How do we attract and retain the masses?
I think this should be our biggest question as we consider the future of Steemit.
Right now, my creative posts are being viewed almost exclusively by other content creators. Most of them have learned that—in order to make money—it’s good to engage with the community. So they scan my writing, give me an upvote, and leave a polite comment. While I appreciate their time and thank them for their feedback, I think we can all agree this is not the ideal audience for content creators.
I want nothing more than to see a thriving artist community on Steemit. This means we need to find a way to attract a general audience; an audience who is motivated by original content instead of making money. Without the masses, artists and entertainers will seek other platforms where their work can spread.
Here’s the most exciting prospect: a robust audience will attract established content creators even more than money. Lure the masses, and the whales (the creative kind) will follow.
I admit I may be too new to offer meaningful suggestions, but I hope the following ideas can serve a useful starting point for dialogue.
A Dynamic Front Page
Right now, a user needs to click on each separate category for the content they would like to view. This is fine for other Steemit users who are driven primarily by making money, but this is too much work for the general user who just wants to read a poem or see cool photographs.
If opening steemit.com brought the user to a personalized home page with a blend of their favorite tags, it would simplify the search for content while keeping them engaged with the site.
More importantly, a customizable front page would hide the plethora of meta posts. While these are vital for content creators, the average user doesn't care about Steemit politics or cryptocurrencies.
(On a similar note, a link to the all-time-highest posts in each category might jumpstart the interest of the average user!)
Rewards for Top Comments
Artists thrive on feedback as much as money.
I don’t understand the inner-workings of Steemit enough to know if this is plausible, but finding more ways to incentivize comments would go a long way toward luring the masses, encouraging meaningful feedback, and, ultimately, giving creators another reason to use Steemit as their primary platform for original content.
Porn
This topic probably deserves its own post so I’ll keep it short: from reddit to blu-ray, porn is the vital underbelly of every major media platform. There’s no reason women would post on r/gonewild if they could be making money on Steemit. Cater to them and the masses will follow in droves.
Encouraging Art
Perhaps the best solution is in the hands of the artists themselves.
One of my favorite posts this week came from @anca3drandom who held a Steemit art challenge and rewarded the winners with Steem. Even cooler: a commenter donated money for round two!
My meager attempt at attracting established artists will come in the form of a unique interview format. The interviews will be concise, provocative, and visual… and I hope to have the first three ready by the end of the month. Every interview will be exclusive to Steemit, so hopefully the artists will see our potential... and link their fans to the site!
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I'll end by noting that Steemit has been doing everything right so far. The launch HAD to focus on attracting creators for the site to work, and they did this brilliantly. But in the coming months, our focus needs to shift toward the masses. We have original content from brilliant minds and the best damn platform to incentivize both…
Now let’s share it with the world.
(I would love to hear from anyone using Steemit strictly to view content. How has your experience been in these first few months?)
I really, REALLY like the idea of the personalized main page, good post.
Good ideas, thank you!
No need to bring porn here in my opinion! we should focus more in education an spaces for families and kids to learn and play.
I think there can be both : ) As long as it's hidden and not constantly popping up on the front page, I think it's a necessary (and inevitable) component of a robust platform. And I absolutely agree that our focus should be on art and education.
Steem have not restrictions in what you can do or watch, steem will have black media like "steem gives access to porn to kids of any ages as long they have an steem account" Steem will need a kind of restrictions for teens and kids to have access to adult content so I'm not sure if Steem as decentralize platform will restrict any content !!! Let's see what happens.
Facebook is the 5 most valuable company in the world so in a few years Steem is going to overtake them.
As long as you use the #nsfw (not safe for work) tag.
No censorship
is one of the greatest attractions of steemit.
I think is a matter of education I guess, we have to switch from protecting by restriction to pretect by choice or by principles that makes actually a stronger character in people, but even if no sensorship is the main atraction I just want to imagine once terrorist can have their own tag here, won't be nice, that's why I insist most besome kind of regulation to protect childhood and infants, other ways soon we will switch from the most amazing social media platform to the most perturbant social media, I like to think that Steem can stay away from dirty content and being recognized by his amazing contribuitions in science, art, education, music, photography,inovation etc!!!!!! At the end of the daythe market and people will drive this project, I hope people get focus in contribuiting to the platform to add value (as design ) more that click and win, we can disrupt everything From Facebook Google to Wikipedia! I like the idea of the tag that you mentioned, but in my opinion leave our Kids exposed to pornography, I guess our kids are going in to a paradigm shift in culture were they have to choose right from early stages I guess.
In my opinion kids just shouldn't be on the internet at all until they are old enough. They could be introduced for education purposes under strict supervision from an early age, but apart from that, why would anybody give their child free reign of a global network.
Television does enough damage to creativity and imagination without video games and youtube videos as well.
As for terrorism... You can shut down the internet, shut your doors and stay inside for months, that won't stop them. Life just has to go on.
probably thats why we need our kids to get in to creative exposure.
I can't reply to your last comment. They're some great videos. Have you written a post about them?
No yet, How you going blogging, do you feel that you are improving? I have to improve a lot but I am moving forward!
Not sure if I'm improving but I'm definitely enjoying it :)
I feel like a creative side of me that gets very little attention normally can get some long needed training here :)
I like the idea of education for families.