Facebook has treated marketers well for the past years and made it very easy to target users with ads and gain a lot of data on profiles as well. Facebook has certainly found a way to make a lot of money and in the early stages of social media development we all expected Facebook to become very influential, which it has.
Unfortunately, people are now more and more turning away from their busy newsfeed filled with irrelevant content and ads. Users are still loyal but the engagement has gone down and most people interested in real news and stories start looking elsewhere. Suddenly platfroms like Reddit and Medium started to show up and try to fill the gap of delivering a community, which lives from the content that is generated by users. No doubt that this hasn’t worked but it’s still not the platform most people are looking for because it is so different to Facebook.
Because Steemit has the great community approach and recognizes people for their great content, it has the potential to much more than all other platforms. Being in the content industry for a while now, I saw a lot of new apps, tool and sites pup up and shut down after a couple of months. Generating a user base and awareness for a new social network isn’t that easy because so many new apps are constantly popping up and are taking users away from traditional formats.
Will Facebook still be around in a couple years?
Facebook does have a right to still be there in the upcoming years and it’s unlike Twitter, always developing new features and going with trends. Mark Zuckerberg is a smart man and has made some really smart acquisitions recently but he still can’t get the content flowing on his site. People are posting pictures, videos and chat with each other but nobody is starting to use the content features given to them. It just doesn’t seem to be the right place.
Why? Facebook is so valuable to a lot of users because you can connect with friends and family and stay updated on what’s going on in their life. It’s very much around personal stories and sharing moments with your friends. It’s not about creating content to share with your inner circle because with that you want to reach a bigger audience. You want to expand your horizon and see what else is out there. What are other people writing about? What are they experiencing?
Our mind has shifted to a global mindset and Facebook doesn’t provide the connectivity to a broader community.
In my opinion, Steemit is on the right track to bulid something valuable for a lot of people. People across the world can now share their stories and feel appreciated by it because they receive the recognition at the same time. Writers and readers can now connect and explore more content from around the world. But, Steemit is still lacking some core features to get to the next level.
Here are some features where Facebook is certainly lacking and Steemit could easily pick up on.
1. An easy to process reward system/wallet
Since Steemit is such a new and innovative system a lot of newbies aren’t aware of how the system works and probably have no idea what the blockchain has to do with all this. A lot of technical people were the first to join the community and controlled a lot of the content that was shared on here. They still do because it’s only natural that these people are the early adaptors. The wallet and reward system is not easily explain to outsiders who are not familiar with bitcoin and have never traded before. If Steemit really wants to become a bog player in the social media industries, managing the payouts in an easy way is crucial for long term success. Otherwise people won’t trust the platform and it’s success. I can’t highlight it enough that a social network needs to appeal to a lot of people to grow accordingly and therefore needs to be understood by someone in 1 sentence. Creating content around the functionalities and the system itself needs to be part of Steemit’s marketing and should be used for PR.
2. In app content and search
Facebook has already released an in-app content feature called Instant articles. So far only selected publishes can use this feature. Steemit has opened up blogging for everybody and is one step ahead of Facebook. However, the content is a focus on Steemit and one will need to find a way to better search through recent posts and follow certain categories. Not everybody has the same interests and by setting filters and using a nice UX design, it will be much easier to consume the amount of content that is being published. Similar to Twitter tools that split up the amount of content in streams, the team will have to find a good way to display the content on desktop and mobile.
3. More reach through organic traffic
Steemit has done something right in terms of SEO because it allows all blog post to be indexed by Google. Unlike on LinkedIn and Facebook, all content can start to rank in organic search results and that will automatically bring more users on to the page. There is still some overall Seo infrastructure needed to set up a good sitemap but the overall strategy will help steemit along the way.
4. More options to discover content
Facebook doesn’t really want you to discover content across the world very easily because it bases it’s algorithm on your connections. You will only ever see content that has been shared or read by friends of yours. This really limits the ability to discover more content.
Reddit and Medium have purely focused on giving people the opportunity to post content for everybody to see but both platforms still haven’t 100% figured out how to make this easier to discover. Reddit’s UI is terrible when it comes to reading through articles and just exploring new posts. In nowadays environment UX design can’t be underestimated because people won’t stay long enough on your site if you don’t invest into it. The early adapters won’t care too much about design but if you want to reach a broader audience the design needs to appeal to everybody.
5. Do not just hang out with your friends
Steemit has been able to grow a great community but it’s still missing some core features like nice profiles and easy ways to communicate with people. There are no obvious notifications when somebody mentions you and you can’t easily access the list of people you follow or filter content with that. I think it’s wise to take inspirations both from Twitter and Facebook on this but really focus on the content aspect since this is what makes steemit so special. Steemit should focus on creating professional profiles to discover content and encourage following others
6. Reward good writers and thought leaders
It’s more than a revolution that Steemit is able to reward writers for their content and I believe that this concept will go a long way. Writers never had the chance to present themselves and get rated and actually receive something in the end. This will make the platform very attractive for great writers and storytellers. It’s only fair that people are now being paid for the work they’re actually putting into the content. With the new reputation system Steemit just put in place we can see that the platform is already moving into the direction of rewarding people who submit good quality content on a regular basis. There is much more room for features like these to create a great list of though leaders for different sections/topics.
7. No user tailored and filtered content
Facebook uses a lot of algorithms to determine if you will like certain posts or not. They will study you behavior and only deliver you similar content every day. That gets very boring once you figured the system out. There won’t be anything new in your newsfeed and you will start to see the same content from the same people. It’s important for Steemit to stay away from too much personalization because users should decide themselves what content they want to interact with. The big advantage of Steemit is that it doesn’t restrict you from reading any content and doesn’t add any personalization. It’s what makes the community so special and I hope this won’t change.
Facebook is also highly dominated by big publishers who pay a lot of money to get a high reach on Facebook and publish their posts. For that reason, Facebook feels way more filtered and regulated. Not everybody sees the same information and can explore content from different sources within the app. Facebook is somehow self contained and doesn’t really want a user to leave the site. This all makes sense but it doesn’t allow for much media consumption across the world.
Because the Facebook algorithm is very smart and only shows content “relevant” to your location and language, it will never be able to offer you content that will broaden your content horizon.
Steemit doesn’t use an algorithm for a users profile and will hopefully never do because people like the autonomy to choose what content they want to consume. It has become very important to build a social network that allows for that movement of non regulated content consumption.
As you can see there are a lot of features Steemit can benefit from and leverage against the older social networks. Staying unique and not doing what everybody else is doing will be the key to success for Steemit.
Yes, they can but steemit must be versatile to reach the goal soon.
Wonderful marketing and visibility insights. I always enjoy reading your posts!
Me too! They're always insightful!
Did you see her latest about writing tips? It's excellent! I actually happen to follow some of them. I just thought to mention it in case you've missed it. Well, worth a read!
Oh, and great post once again @inboundinken! :)
Thanks @the-alien! Appreciate the nice comment :)
👍amazing post @inboundinken , steemit will be biggest in the world, Steemit will be the best of social media in the future
I think it would be cool Steemit Vs Blogger :)
But this is a post that is creative, a good job for you @inboundinken
@tralawar Made a rant about InstaSteem I enjoyed. https://steemit.com/business/@tralawar/instasteem-classical-conditioning-for-social-media-it-s-not-about-the-money-anymore
It was amusing. Very Idealistic, not sure it was for business, but it was well done. Thanks for sharing.
i do agree
because your coment simpely
Thanks @donkeypong! Appreciate the nice feedback :)
The job is done here @inboundinken and it is a great article, but im pretty sure that such thing as "steemit - facebook compete" is possible for a very short frame of time, because facebook does not allows their users to monetize their content so well- and we have it over here. Steemit getting bigger than facebook is just a matter of time ( if nothing unexpected is going to happen ) and thus it will win with other social-media giants.
But it is only my opinion :) feel free to argue with it haha ;)
To answer your question, yes it can become a big player in social media, but it still has a lot of growing up to do. Can it beat Facebook? Honestly, I doubt it, because they have such a big amount of money that they could buy SteemIt if they would feel threatened...
As for your 7 points, number 3 is an interesting insight that I have not noticed yet. Have you seen SteemIt posts starting to rank for any keywords? If yes, that would be quite an advantage for sure.
Agree to your point that it still has a lot of growing to do but these days social networks can grow super quickly. (e.g. Snapchat) Viral trends can't be underestimated nowadays. :)
True and with Steemit breaking the top 20,000 sites on Alexa tomorrow probably I can see your point. I am an avid Reddit user and hope that Steem will someday be as popular as reddit and that I can also earn some money from posting good content here then on reddit :)
What do you mean by "Facebook could buy Steem if they would feel threatened" ?
Steem is a decentralised platform based on blockchain technology. How do you buy it ? Who is the person to look for to buy Steem ? There is no buying Steem.
I'm quite sure Facebook is already well aware of Steem. They have people doing only that (looking for treatening new disruptive social platforms). They are probably freaking out as they learn how it's built and they are incapable of stopping or buying it.
You would buy steemit by literally buying steem off the marketplace. They could literally appoint a single FB employee to be a giant whale and be a pain in the ass to the content here. The reputation system could do nothing to that as transferring steam to a new account is a piece of cake.
Facebook is not freaking out about steemit. They dgaf.
To become a big whale, they would start of buying the whole existing market. Once done they are still not a gigantic whale and the price has reach 10 or 20$ / steem. Then, it starts to be much more expensive to be a gigantic whale, if they persist, steems would rise to 50 to 100$. Once there, even Facebook couldn't buy much more to become this bad actor gigantic whale.
Even if they could buy that much steem, it would bring so much value to the market cap that there attempt to destroy the platform would have the opposit effect and propulse it to the moon.
I think we call it checkmate !
I don't know if they are worried about Steem but they should !
honesty I don't think facebook would buy steemit plus steemit owns there own cryptocurrency I don't think the founders are just gonna give steemit to facebook that easy I personally think steemit is gonna be bigger than facebook only if they upgrade the website design to something more modern looking .
I am not seeing facebook as that much of a competitor. Lots of people on FB worry about privacy, how are they going to feel on a blockchain where every post is available?
Know yourself, know your rival, I have my sights set on Reddit
I'm on the same bandwagon. The real competitor in my eye are Wordpress/Blogger/Medium.
True for a lot of reasons but I think the strategies can be compared to any competitor and are important for Steemit's growth phase. Innovation and development are key in the first few months and will determine the success of the platform.
I see where you're coming from but all networks are competing with each other. There is only so much time you have on a given day to spend online and in the end you compete against the big players when it comes to generating more users. Reddit's strategy obviously compares better with Steemit but you consume content on all of the networks. It's all about the content itself.
Anyone worried about privacy should not be on Facebook, period. Better here where there is no illusion of privacy. Everything posted on Facebook is up for sale to the highest bidder.
In my point of view there in no competition between facebook and steemit. steemit benefit its user, while on the other hand facebook is for people who want to waste their time.
Good post!!!
More serious analyses here:
Beyond the STEEM Whitepaper – 1. Blogging and Curation Rewards Fund; Steem Backed Dollars Creation
Beyond the STEEM Whitepaper –2. Where the money come from; New Users DO NOT Increase the Value of Steem (yet)
Beyond Trading – The Medium Term Fundamentals. 1. – 7.29.2016
Solution to the Curation Rewards
Fact of the Day! “93.44% of ALL (Liquid) STEEM comes from…”
This is a very good blog post. I don't usually gush but this is exceptionally astute.
Yeah, finally a good advice going through to the frontgpage!
Great job
Regarding Steemit vs Facebook ;) : https://steemit.com/steem/@engineercampus/mark-zuckerberg-just-learned-of-steemit
Don't think Facebook stand on the top for long. Steemit is taking over once we have more functions and features rounding out.
nice post @inboundinken
Fabulous post! Steemit is awesome, and for sure has the potential to overtake Facebook, reddit, etc., and become the dominant platform that people use to share and consume content. You are absolutely right though that there are steps that the site needs to take before it can truly go mainstream. I know the development team is hard at work making improvements. Hopefully this post will help give them inspiration on what directions to take.
I especially want to highlight your first point though about the payment/wallet system. I think this is absolutely crucial for the site to take off to the point that there are millions of users. The average person needs to be able to understand and use the site without feeling overwhelmed, confused, or cheated by the way the payment system works. I know that is what they were going for by the way Steemit was designed, but I think there are still some more tweaks it needs to make before it is totally there.
good post @inboundinken
I feel that social networks like Facebook, Twitter & Reddit are very old today
Great insights, in my opinion steem will continue to go from strength to strength; the concept of the platform is extraordinary and the reality is even better!! Thank you for sharing!!
I think that Steemit is in line to become the next big player in social media.
We do have to keep in mind that the platform is still in beta, and I'm sure that we will be seeing new updates soon enough. We've already seen updates to the way tags are displayed, and also moderation of the bots that we're spamming and sometimes even down voting posts.
Could Steemit compete and win against Facebook as a social media platform? I think it is too early to make a guess or a prediction, but i'm excited to see what the future of Steemit will be.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us @inboundinken!
The problem with Steemit is not the platform itself but the idea behing the blockchain. Not many people are into it so far and scandals like MtGox, The Dao Hacker and recentely the Bitfinex hack don't trust the whole idea. They see it pointless.
It's ironic really. Blockchain technologies that are so obsessed with privacy and safety appear to be more vulnerable than tradtional technologies.
5 How to keep your body to stay healthy
https://steemit.com/life/@germa66/5-how-to-keep-your-body-to-stay-healthy
To compete with any of the Internet giants including The Blue One, Steem needs to break the bounds of a single site, to take off and take over! It needs to expand, freely and naturally.
Here is all the details.
Steemit reminds me of the old myspace where there were not too too many people there. I am getting the old myspace nostalgia feeling just being on here. The world needs something new. May steemit prevail!!
That feels ages ago... I have the feeling this nostalgia won't last long with the current growth :)
Enjoying it while it lasts!
It's apples and oranges. I found Steemit a few weeks ago and i wish i were a blogger! But I'm not. What i am though is a reader. And this fostering of quality content is where Steemit is Beautiful and Peerless!
Steemit can certainly become important. But don't underestimate Facebook. I don't think it is difficult for Facebook to make its own cryptocurrency and start rewarding people for creating content. If they have to do this, they can it very fast I think. What is important for Steemit is to make sure it finds a way to set itself apart from other social media platforms by giving some real value that can not be find on other platforms.
The one big difference which will make people come to Steemit is that the interactions are more positive and collaborative. People on Steemit have conversations, whereas Facebook friends just get into flame wars.
Absolutely sure Steemit can beat Facebook if Facebook does not implement a convenient system of payment for posts. Once the interface Steemit will be more user-friendly and functional, Facebook will quickly lose its positions. After all, Steemit is a new idea, a social network of new generation. Similar to how Facebook (and other social networks) pushed out of the market instant messengers Steemit displace the "first generation" social networks.
Update: Wanted to leave a more detailed comment, but it turned out a whole post :)
https://steemit.com/steemit/@omfedor/why-facebook-will-lose-in-the-fight-with-steemit-4-good-reasons
I guess now tsu is shutting down steemit will be the go to place ...
Thank you for your information :D !!!!
I enjoy sharing my recipes and certainly the rewarding system from Steemit is a good idea. If I wanted to share my recipes with a greater audience using FB, it would not only not provide a reward system but it would ask for my money for reaching my audience.
The big advantage that Facebook has at this time, is it's ability to give private groups to those with low funds. People want to say to a group of similar minded friends things they may not want to say to all of Facebook in-particular Family. I did post on this, and I think I will post more. I want to start providing a solution now.
I absolutely believe Steemit can become the next big player. In fact, I believe Steemit can eclipse its predecessors. Steemit's advantage over other social media platforms is that it is not influenced by advertising dollars.
Take look at the post I wrote yesterday about this:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@melek/open-discourse-and-how-steemit-is-qualitatively-different-from-every-intellectual-society-that-proceeded-it
I would love to hear your thoughts.
I think this would be one way to further distance steemit from Facebook Take a look at this proposal if you have the time Decentralized Steemit Marketplace without shareholders, greed can be kept at bay for the good of everyone. Buyers sellers etc. I so would love this product to gain wings as I have been formulating it for the better part of a week.
Steemit has huge potential and it's already showing it in a such early stage.
I believe steemit already is the next big player in social media.....that is obvious by the growth.
Facebook won't be going anywhere though, because of what you said about it being a great way to connect with family and friends. I for one was able to track down my sister - after many years of having no way to reach each other, locate and adopt both of my dogs, and reconnect with a close friend after moving out of state, ALL because of Facebook. And I know that there are countless stories out there just like mine. So I for one, don't want to see Facebook go away.
I never saw steemit and Facebook in competition with each other anyway.
Facebook is more for entertainment, steemit challenges people to contribute quality material, which in turn can educate, inform, and empower the community.
EUREKA! I just gave MYSELF a great idea for my next blog!
Thanks @inboundinken
Nice post, good analysis and valid points. I agree with you, Steemit should try to take advantage of those "vacuums" in Facebook's structure and build his force on them.
Some are already there (the wallet, for example), some would benefit Steemit A LOT (the rewards for quality content, above all).
Hopefully the big ones listen to you on this, @inboundinken :)
See you around,
sharingtheworld
Another excellent post. This brings up the question of decentralized and whether it truly makes a difference in the case of steemit.
For a hypothetical example: If Facebook found steemit a threat, they could offer @ned and @dan boatloads of money to be allowed to influence the development. Assuming they refused, could Facebook create an account and become the largest whale/whales in the ocean? If so, what power would that give them over the direction of steemit?
Awesome post!
But I do worry because I keep asking the question does Steemit want to be known as just a "blogging site" because people post more than just blogs on Facebook.. Here is something I wrote talking about the concerns..
Does Steemit want to be known as JUST a blogging site?
Steemit is not really like Reddit, because it has value to the entire world! Reddit is all about blogging and karma points which is the same as Steem Power, but that is about all that they have in common..
Steemit really can change the world!
Anyone at home with a computer and internet access can make money at any moment.. now yes there is a delay (24 hours now and 12 hours after the hardfork) but for the simple fact that you do not have to apply or be put on a schedule makes the possibilities endless!
Is blogging the ONLY content Steemit wants users to focus on posting?
Because it does not seem like a whole lot of non-blogging or crypto posts are earning anything..
I think Steemit should want to motivate people to post other content besides JUST blogging posts.
If we are going to be "THE NEXT BIG THING" we have to realize that a lot of people live in a snapchat 10 second video world, and it's possible that the potentially millions/billions of users we want coming to the site.. Might want to see non-blog material being awarded also to motivate them to stay :/
Nice article! Thanks for that! :)
I have few ideas about developing Steemit:
-Voting system much be simplified that anyone can understand how it works. I don't think that it should matter when you vote the post. I think your votes should be always same value no matter when you vote the post.
-Steemit should do something to bots. As we have seen that @anyx has shown what bots can do. He hasa 150 bots which he can upvotes his(someone else) posts or and that way to get his posts on the active/hot/trending pages. I don't have a solution for this but maybe you do.
-Steemit should add back feature of deleting and editing your own posts after 24 hours.
-I believe Steemit will become the next big player in the social media world if the community and developers work together! :)
When I started steemit I went reading a lot of posts on how to convert the earnings we have in our post even if I dont the earnings. I wanted to make sure that I really know to process it. Im glad that after few days of asking I found out the complete process of getting the earning to real cash. By the way Im from the philippines and this kind of approach is not that known to many filipinos except of course to those who engage in online activity but not all of them. But even so, still it makes no difference because I still dont have the earnings like others do huhuhu
nice post..
Decentralized social media is what the people wanted in the first place so it will naturally take over soon enough.
and nothing you with such a dull interface to compete with Facebook. make the branch with a check for copyright works, at least
very awkward to post materials
fuss with stupid links
no DragandDrop
wow,so mach money,哇哦，好多钱，我发的文章啥时能赚这么多钱就好了。
i think steem will be a quality player.
Nice article, although I find the comparison improper. Facebook and Steemit from what I understand have a very different approach to content creation. Facebook, except for some countries, is mainly dedicated to content creation from a connected group of people to itself.
The communities on FB exist before the content and the latter is consequent to it.
On steemit the communities rise around content, approach more similar to Reddit Inwould say.
In general I think block chain based platforms like Steemit will open so many new frontiers, like the WWW did, that current players, big or small, will simply have to reinvest their capitals in the new business models that are rising or fold.
You rightfully sad that Steemit is filling just another Gap in the Market.
People are talking about, how Steemit will beat Facebook... which
wouldn´t be the case.
Steemit is not competing with Facebook and never will.
The Nature of Steemit is just totally different, compared to Facebook.
Steemit might become a big player - if it pimps its practicaliy; but it will never compete with Facebook.
I quit and deleted my Facebook account. Guess that gives an idea where Facebook will be in a few years. To me Steemit is the perfect place. Educated people who try to deliver the best content and achy ally think before they write :)
I always thought that Reddit could easily be made obsolete in a short time thanks to steemit from the moment I first signed on even still being in beta you can tell reddit doesn't stand a chance in the long run, But I never looked at reddit and FB as competitors. they have completely different feels to them and both had their places, they seemed to coexist quite well. I'm much more a FB user than a reddit user although I did use reddit occasionally for AMA's etc.
So I believe steemit definitely has the potential to become one of the main big players. I think the devs should continue to refine steemit and make it the best user experience they can. Besides another team is already working on FB's replacement.
Cheers, the future looks bright indeed
(I talk about the subject a little in my last piece)
https://steemit.com/steemit/@fonzerrellie/who-else-found-btc-and-cryptos-thanks-to-doge
Facebook is only releasing an app with similar to your function and you lose
Excellent write up! Thank you!
I love steemit
Good post. I think Facebook is geting old, but they have to much money fo new invests! Probably they´ll develop new solutions to be always on the top.
steemit can overtake the social media world.
its rewards thats all that really matters