I am working on formulating my ideas and thoughts on how best to market.. but being a decentralized community makes cohesive marketing even tricky.
I guess my ideal situation would be a marketing push for the base layer - Hive, then all the things built on top of it would have their own marketing and direction. But first we have to actually even let people know it exists.
I think sign ups definitely need to be simplified, depending on the target audience. I've always been a fan of social accounts which let people sign up easily with FB or email and just explore, comment and "react" to posts. Then they could upgrade to a "wallet" account if desired. I'm working on this idea with a few others for a project that will be focused on content discovery and hope to solve some of this in our own way at least.. but I think many others will have their own solutions too.
Funnily enough, I was thinking about how to visualise my thoughts last night on the different facets of the chain and the best I could come up with was a series of concentric circles starting with a core.
I agree that the core blockchain/technology driving it (I guess that's your code and "base layer" you mentioned) should have its own marketing but who's the target market for that? Software developers? App builders? Game developers? Tech firms? What's the message? Why build on Hive? (Kinda lumping the Software, computer companies in one here - call it Level 1).
Sounds like we agree with the "Level 2" (second concentric circle around the core) approach as well - this is what will be built on TOP of Level one code so things like your dapps. In my view, the dApp owners/creators should have their own strategy towards marketing and onboarding users as they are the ones who have built the dApp with specific end users in mind and makes targeting a bit easier I'd imagine (E.G. Peakd for bloggers, 3speak for video creators etc.).
Now that's a good idea and giving newcomers a familiarity of signing up in a "try before you buy" fashion. The "gap/difference" between what users are used to on FB/Twitter vs starting on Hive is a chasm bigger than the Grand Canyon and we need to bear that in mind, not falling victim to the "Curse of Knowledge"!
If the first stages (1-3 months) of joining Hive are familiar with content discovery, usability and interaction... that would be huge! I guess a new user having this type of account (call it "Discovery" account) which uses familiar email signup, can then open up an option (which can be greyed out for the first 1-3 months to entice them in and induce curiosity) where they upgrade to full wallet features (called "Discovery Pro" for example - I'm just giving it a namesake).
Then, when Discovery Pro opens up, they can claim the rewards they have earned in that 1-3 months and have full functionality...
(Note: 1-3 months is just an arbitrary amount of time, can be any length of time really!)
Concentric circle/level 3 - Users (creators, curators) interacting and engaging on the various dapps, having fun and inviting their friends!
Sorry, got excited about this cool shit and went on a brainstorm haha.