Lack of engagement is hampering Hive adoption

I have seen some recent posts talking about 'the problem with Hive' being the inflation rate or how the reward pool is managed. I think for the average users who make up the mass of the userbase these are not really a concern even if they are for those looking to invest large amounts to get a certain return.

Much more numerous are people who have heard they can make money by posting stuff on this Hive thing. Many will be disappointed. They will struggle to get any attention and rewards may be cents at best. If I help someone create an account I impress on them that they need to engage with people to build a following. The primary way of doing that is to comment, and not just to say 'thanks' for a comment on a post. You need to start conversations. You are competing for attention and so you have to make yourself interesting to others.

These are some of the current top trending posts making $40-60. They get hundreds of votes, but just a few comments. The rewards are great, but people do value interaction. Some of these post authors have high HP and could give you a nice vote for a good comment. I think there is too much fishing for curation rewards. There are some people who are guaranteed to get some whale votes and so others pile in to try and benefit. The payoff may be low, but I guess they must make something. You make more if you find under-appreciate posts that later get big votes and you can help them get there.

I benefit from a number of automated votes that mean I make dollars on each post, but I feel bad if I do not get many human comments. This is partly why I mostly only post once per day. I give votes of a few cents for comments I enjoy.

One of the reason I do the Follow Friday posts is to try and get more engagement for accounts that I feel are under-appreciated. There are some great comic artists, musicians and other creative people who will have put many hours of work into what they post. I expect they will post it elsewhere to reach a wider audience, but they would appreciate getting more than just votes on Hive. One comic author said to me that I was about the only one commenting on their posts and so they rewarded me with some extra artwork that others may not see.

There is another account I comment on who are more political. They post videos through 3speak and have a large whale delegation that they use to reward comments well. I will leave it to you to find them if you want a share of that. I think they would like to get more comments. They do not often reply, but that may be due to dealing with far more comments on other platforms.

There are some efforts to encourage engagement. The Hive Engagement League by @abh12345 gives prizes for those who do the most. I am pretty active, but struggle to reach the top ten. I have been averaging over 150 comments each week since I joined four years ago. That is how I have built a following.

The fact is that Hive is struggling to grow. We lost a lot of users when we split from Steem for various reasons, but we ought to be replacing them. The Hive sites may have plateaued for now. Hive.blog and peakd get at least as many views as Steemit, but we should be way ahead give that we have better content (IMHO).

We cannot afford to lose users, especially the really good content creators who could attract more. If people feel that nobody is interested in what they do then they may leave even if they make a few cents.

Here are some things we could be doing to try and counter current downward trends:

• Turn off automatic votes and give out more big votes each day manually. You may make less from curation on average, but you may also get lucky by causing a post to trend.
• Leave a comment when you vote saying whaŧ you liked about the post. Try to start a conversation. You may even gain some followers.
• Find a new person to follow each week.
• Write about posts and accounts you have found and enjoyed. That could be in a #followfriday post.
• Bring a new person to Hive when you can. Do not over-sell the earning potential to avoid disappointment. We have freedom, games and other aspects that matter. If they need delegation then I may be able to help.

Hive is supposed to be social as well as profitable. There will always be accounts that purely vote and never engage whilst earning well, but for the rest of us it needs to be fun to justify the effort we put in. People are willing to spend hours on other platforms for no rewards. Why not put in time here whilst making something? That relies on there being enough people and content.

If Hive grows then we all benefit, so instead of thinking 'what can I make from Hive?' think 'what can I do for Hive?'.

Hive five!