, Oprah, Tony Robbins.
.png)
THE FOCUS i decided on for the campaign initially (can be adjusted through feedback) was introducing the HIVE ecosystem, its censorship resistance aspect, high ROI, potential to earn cryptocurrencies for content creators just for creating; through Hive.io and Hiveonboard.com, email and influencer marketing to investors (open to risk taking and new tech), users (content creators, gamers) and developers (social media, gaming) while monitoring on chain statistics and click through towards exchange and dapp links.
I decided against promoting individual dapps directly and instead promoting them as a part of the whole due to limits of the budget and the fairness aspect of using “everyones funds to only promote a part of HIVE”.
There are ofc some very successful dapps on HIVE that are self-sustaining with booming communities which is why ive left it as a possibility for them to join this campaign individually with a lower than mandatory minimum budget for this agency. We would simply add them to this campaign.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Because the DHF has gotten so much criticism already over wasteful spending, I want to make it clear, this proposal is something im doing for HIVE because ive been here for years and because HIVE/STEEM gave me and taught me so much already.
I will not ask for any compensation myself but will instead leave it to the community vote of those providing feedback to decide the level of compensation, if any. Also, if in any way there is lack of trust for my side in handling the proposal payments, which would in turn affect the chances of this proposal passing, i will be more than willing to make one of the larger, more trusted accounts like @theycallmedan or @blocktrades be the recepient of the funds and make them responsible for making payments towards the agency themselves, if any of them is willing.
HIVE needs marketing. HIVE needs a team of experienced professionals. This is it.
All the information on the campaign will be provided in the discord channel.
Im looking forward to your feedback.
DISCORD LINK:
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Another thing why good investors probably don't come to Hive is because so many things are difficult to understand here at the beginning.
For the people who come to generate an income they take a good time to study and know-how the platform runs, making mistakes, keep trying one and another, but all because of the need for money (not in all cases). For the other side, an investor if at the beginning he does not see something clear, how does it work or at least a good videotutorial who explain all (or the majority at least) and how this work, I think it would be difficult for someone put big amounts of money here.
Besides, Hive.blog its the front page and it would be good if they implement sort of things like PeakD do.
But your initiative is great!! it very cool all here giving their support. let's hope it goes well!
You have been a controversial at times but there are a lot of proper things in this post:
The one thing that is missing from the post above are the money :), although that is coming in the proposal itself. It will be interesting to compare the pricing of all the agency you contacted with if that is possible.
Also are some of them willing to be paid according to results? This is most likely connected to the overall pricing structure.
Some of the pricing is shared in the discord server in their full campaign proposal. It will be adjusted as some specifics are removed.
The way they are payed are through management fees (which are fairly low) and services provided as in creating posts, ads, writing content. We can offset a lot of that through community participation.
People will sign up for Hive when they can sign up for free with an email and user created password. It’s very easy.
Just for giving it a go.. I say well done. Someone needs to do it, and I will be the first to admit, I wasn't the person for this job. Hope you have some big balls.
As long as the community is onboard it shouldnt be hard. And they should be onboard, this concerns everyone.
Agencies have a lot of overhead. We already had some offer their services at a monthly price that would make your head spin. They also require someone from Hive to decide on the information and feed it to them. If an agency takes let's say 10k a month and we sign with no guaranteed results, then what?
What we really need is a Google Ads campaign. Someone who knows how to set up Google Ads needs to do that and manage it. That's already been priced out and would come in at about the same price as the agency monthly.
Regarding payments to the agency or to a campaign in general, this must be done by a business. Its a matter of personal risk. The reason is taxes. If a private individual like yourself takes HBD, sells it, places it in their bank account and then pays an agency it will trigger authorities in whatever country you live in. If you have a corporation that already handles large sums and has an accounting team then that's best. It's not to say that a private individual like yourself can't manage a campaign or get paid from one, but not the conversion and transfer of money.
A lot of things made our head spin cost wise since the launch of HIVE. I think the community can take it. If there was an offer you should have probably shared it with the community and let everyone weigh in.
Was it "Disruptive Advertising" that contacted you? At first i just pointed interested agencies towards others before taking it up myself.
Google ads are a very small part of the whole story. For 1 person to do this job properly youd need to pay them an amount that will not be approved by the community (or it will get backlash).
And as i said before. You have no way of tracking their commitment, how many hours a day theyre working. All i need to do is bring up Netouso to show how hard it is tracking the work rate of someone funded by the DHF. And he has a Github as a dev.
That is not correct. The first thing i did before all this was talk to the equivalent of a IRS agent in Croatia. I still need a "paper trail" (as was his suggestion) and contact them through email but as it stands in this case where i would act as an intermediary there would be 0 risk for myself.
Taxes on Crypto are very lenient in Croatia, theyre affected by a "capital gains tax" which is only 10%. And this would not be considered capital gains.
No, we didn't have an offer that I personally got. Another Hive member got a connection for $15k which involved, when drilled down, few actual confirmed deliverables and a 'retainer'. Those types are meant for ICO scams where the team got so much money that 100k is nothing.
Now the other question is why are we even entertaining the selection of a specific company without giving other companies, including those run by our own members, a chance to bid and offer their services? Even governments have to do RFPs. Are we really more corrupt than a government?
They had 5 years to do nothing.
Hive isn't responsible for the 4 years of Steemit. There were many wasted opportunities due to the corporate control.
And? How about since Hive's inception?
There is a point where all that’s being said are excuses.
As @enforcer48 said below... And if you remember you even had groups like Utopian that had actual self proclaimed marketing "experts" with millions of dollars worth of Steemit.inc delegation at one point.
If im completely honest, ive no idea what any crypto devs and investors are still doing living in USA.
It's the transfer portion. So let's say I cash out 100k CAD from crypto, doesn't matter which crypto. I now have 100k CAD in my account. I've earned or otherwise obtained the profits in the sum of 100k CAD. Therefore my earnings for the year are that 100k CAD + whatever else I regularly made. I can then take that money and pay someone. If I'm filing my taxes as a private individual, I'm now flagged because I received a huge sum and distributed a huge sum. I also jumped the tax bracket. If I'm a business account, I now have 100k CAD in revenue and 100k CAD in subsequent spending. If I were a small business not filing because my annual revenue was under 30k CAD, I now have to file. However, if I'm a medium sized company with let's say $500k CAD annual profits and maybe $300k CAD annual costs in salaries plus whatever I spend on other things, that 100k CAD is normal. My existing accountant will assign it in the appropriate category and there is no impact to me or my business.
If I'm a large stakeholder and crypto investor and received 100k CAD in crypto, let's say HBD, then what I would do is keep it in crypto. I'd swap it to HIVE, etc. And I would pay the intended recipient in CAD, because I'm wealthy enough to have 100k CAD sitting there. Maybe I'd have to sell some stagnating stock to free it up. But in that case, I'm already in the appropriate tax bracket, I already know how to handle large sums of money, and this is just part of my regular activities. On paper I'm doing a payment, not a one-stop transfer.
Google Ads and Facebook will block you in no time when you act with a huge budget.
To do email marketing you need to build a list first and that takes a lot of time.
Remains only Twitter, SEO, Word of Mouth, Guerilla. We actually have the same problems as PornHub. But PornHub has proven that you can build reach even with bans/shadowbans.
Facebook will ban us but Google ads I think still have some merit.
I've been working on a newsletter/mailing list. The problem is we can't use services like Mailchimp; we're automatically banned from those. Been working on a self-hosted and hopefully decentralized solution.
This is working very well: https://sendy.co/ + Amazon SES.
Edit: This is the cheapest solution for huge lists (100k+ mails).
I would rather stay away from Amazon if possible. I did review it earlier, it remains an option.
The hard part is to build a list (outside our bubble).
HIVE developers needs to understand this
I think they already understand it. If we look at what they've done, and continue to do, I think the evidence is pretty clear.
Hive developers don't have to be marketers. Different skills, different jobs.
What we need is good interaction between these two groups of people.
Agree, but most hive devs have a high stake. I there ignore the fact, it´s hard to get a proposal funded.
This is true as well :)
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
I agree
This needs to happen, even if it seems a bit Hail Mary.
I wouldnt call it a Hail Mary. Depends on how much of the community wants it to happen. Logistically, its not a problem.
Logically, it shouldn't be a problem. But, you know how people are around here.
Well im offering my time for free and i hardly think a more high profile partner with as much expertise can be found.
If they dont want to help themselves, thats on them, what else can i say.
I would like content consumers to be included. the approach of rewarding your favorite content creators and earning 50% curation on one of the best things we have and not used for marketing. many outside
they only give away their money, while here they can generate an ROI. you have my support
couldn't agree more with the conclusions
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
You got my full support. I will look into it when I get a chance, but knowing you, I don't think you will waste any money. Please consider writing a DHF eventually.
We have one more zoom call with them next Thursday. One of the bigger folks here will join me. We will cover the specifics in more detail with them and ill present an official DHF proposal probably inside 2 weeks.
I think you did Hive a good service so far with this and your plan is worth carefully considering.
I totally agree with that.
As for reimbursement, we still don't know how much would the total number be, thus deciding whether it's 2 % or 10% is pointless.
I would go for a defined number of Hive (not HBD) paid upon termination of the marketing campaign.
If it succeeds, X of Hive will be worth much more than today. If not, you still get some as a thank you from the community for your service.
Hive is cheap so it's possible to gain value is good (especially if the campaign attracts new loads of users and companies).
It's a sort of bet.
I would set the X as 2000 Hive, as for now it's only about 240$, but it can be much more.
The demand for Hive kept its value over 0.1$ so I guess it won't go below that
Compensation is irrelevant atm. The only reason i mentioned it is because there is a large part of the community that is extremely critical of the use of DHF funds so i wanted to make it clear to them that this proposal is being done for all of HIVE, and does not exist for me to line my pockets.
I'm tiny HP holder, but still you have my vote
I'm not a big marketing guy myself, but I would definitely support LEO and Hive getting professional help. Now is the time
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Like your style, my 100% support.
I mean we have spent money and continue to spend money on things that aren't adding more value than they are taking in. For example businesses that run on hive should have some form of revenue goal to remain solvent instead of just collecting DAO funds forever. I won't get into all of that here though, I would support any kind of marketing proposals as long as they are done by professionals and are transparent with what we pay compared with what we get.
It will be done by professionals, if i end up being the fund recipient, i will make my name public and provide proof of payment and fund deposit.
Awesome initiative!!
Looks pretty solid. I'll do a quick scan on the company this weekend, but based on the amount of effort you've in, my initial reaction is 👏👏👏
One small detail:
It's hiveonboard.com instead of hiveonboarding.com
Posted using Dapplr
That is true, thx. :)
thanks for your initiative! I hope it will be successful.
I actually thought that email marketing is a bit outdated. But as I have no experience, I don't know
nice!
if you build it they will come...
if you build it, hopefully we will fund! :)
Hi @lordbutterfly
I think your marketing proposal is a good one.
Currently, Hive is even quite unknown to many crypto enthusiasts. They have not heard about Hive or think that it is a scam. We have to do something about that.
I'm curious, why do you choose to share things on Discord but not here on HIVE?
Convenience, real time feedback, their proposal is 50 pages long.
The final draft of the DHF proposal will be on HIVE.
You left out key information, how much would it cost? Not talking about what you will personally earn, just the marketing costs.
Cost per service is listed in their proposal. It will be adjusted based on what we want. Minimum is 10k USD a month.
Peanuts compared to some of the absolute tosh that gets funded for no reason.
You really should add a fee to yourself in the proposal. Time is money and I think it's a more professional approach. Neither yourself or Hive are a charity .
Finally. Thank-you. Surely no one could disapprove this.
Ill take feedback on what i should charge for my time. If this goes through Hive will have a marketing plan finally after 5 years of nothing.
That is something that will increase the value of my investment so im "technically" not doing it for free.
@marki99 Can you DM me on Discord? GuiltyParties [.com]#5071 Thanks man
Just promote Hive for Free on Noise.Cash.... it’s Free .... and you earn Bitcoincash
Full support 👍
Excellent idea friend @lordbutterfly it is time for Hive to go to another level.
I fully support this proposal.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Congratulations on this wonderful post ... I also think that HIVE would do well with a little marketing, but who can invest money for this? I am currently trying to show this very interesting blockchain to more people.
I Will support you, keep spirit
I commend you on taking action. The DHF indeed has funded what I believe to be failed projects in the past. The constructive criticism shared in the comments is noted, but I am still going to vote this proposal anyway.
You have every right as a stake holder to act on the behalf of the blockchain and I will promote this proposal in my small way. It is indeed evident that you are not looking to receive personal gain from this proposal, but help build the HIVE Blockchain Network community. Thank you.
I love the work you put into this. It will be interesting to see what could be done.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
I want to add my 2 cents. In my humble opinion, I think what we need more is to focus on crypto influencer or Youtube channel that has big following or other social media that people are viewing.
In my personal experience, I have known Steemit because of Crypto influencer named Trevon James. He is talking one of his videos of why he is dumping all his crypto bags to buy Steem. This got me curious and made a lot of research about it, the rest is history.
I don't know how to do it, but maybe offering the social media influencer some contract or paid to promote episodes will make a lot of differences. The community can also leverage those marketing videos as we can use it to explain Hive for newbies. Let me know what you think of it. Great post
Where do I sign?
wow intersting, how to partecipate?
Hy dear I just join the hive please spred me if you can I need to get followers thank you
Oh Ackza. haha.
Something like this?
Only if @ackza can do those stunts in the gif.