tl;dr - Support their advertisers!
We got a rare (and possibly only?) glimpse into the finances at Steemit, Inc with @elipowell's recent post: Steemit, Inc. Financial Update
The most important part of that post was the following:
The only real variable is the advertising revenue. In order to not programmatically sell Steem each month, we need to bring in enough ad dollars to not only cover expenses, but make enough profit to ensure future stability. Obviously the sooner this happens the better so we can slow down the programmatic selling and ultimately stop it altogether.
For those of you who may not know, Steemit, Inc funds their operations by selling an inordinate amount of STEEM on the markets every month, which is likely weighing very very heavily on the price.
If they are able to replace that source of funding with an actual revenue model, it should:
- Do wonders for the market price of STEEM (which is very important for many reasons); and
- Provide a great example of how Steem-based apps can create a profitable and sustainable business model.
Therefore, as holders of STEEM, we should all do whatever we can to help Steemit, Inc's advertising business be as successful as possible.
In traditional businesses, the owners love the advertisers, but the users typically hate them. Of course that's the case because the business owners get all of the money and the users get to be annoyed.
The whole point of the Steem platform is to turn this model on its head. Now the "business" is the Steem platform, and the users - you - are the owners. It doesn't matter that Steemit, Inc, a privately owned business, is the one actually selling the ads and receiving the money from it. All STEEM holders stand to benefit greatly from it for the reasons described above.
Since the Steem users are also the owners, it creates a very unusual situation where the users should welcome and support the advertisers instead of blocking and avoiding them.
This is like the holy grail to advertisers. If the Steem userbase can really understand how they benefit from the advertisers, and if the advertisers start to see that the Steem community LIKES them, I expect we might see a rush of advertising dollars, and REAL VALUE, into the Steem platform like we've never seen before.
What Can We Do?
It's pretty simple really - seek out the ads on steemit.com and click on them. Then to take it one step further actually look into the brand or product being advertised and maybe even buy their product if it looks interesting to you.
Even though I generally prefer to use other Steem interfaces like SteemPeak or Partiko, I make it a point to open up steemit.com on a regular basis to see who is advertising. It's even more difficult because I use the Brave browser and had to turn off the ad blocker for the site.
Why do I do this? I want to see who is spending their money to support the Steem platform! If you saw a news article saying:
"[COMPANY] invests [LOTS OF MONEY] into Steemit Inc so they can stop selling STEEM every month and improve their products and the blockchain"
You would probably be pretty stoked, and want to really support that company...at least I know I would. Well, guess what, THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT THE ADVERTISERS ON STEEMIT.COM ARE DOING!
Sorry for yelling, but it's true.
Right now I'm noticing that an "investment fund" called AMFEIX is being promoted very heavily on Steemit.com, including having the first "sponsored" post that I've seen on the platform. My guess (and it is only a guess) is that they are the primary driver behind the large increase in ad revenues shown on the graph in @elipowell's post linked above.
I wouldn't necessarily advise anyone to invest in their fund as it's very hard to tell if these things are legitimate, but you can at least click on the ad on steemit.com and check it out. If their ad campaign is a success, and it encourages them and/or other companies to put more money into the Steem ecosystem for advertising, then the benefits could be immense for the Steem platform.
It's a bit unfortunate that this particular campaign is for a very risky service that I can't really get behind and promote; however, hopefully in the future there will be many more campaigns in which that is not the case and where we can really showcase the power of the Steem community.
It's Not Only Steemit, Inc
It's important to note that this doesn't only apply to Steemit, Inc. The same thing goes for advertisers or supporters of any Steem-based app/company, be it Steemit, Splinterlands, Steempeak, Partiko, Steem Engine, PALnet, etc. At the end of the day it's all external funds coming into the Steem ecosystem. It means those apps can improve their products and services and not have to sell STEEM to pay their bills.
Steem Monsters / Splinterlands has NEVER sold so much as 1 STEEM in order to pay its bills. Now imagine if every Steem app, including Steemit, could say the same.
All of us, together, have the chance to make that a reality. There have been many articles written about how blockchain can transform the online advertising industry. Well, here it is. Right here, right now. Let's make it happen on Steem.
I have always said Steem is in a unique position to revolutionize online advertising. However, going back to the traditional ways of advertising is not the change I have in mind.
I support Steemit Inc going the advertising route to improve their financial state and become more sustainable. For this reason, most of us would absolutely agree with you and in supporting their ads. However, the truth remains that traditional ways of advertising are not the future. They are intrusive in their nature and are forced content. While it is working out as a great short term solution, it is not changing how advertising is done. I do still believe Steem is in a unique position to change advertising. Make it more welcome, interesting, and beneficial for ad consumers.
Ned had the idea and has said this a while back:
He says the following at 1:09 minutes into the video:
First, fixing Promoted feature would a good start. How often people even visit promoted? Instead of burning the funds spent on promoted content, there can be a different kind of distribution of those funds. For example, 1/3 goes to the app/front-end that is promoting, 1/3 added to the curation pool, and 1/3 burned. This will in return increase the interest of users to consume the ad content, engage with the advertiser, bring revenue for the apps, and at the same time create a flow of burning SBD.
Moreover, users can opt-in for this kind of promoted content to be pushed to their feed. Users will be happy to have ad content on their feed, instead of being forced to have it on their feed and looking for alternative solutions to escape them.
Of course, front-ends can come up with more creative ways of monetizing ads and rewarding their users too. However, blockchain based solution can create a more unified advertising system for all apps to use and Steem can increase its value by pioneering a change in online advertising.
Dear @geekgirl
Talking about advertising revenue ... I've been wondering why Steemit cares about advertisers from "outside Steemit".
What about giving some real opportunities for those on STEEM blockchain to use their tokens and promote their content. Right now I'm seeing some random adds while scrolling my feed and (correct me if I'm wrong) none of those adds has been paid to Steemit with STEEM.
What if I run some business on Steemit and I would also like to promote it. Using my STEEM. Cannot be done. That just doesn't make sense.
PALnet came up with an idea, that promoted posts are being displayed on "trending" page and are highlighted. That's already something.However much more could be done.All those STEEM tokens are being burned (not-recycled), which supports growth of token price. Why to look for ways of earning some $$$ outside Steemit.
Why would you change current burning into re-cycling those tokens? If we would re-use those tokens, then it really wouldn't help much.
Yours
Piotr
There is simply no incentive to consume promoted content. Creating incentives would drive traffic to promoted content. Win for promoters and win for consumers. As it is now, I doubt many visit promoted. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I think you're over thinking it, There is a benefit for frontent to show relevant content and nobody would provably burn token if it wasn't somewhat relevant.
Steemit Inc should (once sustainable) share a pro-rata of their advertsing revenue via upvotes to accounts and content that drives external visitors into Steem to consume content.
This is a fantastic way to attribute the true value of content.
Posted using Partiko Android
They are already sharing a pro-rata of their advertising revenue with us all by paying for and operating the api.steemit.com RPC and all the platform services that they offer for free. When you started blogging on steemit.com, did you have to pay something? No ? Neither did I. Yet offering blogging services costs money. Those were money that Steemit.com has already shared with you (and everybody else, including myself). At some point, money become scarce and now they need you (and everybody else) to reciprocate, to help a bit. Will you ?
yes all agreed BUT steeminc then still has the tokens and will finally sell them all sooner or later.. hence we need a fair sharing of the add revenues via a steem burning mechanism like this:
of every dollar steeminc gets from add revenues 25% 33% or 50% of the monetary value's steem equivalent gets burned of steeminc's steem holding...
And if your work might appeal to outside eyes, share your work around so others can come here and be exposed to the ads (and STEEM) as well.
There! I did my good deed for the day!
I'll start going back into steemit to check it out. I'm not a big fan of clicking ads because unless they are targeted towards my interests because it doesn't help the advertiser and it will dilute the value of advertising on steemit for them, but if I see stuff I want to learn more about I will definitely take a look. Unfortunately in this day and age most consumers are "banner blind" so it would behoove steemit to seek out advertisers that would really resonate with steemians. Advertisers will pay a lot for super targeted personas.
There's a lot of opportunity to use the new sponsored posts as a way to get around ad blockers and "banner blindness", but it needs to be done properly which I don't feel the first one was. I discussed that with @elipowell as she notes here: https://steemit.com/steem/@elipowell/marketing-advertising-and-newsteem-oh-my so hopefully it will get better in the future.
I finally feel like there are some exciting times ahead for sure. I'm glad i spent he bear market toiling away in the steem mines lol. I wish I had time to gather more
With between 10 -20 thousand active users here (probably diminishing) the math presented don't add up to a long term advertising reality, not as far as I can see...
https://www.quora.com/How-much-do-companies-pay-to-post-an-ad-in-a-popular-website
You would be surprised what type of deals a good ad sales team can get, and, like i talk about in the post, if the Steem community can show significantly better than average results for the advertisers then they can charge even more. I think $100k / month should be doable and that will be a huge win for Steem.
It's something I have zero experience in tbh, just looking at initial numbers.
Advertizers won't endure, surely - not if they see user number not growing, or even reducing?
I see no growth of users - even before the hardfork kicks in. I do see many people leaving though post hf.
I just don't see the numbers supporting the revenue income shown in the graph.
Like i say, I don't know jack shit about it.
(Maybe @whatsup might be able to help in knowing how the numbers stack up...?)
i think many users come from google and co and there dont have a steem account. So there search for something and come here
I actually went ahead and tossed some change at amfiex after clicking thru to support ad revenue. Could be a good thing for my specific situation. In general I’m all for checking out the Steemit advertisers to get the company shored up without constantly creating downward price pressure.
Posted using Partiko iOS
Good on you!
And this is what I will do
Posted using Partiko Android
I think they need to do somethinf to integrate with the Brave Browser and its token to let users tip on Steem and Steemit as well. I would not mind given mined BAT to Steemit every month to help pay the bills and other users as well!
Posted using Partiko iOS
We integrated with them a while back... took some effort but wasn't too hard.
What we really need is to advertise the Steem blockchain OUTSIDE the Steem blockchain. Big-ass billboards that say "BRO YOU CAN GET PAID BY SOCIAL MEDIA AND SO MUCH MORE"... If we get zero adoption it doesn't even matter what steemit inc does. If we fall off the top 100 of coinmarketcap, the steem price is gonna go all the way down the shitter and no amount of internal steemit ad revenue will repair that or this blockchain's reputation...
Dear @yabapmatt
Talking about advertising revenue ... I've been wondering why Steemit cares about advertisers from "outside Steemit".
What about giving some real opportunities for those on STEEM blockchain to use their tokens and promote their content. Right now I'm seeing some random adds while scrolling my feed and (correct me if I'm wrong) none of those adds has been paid to Steemit with STEEM.
What if I run some business on Steemit and I would also like to promote it. Using my STEEM. Cannot be done. That just doesn't make sense.
PALnet came up with an idea, that promoted posts are being displayed on "trending" page and are highlighted. That's already something.However much more could be done.All those STEEM tokens are being burned (not-recycled), which supports growth of token price. Why to look for ways of earning some $$$ outside Steemit.
And again. I could easily encourage few business owners to create account here and promote their content directly on Steemit (steem would be burned/send to null each time). But there is no way to achieve that :(
Yours
Piotr
Great circle jerk post. What makes you think STINC can manage the funds if they have them? They have proven themselves incompetent many times over.
How much do you think they pay the people working there? If they generate more revenue what makes you think they won't just pay themselves more? They probably pay these non technical people $200,000 / year or something egregious.
I have a better idea. Let STEEM continue the death spiral it is in.
At this point we really can't fork STINC out of the equation so we have to watch the implosion from a distance for financial safety.
Posted using Partiko Android
Steem-engine makes forking out stinc a real possibility, once they are ready to spin up their own consensus witnesses.
The rose colored stinc glasses are getting handed out to fewer and fewer newbs.
The old users have turned on stinc in increasing numbers.
I think steem will be fine once they shame/downvote the abusers from the pool.
That may take a couple years as they gave themselves enormous sums of stake in the ninjamine, but the trend has already begun.
Feel free to join the #newsteem whenever you wish :)
Brian is not a bad dude, but he's gotten salty over the years. If he really didn't care, he would have left long ago. :)
If someone runs contests or bounties to pick the best ads or spotlight the companies, maybe people will do it.
For the love of god don't click on ads if you are not interested in what's inside. This is the best way to get steemit inc banned from all the ad networks.
I’ve been thinking about this and I’ve wondered if they shouldn’t investigate making an AdWords-like auction market for displaying ads on specific tags. Ah, fuck
it... you and @aggroed should just do that. You’ll probably have it done in a month!
Posted using Partiko iOS
@yabapmatt, you are the most admired steemian and your contributions to steem ecosystem are enormous. You have perfect sense of economics. Earning money and not letting it go in weak hands is important for the benefit even for weak hands in the long run.
Your suggestion to support advertisers on steemit is excellent. Much appreciated.
Like it!
Amazing
Most cryptos are speculative. People buy them in hope to sell it at higher price. In case of Steem, they can earn more Steem or attract influence for their contents. It is a good selling point. Now why not STINC or big holders can have a ninja marketing strategy to increase the demand for Steem. It seems advertising work and bring investors. Why not STINC is using a page from their own. Steem needs ninja-marketing to improve demand since it has not only higher inflation but also selling pressure from STINC itself. The other solution is reduce 6% inflation to reward content creators and put it the hands of DApps. @palnet, @steemleo, @steemhunt and others are showing, it is quite possible.
When the red line goes up to $200000.00 ,will they actually stop selling their steem? Or will they make air drops their steem to all steemians?
Posted using Partiko Android
there will airdrop all there steem
Ok, let's wish steem to there.
Posted using Partiko Android
Hello @yabapmatt ... I’m having some trouble with the Steembottracker website... when I click ‘Check & Submit’ nothing is happening.
Have tried it for the past few days in different browsers etc.
I’ve been using the bidbots for a while now so is a bit out of the ordinary.
Thank you,
Emma
Posted using Partiko iOS
Everyday I must use steemit.com without any adblocker. #done
Posted using Partiko Android
One click on add - one small upvote from steemit account and the same amount of steem burned would do miracles.
But guess what?
It's not gonna happen.
Yes, I supported Steemit in my own little way. I didn't block steemit ads using even I used Brave browser. It a least I can do that makes the different, hope everyone do the same too.
There has always been one thing I ask myself, if STINC is selling their Steem someone must definitely be buying it or else STINC would have no income (at least before ads). Why would this transaction have a negative impact on the price?
Because if they are not selling, the guy who usually buys from them still buys steem and it goes up :)
Posted using Partiko iOS
Thanks for bringing this up. I just turned off my AdBlock for Steemit by adding the following filter: @@@https://steemit.com$document
I'll start clicking ads that somewhat interest me.
It makes sense to do that. Click on the ads that interest you or at least click on it
We are all in this together. When Steem Inc does well then the platform does well.
I have been clicking ads for months every day. It has become a habit like brushing my teeth. I bought a product and almost invested in the fund.
Posted using Partiko iOS
Let me ask you a question...
What was the original reason why the internet exploded back in the day?
And I am trying to begin a discussion with my question.
Posted using Partiko Android
I'm not saying that we need it here, but ..
For example, what makes Instagram blow up almost every time?
Posted using Partiko Android
But I also have a question that's been itching me since I got here.
This post says that companies can advertise here.
I want to advertise here, and start a company of my own, but it's not clear to me that how it is done.
Posted using Partiko Android
Calling for people to artificially boost click rates can get your Google ad account shut down. I wouldn't make a habit of calling for this.
Posted using Partiko iOS
A lot of assumptions that kinda sound good... but this one you lost me on. Because in the end it was just... well I don't get it.
You're basically saying poor little steemit inc they're so bad at running a business and designing an interface LET'S ALL GIVE THEM SOME PITY CLICKS.
They're not the best way to experience steem not even 2nd or 3rd best. But they've made a pretty dang good Blockchain over the years. Their interface is something you guys are all used to so you don't see it... but it is a very negative experience for new users. Please don't send them there. Try to remember a long time ago when you started this steem experience and how confusing it was to you. Maybe you don't remember anymore.
A/B test this thing send some of your friends to steemit.com (probably the friends you don't like) and then send your friends to another interface and see which one is less confused about life afterwards. Do some science instead of this semi-emotional plea that is basically telling "while i use steempeak because it's better the rest of you should go to steemit.com and click on some ads so that they stop powering down and hurting the price of my 100k+ steem... thanks guys" See how disingenuous that sounds. And you're usually the voice of reason. Hmmm
This ecosystem will grow if the price of steem grows, I understand that. However we should work to free ourselves from this. Make cool stuff that is independent from the grasp of the price of steem. It's possible. No programmer right now should be doing a project that has dependencies on the price of steem. Meaning they shouldn't be counting on rewards pool for money and they shouldn't be doing a project that counts on promoting steem to their users as a way to get money.
Her'es my plea don't tell new users that they're here to make tons of money. We should be marketing the other awesome things steem provides that they can't find elsewhere.
Really I don't get why you wrote this post. It's basically "Matt's Charity plea to help Steemit INC"
If we're being honest Steemit has actually started to turn things around all by their lonesome, at least in certain areas.
And maybe it was the ass-kicking they have been getting by upset users or the total thrashing by all the interfaces that are MILES better than their still very very sad interface. They aren't good at user experience. They have more full time employees than almost all the other steem projects put together.
Maybe you had some other points that were nice but overall i'm a hard pass on this post. There are just as many reasons to tell people to NOT use steemit.com as you think there are to tell them to go there.
I'm not sure what's disingenuous about it. Yes, of course I want to do whatever I can to help the value of STEEM since I'm a large holder of it. I expect that most people here, including yourself, would want to do the same.
I'm not in any way defending or promoting steemit inc or steemit.com...i have just as bad things to say about them as anyone else. But the reality is that Steem's fate is tied with Steemit's. They are dumping tons of STEEM on the market every month because of how poorly they ran the business in the past. It sucks but if we want Steem to have a chance we need to help Steemit be successful - both the company and the website which is still the most popular and well known app on the platform. Synonymous with the blockchain itself in most people's minds.
I would love to be able to say "screw steemit, we don't need them and let's let them fail", but the reality is that that will likely just be shooting ourselves in the foot. So, if it wasn't clear in the post - I have a lot of STEEM and I want the price to go up. I assume most here want the same. Like it or not, helping Steemit be successful is one of the best chances we have to make that happen.
Other ways to try to make that happen are to bring more people to the platform and build more things on the platform. I'm trying my best to do that as well.
Shouldn't they be dumping significantly less with all of the cost savings they've been raving about for a while now?
Thanks for the advice, I went off my adblock on steemit.
#spt #palnet #sct #battle #jjj #aaa #actnearn #dtc #weedcash #zzan #sportstalk #steemleo
Great article, i did not know this part of the steem ecosystem, thanks for the info, cheers!
hi how does the token on steem engine SMTT work?
Hi @yabapmatt!
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Wrote this exact post 2 months ago.
Growing the communities in all directions eheheh they need that ads revenue ehehe
Please, please do not do this.
It's against Google's terms and conditions and they will ban Steemit's account.
Here is an article from someone this happened to:
https://www.nichepursuits.com/adsense-banned/
In case you think you are the first person to think of this clicking scheme, don't. People have been trying this since Adsense launced in 2005, and Google detects and clobbers them every single time. They can tell where the clicker comes from (has the sequence of loginpage-> article->click. Or if it has the sequence of google search result -> article ->click. They can tell if certain users are excessively clicking from one source of publishers. (remember they track people across the web).
If you really want to help, you need to encourage people to write about stuff that ordinary people will read that will get ranked in the search engines and traffic from the search engines, not endless stuff about cryotocurrency and hardforks.
Congratulations @yabapmatt!
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following category:
Hmmm... Interesting idea. I mainly use #esteem but I'll take some time to check Steemit from now on. Not that I like ads but at least they're better than dragging STEEM price down.
@yabapmatt, As a Community we should contribute towards it and end of the day it will boost Steem Ecosystem only. I will do my part daily. Stay blessed brother and enjoy your time ahead.
Posted using Partiko Android
Some time back you wrote a post about advertisement on steem and your thoughts on that. I believe my immediate response back then was sure, and if anyone is not interested, then simply turn on ad blocker.
Being provided more information about the finances of Steemit Inc. and their source of revenue does provide additional insight in how we could contribute to the growth of the steem economy. I'm just like everyone else who find ads annoying, but if it helps to grow and promote this economy (sigh), I will be more diligent in clicking on the advertisements when I'm steemit.
Of course, if SM/Splinterlands have advertisements, then I will happily click on them for the growth of the game. ;)
Great article Matt. Nothing makes more sense than to support legitimate business here on the Steem Blockchain.
If we want this place to thrive and STEEM to appreciate, supporting real companies and investors that find us should be a high priority.
Creating a business friendly environment on steemit is a major component in building a robust ecosystem to benefit all stakeholders and in everyone’s best interest.
You know what? I'll deactivate my AdBlocker for Steemit.
I know, alone I can't make any difference, but if everyone would do that, it could help Stinc and thus us pretty much!
I'm against your point. Steemit had raised so many money, and after so long, they did little thing. We devote ourselves into cryptocurrency because we like freedom, so why should we support steemit? Will they burn the steems they got during initial period? They've proved they are bad in leading steem community, and we should turn it into DAO as what HF21 planned to do, vote people who contribute much to steem. I.E. You like steempeak, vote them as the witness. As Aggroed said: Let weak hands sell, and strong hands take over. And the strong hands shall do what is good for steem.
Please read @crypto.piotr's comment. He got the point. That what steem designed to be. Outside advertisement shouldn't be the mainstream.
Do you have a discord because I need help running postpromoter
Hey, @yabapmatt I'm writing about the bot @edensgarden. Could you remove it from the voting site? Is a Scam bot. Not money refunds for a month. 3 times I lost there.