A few years ago, a friend of mine told me about Medium, and suggested that I join. I didn't.
It's not that I didn't trust this friend. I knew he was probably right; however, when someone tells me to do something, I am, at times, reluctant.
Months later, I eventually decided to create a Medium account. But the reason I joined wasn't because anyone asked me to, it was because I noticed I was clicking on an increasing number of articles that lived on Medium. There were incredibly interesting pieces of content that I'd connect with, and it just so happened these pieces of writing existed on Medium.
I do "20 questions" for two reasons.
The first is that I strongly believe these interviews are interesting content. In my opinion, the eventual success or failure of Steemit will be heavily dependent on how strong and unique the content is.
The second is that I think there is a great opportunity to show influencers (as well as their thousands of followers) Steemit in a way other than saying: "Hey, you should go check out this site and create an account." As I mentioned earlier, a close friend told me I should check out Medium. This was a friend I trusted and someone whose opinion I respected. But I still chose not to. What are the odds of a celebrity joining Steemit due to an unsolicited request from a person he/she has never heard of?
But an influencer who agrees to my request is typically more than happy to share that content with his/her followers via Twitter or other social media networks after the interview. The result is: They are exposed to Steemit, and their thousands (or even hundreds of thousands) of followers are exposed to Steemit. And it's all because of good, relevant content.
The votes v.s. view count problem.
An issue that consistently happens on Steemit is that votes exceed view counts. I think it's obvious that these view counts look extremely suspicious to someone coming to Steemit for the first time. Why would more people upvote content than actually look at the content they're upvoting?
Take, for example, the #2 trending post at the time of writing this:
And look at the votes v.s. view counts:
This week, I came to a realization.
A couple of days ago, I penned this post about the fact my blog post had earned more views than the top 4 trending articles combined. The point of this blog post wasn't for me to complain, it was simply an observation about rewards v.s. actual interest in an article.
At the time, the view count on my interview was 500, but the beautiful thing is, that number has continued to grow at an impressive rate all week. And I feel very confident in stating: the people viewing it aren't Steemit users; rather, non-Steemit users who are stumbling upon this content elsewhere on the Internet.
As of right now, the view count on my interview with John Goehrke is at more than 1,700 views. (It went up another 400 overnight).
Keep in mind, this post has only been live for 4 days.
To put that into context... the view count for the 2017 Steemit Roadmap (an incredibly important document that many Steemit users would be very interested in reading) is just over 1,250. And this is a blog post by Ned and Dan that has been accessible for 24 days.
Where are these views coming from?
At first, I assumed that the traffic must have been coming from the Tweets I put out about this interview. I tagged both John and Genie in the Tweets, but neither one of them ReTweeted the link, so it was confusing me how this post was getting so much traffic. Here is a look at the analytics behind both Tweets:
It was clear that the traffic from this post wasn't coming from Twitter...
But then I noticed this...
When you Google "John Goehrke," the third link (it was second as of last night) that comes up is my "20 questions" interview with John. That means, one of the top search results for this popular name is a link directly to Steemit.
But will people even Google "John Goehrke?"
Yes. When a story is trending, people want to know more about the individual(s) involved. Here are some Google Trend maps that show activity behind the name "John Goehrke."
Past 12 months...
Past 7 days...
Why does this matter?
For me, this week has been an eye-opener with regard to what I do on Steemit. My "20 questions" series has focused on Steemit users and established influencers; however, I see the great opportunity to also jump on "overnight influencers" whose stories are trending. If these people were unknown in the past, there is an incredible opportunity to put content out there, which is 100% unique. Also, there is an opportunity to land on that first page of Google when Internet users begin Googling names they've never heard of, which are landing in their "trending" feeds on Facebook and Twitter.
At the end of the day, that unique content, which people can't find elsewhere, is what is going to bring new users to Steemit
I get pretty excited when a post of mine brings in a lot of Steem... but this whole view count thing is giving me a new buzz :)
I tweeted this out to 55,000 followers on Twitter - let's see what that does LOL!!
Wow! Thanks so much for doing that.
How had I not previously come across your Steemit blog? You're an incredible writer, and I'm making a note of going back and checking out your previous posts.
thanks Wade - I appreciate that. BTW, I had one day on Twitter where I had an enormous amount of Rt's - I checked Twitter Analytics but never could get to the bottom of it - It was a one-off. Lately, I'm letting the Twitter site slide simply b/c as a writer I need feedback - it's part of my platform, but isn't really doing much than generating Rt's of links I post to my website
It must of worked 55K twitter followers.
I'm glad, Cassidy :)
I have noticed from the very start (last summer) that Steemit posts do Very Well in search engines. I'm glad yours brought so many visitors here!
My tweet of your post brought 44 link clicks from 1280 impressions:
I tweet out several posts a week. I encourage others to do the same. We can't influence who people search for, but we can get steemit posts on twitter. The more tweets the better. The author's tweet of their own post can bring some views, but if many others also tweet the post, the effect is multiplied!
Awesome! I didn't even see your Tweet before, but I appreciate you helping to share the story :)
That's a great point (helping to Tweet out others' Steemit posts). I agree 100 per cent.
Yeah, I'd like to have a script created to give us access to the highest viewed articles for the day for this precise reason. Your strategy is really great and it will bring in people organically.
I wish you could sort articles by views or by votes, or by payout.
Thanks for your kind words, @stellabelle! I agree fully with the idea of having a way to see what articles are getting the most views!
It simple social media/blogging 101 basics.....
people want to see what are the most popular reads. That's just human nature.
Awesome piece, thanks for sharing! Upped and resteemed.
That´s why we all should optimize our content for search engines. Since the editor enables us to use HTML, we have all the necessary tools. I´ve recently published a short tutorial about key word optimization on steemit: https://steemit.com/howto/@surfermarly/how-to-optimize-your-steemit-blog-for-google-and-encourage-organic-traffic-9-steps-tutorial
It´s not only about the (exclusivity of) content, it´s also about how it´s prepared for search engines like Google.
Wow, I've bookmarked this post. Some incredible information! I would love to see a tool such as Yoast included within Steemit to make this easier for all users.
Yeah that would be great!
Thanks, I am glad you considered that helpful :)
the problem is... that optimizing content for people which are outside of Steemit is bad in short term for authors. They prefer to focus on users on platform, which already have a lot of SteemPower. Votes from 100 new users which will find your article in Google and even register on Steemit because of your article... those 100 votes will be worth close to nothing.
guilds could actually help with that, if they would focus only on content which is very popular also outside a Steemit but on Steemit is undervalued.
True, especially if those new users vote after the 24-hour payout period.
In the long term good content keeps on bringing in new users which will eventually drive up the price of Steem. In the end the whole community benefits hereof.
SEO is definitely a long term goal. But I think the whole story here is built to work in the long run (example: steemit.com has been in beta for almost one year now :)).
The next update will bring new solutions and extend the payout period to 7 days. That will help a lot to open the doors for new users.
This is something the large stakeholders themselves should be paying attention to. Getting actual traffic onto Steemit.com = providing value to the network that should be rewarded.
That´s true, @noisy. I fully agree. SEO is surely an investment in the future and results will be seen in the long run. I totally understand that it´s a lot (maybe too much) work to do for the majority of authors. That´s why some helping tools (included in the editor) would be brilliant (keyword setting for instance).
Regardless, articles like this one here increase at least the awareness. That´s already a big step.
A good point here. Thanks for sharing!
You are on point with the views to votes inconsistencies. I feel the example you shared was not even such a bad one though.
My most recent post has less than 1 view per every four votes.
I regret to sound ungrateful, because obviously I'm happy about the $40 dollars, but I know that I would prefer 169 people to have read it and only 39 to upvote it, even if it reduced my pay out to a couple of dollars.
I'm often seeing posts with hundreds of votes and no comments, which I believe you are completely right when you say can spark some skepticism in the mind of anyone viewing from off-Steemit.
How do we fix it though? I tried reducing the size of my post and even putting the words 3 minute read within the title to get more engagement from those who haven't the time, but that has shown to be unsuccessful.
I'm hoping that when the achievements mentioned on the road map arrive, they will encourage users to actually pay attention to posts rather than just upvoting them and moving along. We shall see. But I know for me, I appreciate user engagement and people taking the time to read what I have spent my time writing, just as much as I value the monetary rewards- if not more.
Well done on hitting the first page on google by the way! And without SEO.. You are doing a good thing for Steemit.
Thanks for this comment.
I agree, the example I took at the time was a quick scan of the trending page, and definitely not a knock at @krnel (I certainly hope it didn't come across that way). Many of my posts have 15 views and 80 upvotes, so the same thing happens to me as well. This trending 20 questions situation (way more views than upvotes) is a rare instance, and showed me that it is likely content that is connecting with people outside of Steemit.
It seems as though this is starting a conversation with regard to the views v.s. upvotes. Some people have possible solutions as well, so hopefully there is something that the majority can agree is good for Steemit.
Yes, I noticed some good comments on the post.
I think this revelation has got me very curious now. I may go and look at my recent posts and see if there are any that have had views from outside of Steemit..
EDIT: I had a look and I noticed three pizzagate posts that had 500-800 views in contrast to only a 100 or so votes. There was also a recent satirical post about a Trump impeachment that had 50 or so more views than upvotes in spite of a voting trail picking that one up.
I think you are bang on the mark about trending topics gaining attention for Steemit. I am going to make more of an effort to make posts relating to current trends, as well as word my titles in a manner that matches what people will be typing into the search bar on google.
If it helps Steemit, then it helps us all.
Excellent analysis. You have given me some new ideas to try out & to go back to the basics of tracking individual post performance on the open internet, especially on Google.
Let alone the worldwide web, to truly monetize Steemit, the Steemit minnows gravitate towards writing for whales; not even for the general Steemit community.
Evangelising Steemit
Social sharing is one sure way to organically build @Steemit, as you say @wadepaterson
The way Steemit is structured now I will continue writing for Steemit without bothering too much about SEO. Here's why:
Admittedly, Steemit is a one year old platform currently dependent on community members to promote the platform organically. There is no Steemit marketing that I know of.
Once again, thank you for your painstaking effort. Tweeted you, of course.
Great post @wadepaterson. I agree about unique content driving users to Steemit. In the past I would post cigar reviews for my fellow facebook users, which by the way were short hand and did not compare to whats available on other sites.., however with Steemit I feel invested, I want to produce quality, and I want to improve even more until I am the best. I will keep posting, because people searching for a cigar review years from now will find Steemit articles I have made.
Thank you for this great article!
I recently started tweeting my recipes after noticing them doing quite well on google searches. You are right here and this is fabulous stuff. It's the way to drive people in!
Awesome stuff. The more eyes on Steemit content, the better.
What a powerful article exposing the state of our platform, its potential on the web in general, and its social potency. Awesome work, thanks for sharing this goodness with us all! All for one and one for all! Namaste :)
Wow. Thanks for that compliment. I've been fascinated by how many people clicked on my interview this week and I wanted to dig into why that was happening and how I can leverage that information going forward.
Your article was quite educational in that fashion, thank you so very much for sharing this with us and it has been a pleasure to be able to provide for some extra goodness going your way! Namaste :)
Thanks! Followed.
By the way it's easy to mark up the numbers if they're causing too much confusion rather than positive feeling -- just add the number of votes to the number of viewers. I'll make a github issue for this.
that would be terrible idea. Having 260 views... and only few or no comments will be equally depressing. That would cause even worse feeling of ghost town.
We need to discourage autoupvoting. In my opinion, rewards for curation should be removed.
I vote for good content regardless whether I will be reworded or not. I know, that I could wait few minutes to receive even greater reward for curation... but I prefer to upvote content immediately to support good content even stronger.
There is a reason why other social media websites do not have to pay for peoples votes. People really like to vote if something is worth voting for.
I appreciate both comments/thoughts here.
I don't know that adding the number of votes to number of views will solve the problem. It's not so much that this is causing confusion as it'd be valuable to be able to identify which posts are are trending due to high view count (not only which posts are trending due to Steem earnings).
Thank's for sharing your opinion, i've also been thinking about this IMHO removing rewards curation would solve the problem in the root.
Removing rewards completely would be rather big step, but with new upcoming feature of communities, it would be great if each community could set own rules. It would be great opportunity to test various variants.
We need more discussion on this topic! :)
Very cool, thanks! Pretty soon, the possibilities will be limitless.
That's the hope :)
Yup, this is SEO 101 and exactly why I put in the extra effort to SEO my images, add video and other media to my posts. Then I Tweet them all over the internet. I use RSS to share certain content all over the web to include Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Google Plus, Diigo and a few other places. All of these links point back at the articles and lift it in search. This is just good SEO practice for users on Steemit. I see you use H1 and H2 tags in your posts as well. Great work!
I think your actions are a great example for all of us who are hoping to take our SEO efforts to the next level!
Stay tuned for your 20 questions! It's been a busy week, but they will be coming eventually!
I would try to give some type of feed back with some inspiring information but all I can say is...
Great post @wadepeteron. I am not active on other social media, except for posting my Steemit posts on FB, though I know that has great rewards. Thanks for giving me a bit of insight into some possibilities that already exist. I appreciate your enthusiasm too!
Thanks :)
There have been many posts in the past that I've shared through Twitter that haven't gotten anywhere near the view counts that my latest "20 questions" did, but I've tried to be persistent because I've seen the way information can spread like wildfire on social media.
I imagine persistence and consistency are a large part of the equation.
Wow, that view count is incredible compared to what we're accustomed to seeing; I'd be willing to bet that you are bringing many others to Steemit. It shows that you have a marketing background. Resteemed.
Cheers for the ReSteem, buddy!
It's hard to measure the impact of actual user growth, but even if the number of Steemit impressions grows, I have faith that the users will come. In my own experience, I didn't join many social media networks after first hearing about them. Typically it was after I had heard about them (or seen content on them) repeatedly that I finally caved.
True. We're very similar in that regard.
Incidentally, I think the votes-to-views issue would have been resolved by the proposal to drop the voting power refresh target from 40 votes to 4 votes per day. The current situation massively favours bot and guild voting, as opposed to organic voting. There would be less incentive to lease out your vote to articles which you are not even viewing, as is happening today.
I'd agree that something needs to be tweaked as it just looks odd with the upvote number higher than the viewcount number.
What you've suggested above could potentially work; although, there are people out there who would like to organically vote for more than four articles per day.
Perhaps somewhere in between then. I'm a very active user, online every day, and there's no way I could vote (meaningfully) 40 times a day without turning it into a second job.
You've discovered Search Engine Optimization!
And to be honest, you've discovered it in the best way: through writing an organically viral post. SEO tricks don't work over the longer term.
Agreed... Google wants to feature content that people want to see. So, my goal will continue to be to create content that people want to see. (If it happens to be on a trending topic, all the better).
Yeah: a trending topic would be a real blessing. Thanks.
Great post and explanation. The votes and views thing always had me thinking about the process. You made a clear and somewhat easy to understand where some of these may be coming from. I do also think some users just click on popular posts just because they are hot, but your explanation shows there is definitely another source of traffic.
Thanks for your comment!
I think you're right, except "hot" and "trending" are based on Steem earnings, not views. And the "20 questions" post with 1,700 views did OK ($22 value), but it wasn't near the top of the trending page. I feel very strongly that most of the traffic for that post came from an outside source. Most of my other posts have more upvotes than views (which, as I mentioned above, is odd). This was an exception, which makes me think the traffic wasn't coming from Steemit users.
this has been my approach or at least hope to be, great post, keep up the great work, followed!
Thanks so much for your support! You keep up the great work as well! (I often see your content ReSteemed by others, and I, too, am now following you.)
My stake isn't enough to make much difference but I just did my best to help get more r-shares for your highly viewed content.
I appreciate your support!
I'm happy you're verbalising the vision you talked about during steemfest.
My reason for joining was entirely that, a great source of info when the Dao hack was going down.
You're certainly onto something here, loved your guerilla marketing in your last 20 questions.
Best of luck, you're an inspiration.
Miss ya, buddy :)
I better see you at SteemFest 2.0, whenver, wherever that is!
I appreciate your encouragement. I hope all is well on your side.
(BTW - I went back and took a look at your blog, and I love the toilet paper post, haha. I must have missed that last month when you actually posted it!)
Oh I'll be there! The last one was a cross between uni fresher's week and something more :P
Thanks!
I don't post too much, that was one I was thinking about for a while, so, glad you enjoyed it :)
If you're on rocket chat, let's have a catch up at some point.
spot on !
generating traffic will result in new users, I'm sure.
Agreed!
Very interesting post, you cleared many questions i had!
I'm glad you found it helpful!
Fantastic!
Thanks!
Awesome work!
Thanks!
Really insightful post! Thank you so much for sharing this. :)
My pleasure!
Finally, a top trending article talking about the views to votes ratio. Awesome post and keep doing what you're doing. up & fol.
Thanks!
Wow what an experiment! 9 hours ago still going strong $201.01 with 309 votes and 256 views.
We gonna hit $500 before tomorrow!
Really interesting post thank you. I have been off Steemit for a while due to problems with posting...all sorted now thankfully. I have seen an increase in upvotes from my previous articles so things are certainly changing for the better. Glad to hear you are having success.
Great article! Upvoted and followed
Cheers. I appreciate that!
good job, be encouraged!
Thats an great insight, this could help Steemit a lot!
Thanks!
You have hit the nail on the head so to speak, with a comment at the start of your blog, where you state that "when a friend tells me to do something I am often reluctant". I find this same psychological effect when telling friends about anything, in general a good trick is to make them think they have found the information for themselves by pointing them to it without it coming straight from you!
People love to have that "wow" moment as they "discover something new" even though thousands before them have already discovered it, these are not people from their direct peer group so they still feel like the "first mover" in this new space. And so, as you suggest, the contents relevance itself will bring more people along than someone you know pointing out that this content exists.
I have a solid, real life example where I have been buying boxed Lego sets over the years, telling friends to do the same, as an investment. None did. Now some of my sets bought for a couple of hundred pounds are worth thousands each. One of my friends recently started a collection after seeing something in a documentary. Years after I first told him to look into it. And he hasn't learnt a thing, when I told him about bitcoin (2012) he replied "no one cares!!" and carried on with his life!!! All you can do is shout from the rooftops and hope that what you say is being heard by strangers...who are more likely to listen than some of your closest friends. I'll still keep telling mine though, I have to try!
Interesting! Agreed, people (myself included) are quite skeptical of things that their friends are encouraging them to check out. Perhaps it's a guard against scams, but in many cases, there's going to inevitably be an "I told you so," moment.
Oh, this is a great post. Analytics totally rock my boat. Thanks.
Thanks!
Steemit posts seem to rank well on Google. We just have to hope some of the people finding them decide to join up. I would hope that some influencers will notice this trend. A few big names on Steemit could make a big difference
I hope the same thing. @dragosroua is a great example of a well-known influencer who came to Steemit and has brought other users with him. It'd be awesome to get more great influencers on here.
Thanks for the nice words, @wadepeterson. Steemit is starting to gain momentum, from my perspective. When I joined, in October, the total number of active users over 24 hours was around 1.500. Now it's over 4.000. This is a very important metric and the fact that it went up so fast is a positive. Once we get over 10.000, improvements will start to be more and more visible.
There are still a few things that are thwarting the process, some of the internal to Steemit, some of them external. The most important internal problem is flagging, that's a big turnoff, but I think HF17 will alleviate much of it. And the most important external problem is that big players in social media are stealth banning Steemit. Facebook is very keen on this, links to Steemit are basically hidden, I ran a few tests lately and it's like they don't exist.
Of course, there are workarounds. For instance, you can post the picture of the Steemit article and a short excerpt and then, after a few minutes, add the actual link. I verified it and it works, the posts gets "normal" exposure. But it's cumbersome to do this all the time and I don't want to feel that I have to cheat when I post something about Steemit on Facebook.
This is a great article. I'm upvoting and sharing.
The likes vs views issue is an interesting one, and I've noticed it, too. People are trying to ride a wave and make a quick curation buck, and that's fine.
But your example actually happened to me recently with the YouTuber David Seaman. I wrote an article here on steemit about his career for the last 12 months. Occasionally, he and I go back and forth on Twitter, so I shared the link with him, which he shared it on Twitter, gab, and even on a recently YouTube video.
https://steemit.com/blog/@shayne/david-seaman-the-most-interesting-story-of-2016-17
The article has just under 90 likes but over 2000 views. I think that the more like this that steemit gets, the further it gets from the circle jerk and closer to relevancy.
@shayne
Thanks for that, @shayne.
Your article is a pure example of the exact same thing. It's awesome to see another post bringing in a couple thousand views, and it's clear that in both scenarios, the views are likely coming from outside the Steemit community.
Keep up the great work. (Following you)
Great post @wadepaterson upvoted resteemed I'll follow you
Thanks!
Your welcome
Great article................I think this article alone got me back on..Well explained. I believe all Steemers are thankful for this article just as I.
I am beyond ecstatic that this article trended to the moon!!!!!!!!!
I'm really happy about that as well. Thanks for your support, @stellabelle.
And the great news... the view count exceeds the upvotes! haha
that is totally awesome. I was very well compensated for my early curation of your post. I received 24 Steem for finding and upvoting your post before the whales........I can't remember how much your post was when i discovered it...
Honestly, this is how Steemit is supposed to work.
655 views and 543 votes!!!! Excellent post and great observation. It's 1 am and I'm not even sure how i got here, but this is great. Followed!
Haha! Well however you arrived, welcome! And thanks for the follow :)
Thanks so much for the great info, and glad to be following, and to have wound up on your post, somehow....
Pretty cool, good to have you on steemit, upvoted and followed!
Wow this is awesome, gives a great perspective on reaching to an outside audience. Thanks for making a recap on this.
I share in my facebook