So we're off to a roaring start. We're already near double the price of our predecessor and the amount of posts that I've seen calling this the rebirth of Steem is quite amazing. I think we've all started to really get behind the idea behind this whole initiative.

@blocktrades has already began lending their power to great introductory contests such as @anomadsoul's let us know who you are on hive. Check it out, lots of rewards to be had. Try your hardest! Show us what you're made of.

But all of that aside I'd like to talk to you guys about where we should go next. I mean for instance I doubt it will be long before we're replacing Steem in the crypto charts, and we've already gained massive coverage in the cryptosphere with the Sun drama. Getting ourselves widely known in crypto isn't a problem. So far all of my non-steem crypto-friends have already heard of hive. We've done ourselves a massive favour there.

But where next? What to do.

So if you don't know I'm a mainstream publisher. My blog is read by tens of thousands of people every month. I write on massive publications. In fact, I'm more well known in certain circles of the world of mainstream publishing than I am in crypto. I've had articles trend on the front page of Yahoo news for instance. I've been in this publishing game for quite some time lets say.

Hive has amazing potential. Hive could be the next publishing platform that everyone is raving about. I said that about steem back when I first joined in 2016. So much potential. I'm not joking there either. There are so many people on other publishing platforms trying to get noticed and are getting squashed by unfair algorithms and cherry-picking of data. Censorship resistance is something the world is quite craving at the moment, especially in the west.

So let's firstly talk about where we've got it right in the past

Voting bots was a Steem killer. Whaleshares was created as a massive fuck you to the scourge of voting bots. Hordes of people left steem in search of a better life at Whaleshares. There was a time in Steem where you couldn't get ahead unless you paid for the opportunity to do so. That went against the community spirit and essentially killed off any interest. Great for those that had deep pockets, not so much for the little guy. And if this recent pandemic has taught us anything it is that if you screw over the little guy then your economy grinds to a halt.

Anyway, the 50/50 balance sorted that out. It killed off voting bots and made people with stake focus on upvoting good posts again. Now, anyone with a half decent post has the chance to get rewarded. Of course we forfeit 10% of our rewards for that but I think most of us were happy to do so. The behaviour of us little guys speaks for itself.

My Steem investment pre-50/50 split: $0

My steem investment post-50/50 split: Well over 20k Steem. (I have a lot in the tribes)

Where next?

I always said Dan Larimer was the face of Steem. He had millions of stake and to my knowledge he did very little with it. He was like a cardboard pin-up that sits in front of the audience to look good and do nothing whilst the people that keep the lights on work furiously in the background.

There has always been a massive pot for development in my understanding and I haven't had any reason to believe that it has been mismanaged. However, listen to me carefully HiveHQ,

It's time you started advertising.

It's time for you to create an advertising team. It's time for you to get people with solid advertising experience; you know, the type of people that do crazy things to get whoever they are working for known. Extroverts. People that have no problem walking into a busy room, on their own, and walk away knowing everyone.

It's time for you to pay for Facebook ads. It's time for you to reach people you've always wanted to reach but haven't had the ability to do so. Did you know that if you advertise something enough it sticks? The concept of brand advertising is not to get clicks to your website, it's more important that they see the advertisement 30 times, and by doing so they can repeat it. You probably don't know what the coca-cola website looks like but you know exactly what it is when you buy another bottle. Their ads are to inform you rather than get clicks.

But you probably knew all that already.

People like me and the rest of your userbase can only take the platform so far. If you rely too much on user promotion then people will start to get suspicious. I've seen that myself when trying to get signups for the latest viral crypto thing.

Hive is uniquely positioned as a bridge between the world of mainstream and crypto. You won't honestly get a better opportunity than this to get people with zero crypto experience on-boarded into our sphere. Start early, start big.

So the next question I guess is where do I start?

Honestly. Any multi-million dollar platform that mainly uses its consumer base to promote itself will never be taken seriously. Trust me there, I've worked with a lot of bigwigs in the past. Their advertising budgets have been one of their biggest expenditures. But it always pays off well for them if they have something worthwhile to give. Hive has a lot to give.

You guys need to start advertising on Facebook. You need to contact bloggers that have audiences that are looking to get better at writing, or trying to make a career out of it. You need to get yourself out there. You need to spend a fortune on advertising because if you do you will eventually reap the rewards of doing so. Not directly, but indirectly via the price. 

Just you wait until big publishing platforms realise they can buy hive, earn money, and grow their audience from another angle. The price of Hive will skyrocket.

But guys, none of this will happen if no-one knows who we are. If you don't give yourself an advertising budget then we'll just remain on the backwaters of the internet known as some weird platform that no-one is interested to look at.

Mark my words.

Posted via neoxian.city | The City of Neoxian