127 FOLLOWERS ALREADY : REWARDING FOLLOWERS: prizes for the best comments

in #minnowsupportproject8 years ago (edited)

I have been happily producing articles on Steemit.com for 2 weeks now and amazingly already have 127 followers!

THAT'S HUGE! SO I WANT TO REWARD MY FOLLOWERS FOR COMMENTS.

dollars flying.jpg

I love to see that little red reply flag on my profile, it is addictive! I love it more than earnings reports frankly!
Usually it means another Steemian has read my post and left a thought provoking comment in most cases. That's what I enjoy most!

I love some one engaging with the ideas in the post somehow, even if they disagree.
A good link to content I have not seen, other writers to discover, your own post which is talking about similar topics... it all has value, so I want to reward that as much as possible but it has to be sustainable and reward your effort, not a random lottery that only encourages gaming the system without adding value to the platform, that is not sustainable.

I know how difficult it is to get ahead though as a new minnow writer, especially right now with the whale non-voting experiment. You might have seen that payouts are superlow currently.

Added to that it is increasingly difficult to discover great content on Steemit.com

SO I WANT TO CHANGE THAT AND GIVE YOU SOME MONNEEEEYYY!

UPDATED First Prizes Paid!
https://steemit.com/minnowsupportproject/@the-traveller/rewarded-my-active-followers-for-their-comments
https://steemit.com/minnowsupportproject/@the-traveller/another-post-another-payout-to-my-commenter
https://steemit.com/minnowsupportproject/@the-traveller/i-love-paying-out-my-commenters

FOR EACH OF THE ABOVE POSTS I WILL GIVE AWAY THE FULL 50% SBD AUTHOR SHARE WHEN THEY PAY ME OUT
The SBD's I receive are distributed amongst best commenters, in 5 SBD increments.
So I guarantee 1 payment of 5 SBD AT LEAST even if I have to make it up myself.
If the post does very well, I will distribute all of the SBD's I earn in 5 SBD lots to deserving commenters. The more the post earns, the more commenters I will be rewarding. (Reward per commenter initially capped at 5 SBD, as I ean more I am more than willing to raise the payouts)

(can't give my 50% STEEM POWER even if I wanted to)

My brand new posts about a defence of the 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss has 3 guaranteed prizes!

My post explaining strategies on how to build the skill to deal with change

My post on the new rules of the new economy as they apply on Steemit.com

Rules to receive the prize:

  • you have to be in my follower list
  • you have to have upvoted the post you commented on (this helps to grow the pot for all)
  • your comment has to be related to the content of the post you are commenting on
  • a good question related to the post content also qualifies
  • if you link to your own post, you can only qualify IF your article is relevant in content to mine and you explain at least in a paragraph why the link is useful
  • you can also earn the prize for linking to other useful authors on Steemit.com , that are talking about the same content, Bonus if you leave a comment at that authors article referring to mine! Explain why you are linking to this author
  • You can also earn if you RESTEEM my post, but you must explain why you resteemed it, and give a specific reason.

What will make your comment stand out to me?
A lot of constructive comments on your own comment by other people, signals it is valuable.
So even a short question can be interesting if it is relevant!

You have to engage with the ideas in the post, and constructively use them: Agree? Give me an excellent example you saw in your life. Disagree? I still want to hear from you! A good, well thought out post is actually the MOST valuable to me as long as it is constructive and respectfully done.

Examples of comments which are not eligible for the prize:

  • simple, unconsidered comments e.g. "good post" "love it", ... will be well appreciated but they don't add value so no prize
  • links without explanation will not be eligible

**I ONLY look at the merit of your comment, for simplicity's sake I will not be looking if you are a minnow, dolphin or whale.
I believe in Steemit.com but it can only work if starting members can earn money through honest and thoughtful contributions. **

You can do a similar contest! I know for a lot of people earning some SBD directly will increase their faith in the platform a lot and will help a lot to make it succeed for everyone.

I explain in this comment why I am willing to split ALL my hard earned SBD's with my commenters. In the long run it will help my profile, commenters see something in return for their efforts!
Note that this experiment is not yet the scale I wanted to, but you have to start somewhere. It is my own #minnowsupportproject !

After intervention of @sflaherty:
Heck let's try an experiment: I will also give out the SBD's I earn on this post after 7 days to commenters on this post :

Rules:
Comment has to be on this post and be about :

-how do you propose to take ACTION to encourage high quality content on STEEM
-how can you encourage quality behaviour
-are there other initiatives like this, share a link and a comment.
-creative changes to my idea, with maybe your version of the rules for comments which should be eligible for the prizes
-do you think this is a bad idea (paying for comments) please let me know why! (Might win a prize :) )
-You can post a link to one of your articles that deals with minnowsupport strategies too BUT you have to explain in your comment what it is about.

I GUARANTEE at least 1 payout of 5 SBD to the best comment on this post after 7 days.
ALL EARNED SBD's ON THIS POST WILL BE DISTRIBUTED in 5 SBD prizes to eligible commenters.

Sort:  

Interesting how you are going about making readers take the initiative of reading carefully through your writeup and remarking meaningfully. I'm a newbie, a week old with about a couple of hours everyday on Steemit, discovering and trying to be discovered. For whatever it is worth, I'm upvoting your post just because I liked your strategy and also following you for more... :) All the best!

Time to make @sflaherty do a run for the prize ;) Hey @the-traveller, I can't believe I only just saw this post now!! I love your initiative and the reasons behind it (it's true the red reply flags are pretty addictive eh?).

I'm answering this post because I just can't leave without commenting (and the price is juicy too):

(1) To encourage high quality content, I think we can and should all put comments highlighting good content (whether its written thoughts, photos, videos, creative writing, etc) and praising it, to encourage the writer in the right direction. If the content is not so good, we could try to give some advice, though at the risk of looking like a know-it-all douche ;)

Another way is to run really attractive contests with clear guidelines to be met by contestants. Immersion into the right framework > repetition from taking part multiple times > habits formed

Or to simply become a huge-ass influencer, and then create and roll out tutorials to your audience (@allasyummyfood is in the process of doing this already. Check out her first tutorial here: https://steemit.com/steemit/@allasyummyfood/2-video-tutorial-how-to-write-a-post-on-steemit)

(2) To encourage high quality behavior, I guess just reward those who are doing things write, and be careful to reward those who insist on doing things wrong ;)

(3) No changes..this is a much better screening method than 'the highest number of upvotes on comment' method..

(4) The only negative I can see is that you might get burnout, if any of your posts receives a mega-reply..lol..I don't think it's a bad idea so long as you have the energy to screen through the comments. You will get a lot more 'red reply flags' on your profile ;)

Hi @foodie.warrior strong contender!
Great points! I don't like empty praising really, if a comment is good I will tend to find some idea to engage with and make a relevant reply (sometimes gets out of hand), ... too long

As for attractive contests, I am thinking about sharing my 50 % SBD author share for a while (up until now I have guaranteed at least 5 SBD payout and if it earns over that i pay out the rest in 5 SBD increments) I should think that is juicy enough (7,5 USD real money)
I can sustain this if I just share what ever SBD the post made. I don't like winner take all situations, that is what is wrong with the whole upvoting system. I'd like to develop a system that allows people that put in honest effort also have an honest chance at a reward.

The influencer route is a nice one of course, but it helps if you already had 300.000 followers on other channels of course. That said, here on steem I suspect having around 2000 active followers might be enough to make a reasonable income. And 2000 followers right now is totally doable if you keep consistently producing .

I think I actually took 'quality content' to refer more to posts than to comments. Empty or general praising is not my cup of tea too. I meant to say that any praise should be directed and highlight an area that the author of a post did well in..In the spirit of positive reinforcement. :)

When the author sees that people appreciate how he is doing one particular aspect of his post content, he will be encouraged to incorporate more of the good 'practices' in the future.

Now for quality comments, I don't think praise of the comment works well. Then I would say, go for making a relevant point that is in direct response or somehow in line with the ideas being expressed by the one who wrote the comment. This kind of recognition allows the Commenter to enjoy the possibility that someone enjoyed and found his comment useful, which is also a form of intrinsic motivation.

I think the operative word is 'active' followers :) And yes, let's also not forget to keep on consistently producing and we'll see where we are in a couple years.

That is totally true, positive reinforcement is definitely a huge motivator!
I think the reward kind of built in when you get 2 way communication, basically people want to be heard. Listening to what they have to say and react or engage constructively with that is I think a higher form than recognition than the empty " great post" "Great comment" dynamic. Of course that is a great opener if afterwards you say WHY you think it is great, then we are talking about something entirely different.
Yes the active followers is really what makes your account valuable. The number is meaningless if you got all of them through follow exchanges e.g. !
I am convinced in 3 months both of us will have a hard time believing where we ended up! Such is exponential growth!

Just wanted to say thank you for the https://beta.chainbb.com/ link for use as a site search. Yes its what i was looking for
This post is an excellent way for people to engage with meaningful coments

I'm not sure i have any great power :) But i'm happy to upvote and resteem

Thanks again

Hehe much appreciated! Don 't underestimate your steem power and influence. It can go very far very quick! I'll be following to see how far you get in any case!

thank you

my take is that there is just a firehose of content to compete with. for me, i only have a very limited time to intake content (everyone has their own ratio of in:out) so it causes me to ignore things that take much time to extract the value from.
on the other hand, sometimes it's good to just take a deep breath and slow down and just listen to others for a while, which i do see value in.
so i made it down to the part where you start listing out rules for winning a comment prize and frankly it sounds like more work than it would be to just converse with you about interesting things. i think that some kind little value in information exchange and are only seeking straight monetary "value" and maybe they would read through the rules and try to leave a good comment in order to get some SBD, right? but i value creative ideas and actually what i see in your post is a desire to provide a creative solution to the firehose of content. i don't want to go make comments on your other posts to win a contest, but i do like your writing so i already want to read your other posts.
see what i'm saying? i think that if your writing is good and your intentions are good then you will get engagement over time, and of course you're doing a great job of trying new things to see what works!
in conclusion, i don't personally go for the contest incentive for a "good comment" but i do like your writing and i sense that you have great intentions, so i will keep following you and i do hope that you get the kinds of reactions that make you happy here :)
cheers,
josh

Hi Josh!

for the firehose problem check out https://beta.chainbb.com/
it is a different interface for Steemit.com but is on the same blockchain so posts are equally visible on both, BUT the forum style allows you to easier browse by topic! (Note that comments here help you to rise to the top, yet another reason to generate better comments!)

I totally get that being rewarded for something you would have made spontaneously can backfire.
But it is something I want to experiment with, it can be demotivating for people who put in honest effort on their posts not to see a good return on investment.

Winning a prize incentivizes (I hope) people to take their time to think it through. I think there is some tinkering to be done with the incentive structure of Steemit.com

The upvote only can be a perverse incentive for people to play a short game by piling on the posts by popular authors in the hope for curation rewards.

I think comments are seriously undervalued on steemit, and I want to see if I can generate WIN-WIN situations that help new members who don't have massive steempower yet and at the same time raise my own Steempower quickly.

I believe in Steemit.com, it has a great exponential growth curve ahead and I want to be as high up sa possible to ride that growth so I am experimenting to boost visibility and growth, giving up short term SBD gain.

By sharing ALL my SBD share, I also hope to show that I am playing a long game, it is not a speculative move to make some quick bucks.
What do you think?

Mines the best because its the first lol. Congrats buddy

hehe nice try... no dice! Or maybe... this post might earn some too so I edited the post to include this post too in the comment challenge ...

Just was fooling around my friend, lol...had to. Figured let someone beat me to it by giving an easy start to one up on lol. Got these posted for you on the pages, hope you get you some great comments going

Yup My vote also goes to @sflaherty ... Now Please give him the Prize :)
Upvoted !
SteemOn ! - @Utfull

Thanks lol. Just figured I would kick it off for you guys, sure something way better will come along...thanks for the upvote though lol

Nice initiative I appricate it .. would be a good kickstart for newbies :)
SteemOn ! - @Utfull

lol...STEEM ON my friend and nail that winning here, I am very sure you guys can beat my rough entry lol

Yes, my vote is for you, @sflaherty! :)

Really appreciate that, thank you for the vote my friend

Anytime. Cheers! :)

Great innovation for posts !
Thank you !

no problem! So far interaction is great, I hope to convince more people this way to engage at a deeper level. Throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks! I am really hoping that one takes off so I can give seriously big prizes! That should make a splash!

This idea increase the quality of the posts a LOT (and avoid spammers/useless comments)

THat is the trick, I because I do it manually, you should not be able to game the reward system this way. Few people seem to think that they have a chance though, little to no increase in comments so far... could be a visibility issue

Congrats! Followed you, I will check out your other posts

Excellent ! I'll be looking forward to your comments!

teach me your ways sensei xD

hehe come back in 6 months and I might be able to, groping around in the dark to see what works right now ;), so far noone seems to bother to put up a good comment, I am giving the money to @sflaherty if things don't improve! He set a pretty low bar to clear...

meep

hey meep, sorry will take a bit more to win it!