This one may end up being a bit too long but I'll try to address everything that is on my mind in the shortest way possible so try to stay with me here. It should be worth it.

The Importance Of Content Distribution

While I'm mainly focusing on farming and DeFi guides I feel like I could add value to this aspect of LeoFinance and Hive in general given my history in content distribution and growth hacking.

Before I made my full transition to crypto I was spending a lot of my time on Reddit and I wanted it to stay that way. I simply don't fit into the default work environment today so I had to come up with creative ideas most of the time.

Since monetization of your own content was out of the question I needed to make a living on Reddit somehow so I started creating dummy accounts that would later serve as content distribution networks while at the same time complying with Reddit rules.

That choice lead me down a strange path where I worked with a ton of people that spend too much time thinking about growth, numbers, deadlines, and targets. Thankfully, I picked up some of the good stuff while I was there.

In this line of work, you would come across websites with amazing content but very little recognition and this would be unchanged for years. At that point you realize how much hustle is going into SEO and how everyone is outcompeting you by exploiting search engines rather than creating quality content. I see the same thing happening here on Leo. We have an opportunity to add so much value to every crypto community out there and I have some proof for those that doubt quality standards around here.

I was originally going to write this article yesterday but then I decided to run a small test before I get ahead of myself. So, I took two articles from @forexbrokr and posted them in the corresponding subreddits.

The upvote count may not seem like much but if you visit /r/Vechain/ and /r/SysCoin/ almost 24 hours after the posts were made they are still in the top 5. Now if you go check the list of all LeoFinance links on Reddit you will notice that these posts are the only ones that got more than 2 upvotes in about a month. It doesn't have to be that way.

Content Distribution Done Right

We may have stumbled upon a big opportunity here but we need to revise our content distribution strategy. As @l337m45732 mentioned in his last article, Reddit is very dry in terms of actual knowledge. It is riddled with people that are desperate for any kind of information while those that have actual information are transitioning to more suitable platforms. Thanks to this, every marketing agency out here is taking advantage of this state of chaos.

Lucky for us, projects are creating their own subreddits and filtering content actively. Most of the time they will even post good content on social media channels giving even more visibility to the content in question.

How can Leo and Hive fit into this narrative?

I think this tweet speaks for itself. Of course that most of this engagement was fake because it is incentivized by the Callisto and Soy Finance projects but nevertheless we got some clicks and recognition out of it. But what would happen if we simply changed our individual habits?

There is no definitive answer but let's look at our options and try to draw a conclusion.

Reddit - Almost every crypto project has a subreddit so when writing a guide on ThorChain, why not post that article in the ThorChain subreddit as well? At the end of the day, we are all here to try and reach as many people as possible before they get in the hands of marketing agencies that will suck them dry. If you can educate one person today simply buy adding 3 more clicks to your routine I think it's worth it.

Quora - Quora is just a glorified version of Yahoo Answers but a lot of people end up reading answers on that website for some reason. These answers can sometimes get millions of views and if you have some time on your hands and want extra exposure, you can answer a few of those with a link back to your article. Not as easy as Reddit but with one huge difference - once an answer is posted it stays there forever. The more upvotes it gets the higher in ranking it is.

Hacker News - Ycombinator is where it all started and many of you probably remember the OG Reddit. It is still alive and well today but the content quality is exceptional most of the time. Unlike Reddit, it only has one front page so you really need to prove yourself to get noticed.

4Chan - Probably everyone's least favorite but informative discussions can sometimes take place in this messed up part of the internet. If you are trying to start a genuine and interesting discussion, there will be people willing to engage. Just like with Quora you can add a link to Leo as an addition to your arguments or subject in general.

A ton of potential traffic is sitting just on these four websites and you can find at least 4-5 more with the same potential output. The problem is that it's not as easy as it may seem.

The Balancing Act

It seems fairly easy to add one or two of the above-mentioned websites to your content distribution process but just like we here don't like spam, they won't tolerate it either. Both moderators and users will raise valid concerns about people that only come to post a link and leave with no engagement whatsoever.

Even though it may not be against the TOS itself it may put a bad name on the domain you are promoting and in this case, it would seem like someone from Leo paid someone like me to mindlessly spam out every piece of content possible. Here is a breakdown based on my own experience.

Moderation

Reddit - Things right now are fairly loose because no one can keep up with all the people coming and going. Posting links from one domain exclusively is not penalized but users are advised to diversify. If you do decide to distribute your content on Reddit for the long-term engaging with others and posting links from other domains every now and then is the way to go. Some subreddits like /r/cryptocurrency and /r/ethtrader will even convert your upvotes into crypto that is easily tradable.

Quora - Quora is a hustle and if you aren't looking to expand your brand reach you will hardly ever find it useful. Unless you really want to discuss a subject you wrote about, posting one answer will take 10-15 minutes out of your day with no guaranteed results. Moderation is on autopilot so even high-quality stuff sometimes gets flagged as spam and removed.

HackerNews - No one cares as long as the content is good. You can post 5 links every day but if they are garbage they will be treated that way. On the other hand, if you are doing deep dives like @taskmaster4450 those would probably be interesting for HN users.

4chan - Just like the content, moderation is purely random. Sometimes they will let bad stuff slide and sometimes they will crack down on it all day long. Depends on the mood I guess. The good thing is that you don't need an account. If you feel like starting a thread just do it.

Is It Worth It?

There are quite a few angles to this question. You personally will probably not get any extra rewards because readers are coming for the content without a Hive account.

In the short term, your benefits are insignificant but in the long-term, this would be in your best interest. Helping Leo and Hive with SEO rankings helps you as well by bringing more people and capital to the ecosystem.

Leofinance.io is currently in the top 40k websites in the world according to Alexa which is on par with a crypto news website like cryptoglobe.com

The more popular ones like Cointelegraph and Theblock are in the top 5-6K so we still have a long way to go to catch up with these guys and that's not the only issue. If our SEO keeps lagging behind the industrialized part of crypto we will stand no chance when it comes to ranking. Eventually, every topic they cover will be ranked higher than our version of the same subject because the domain itself justifies a higher rank.

Not saying that this will happen since there is a lot of work done on this part, just pointing out the worst possible outcome.

Based on what I learned so far, links posted on Reddit and other content aggregators that got a lot of upvotes on those platforms can boost your SEO like nothing else. If your domain is delivering quality content consistently to Reddit users Google will also pick this up as a positive signal. So it's not just about the quantity, it's also about the quality.

Narrowing It Down

What would be the best practice when it comes to content distribution?

It will always come down to your personal preferences but if you need suggestions here is how I do it.

After publishing an article on Leo I will probably share it on Twitter unless I don't feel like it's that important. Since most of my guides are targeting a specific niche that is mostly present on Twitter I'll leave it at that but if I'm writing a guide for a specific protocol or project that has a presence on Reddit or other websites I will share it there as well. Also, if I'm active in their TG groups or Discord channels I may consider sharing the stuff I consider useful.

Alternatively, if we are looking for minimum work with maximum potential results I would narrow it down to Twitter and Reddit if you want to keep things simple.

Create accounts on these two if you already don't have one, post your content on Twitter with appropriate hashtags if you want to reach more people, and then do a Google search for your topic and add "Reddit" to it. If there is a community that would be interested in reading your stuff you will find it easily.

Check the sidebar for any specific rules, add a flare if the post requires it, and call it a day. Some may find this inappropriate but there is no specific rule prohibiting such behavior on both Twitter and Reddit.

Abstract Thoughts

Instead of ending this one with a conclusion that would be anything but definitive, I would share a few ideas that may have already been discussed.

Could we incentivize traffic in any possible way?

For instance, if someone brought 1k clicks from Google or any other source, we could reward that user with some Hive, Leo, or anything else we come up with as long as that traffic can be calculated precisely.

These incentives can even be very small amounts but still get people interested quickly IMO. Even the funds don't need to come from a treasury if we can voluntarily add funds to a pool and get the ball rolling that way.

Is there a way to get non-hivers involved in the voting process?

Specifically, is there a front-end solution that would allow unregistered users to express their opinion by upvoting or downvoting the content they came to read?

If, for example, a post gets 50,100,200 or whatever number of upvotes, this would send out a notification to the most active curators to maybe look at it and see if it deserves more or fewer rewards. It would benefit the readers and content creators at the same time once fair moderation becomes seemingly impossible.

I'm no blockchain engineer and I have no idea if this is even possible, just throwing an idea out there.

Anyway, thanks for making it this far. If you have any questions, suggestions or thoughts feel free to leave them in the comments.

Posted Using LeoFinance ^Beta