The number one lesson I have learned since joining Steem is to focus on what I can contribute while respecting the work of others and having patience with the results. For the rest of 2018, I intend to focus my attention on the following four primary activities on Steem as the foundation of my service as a witness at https://steemit.com/~witnesses.
#1 Steem Growth Projects!
With Steem being the blockchain producing some of the highest rewards for those contributing to growth and holding stake, if we want the value of Steem to increase we collectively have a responsibility to help ensure those most enthusiastic about Steem receive a portion of the rewards. Inspiring, funding, promoting, and consulting on projects intended to grow Steem such as contests, applications, communities, and local meetups helps those of us with a desire to help Steem get the funding we need to keep contributing.
The post I wrote named 10 ways to fund a growth project on Steem explains how many of us are working together to fund entrepreneurs on Steem at https://busy.org/@jerrybanfield/10-ways-to-fund-a-steem-growth-project. My contribution for this involves checking new proposals, providing feedback, funding existing projects, launching new contests, and helping promote the results of these efforts through resteems and advertising.
Thank you very much to each of the hundreds of delegators funding projects directly through my account with delegations and the thousands more of us making efforts each day alongside me with the projects listed in the post above. I intend indefinitely to do whatever I am able to support Steem growth projects.
#2 Marketing and Advertising Steem!
With a combined following of over 2.5 million people on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter plus five years of digital marketing and advertising experience, I am grateful for a chance to help millions of people discover and continue coming back to Steem! I expected Google and Facebook to ban cryptocurrency ads which motivated me to go all in on advertising Steem from the day I joined.
At http://jerry.tips/steemads we see many detailed posts and reports showing the ads and results along with the budgets for the ads. To date we have collectively funded over $43,000 for ads on Google and Facebook for Steem with over $34,000 spent and about $9,000 more planned before June 1018 when the Google ban takes effect. These ads have resulted in
- 24,611,768 ad impressions reaching 6,611,257 people on Facebook with posts and videos about Steem.
- 8,077,573 ad impressions on Google and YouTube resulting in 1,002,236 video views directly from ads and 89,883 immediate clicks to steemit.com, busy.org, and dsound.audio links.
The top ad in terms of ad spend on Facebook can be seen at https://www.facebook.com/jbanfield/videos/1517754641578040/ while the top ad on YouTube is the video below!
Now that Facebook has banned ads and Google is planning to stop ads for cryptocurrencies in June, I have planned a live music video station on all my channels as explained at https://busy.org/dlive/@jerrybanfield/ad2a0794-2ab8-11e8-8468-0242ac110002 which will soon start promoting Steem for free indefinitely to an audience.
Live music video stations similar to the one I am building on YouTube have a huge reach while my unique setup has very low expenses making for an ideal long term solution to promote Steem! After months of planning, learning, building, and testing I am prepared to launch in April or May 2018.
In the meantime, I am continuing to advertise Steem as much as possible on Google and YouTube until June 2018 when cryptocurrency ads will become prohibited. I am also planning and testing ways to advertise indirectly that can continue after the ban such as sending users to Steem applications like 
#3 One Post a Day + Resteems!
Each of us as an author has the chance with every post we make to help more of us discover Steem in Google search and on social media for free indefinitely. Each day I intend to continue making one post to Steem which is then shared automatically to Facebook and Twitter. My focus when posting is to continue to help 
All of the resteems I do are also shared on Facebook and Twitter give me the opportunity to help promote Steem with several posts each day for free. Every day I try to write and publish at least one post myself as well as sharing at least two resteems because consistency over time tends to make the biggest difference and produces the best results.
Every day around 10,000 people see the posts from my blog on Steem for free with often the resteems earning more views than my own posts. For resteems, I intend to share the posts I find most helpful and that best showcase our creative talents on Steem. The best place to reach me for a resteem is through my partner program or on the jerrybanfield tag.
#4 Peer to Peer Steem/USD Fiat Exchange!
In February 2018, Joseph hired a blockchain developer on Upwork using the payments we collectively raised with delegations to my account. Joseph communicates with the developer each week on how to build the back end of what will be a website and Steem application similar to localbitcoins with the main difference being no escrow because other applications with an escrow are already underway and potentially face the need to be licensed and regulated.
Our intention with this peer to peer exchange is to make a place where users that already know each other can more easily transact Steem with fiat currencies. Users that already have an existing relationship with others will be able to better identify who wants to buy and sell at what price. For example, when I have some Steem to sell, I will be able to communicate that on the P2P exchange and transact with my friends and followers instead of using a centralized exchange.
As more of us continue to transact with our friends and followers, we will be able to expand our networks to friends of friends allowing us to find the best deals with the least resistance among those we already know and trust. This foundation in existing networks of users will provide a perfect niche for our P2P exchange to fit in with all of the other emerging Steem to USD/fiat options in development along with established exchanges.
Our peer to peer exchange will not be appropriate for making a business based on buying and selling Steem or for transactions among strangers because of the lack of escrow and responsibility of each user to comply with any applicable money transmission laws. Users will be informed of this getting started and trusted to use the exchange appropriately while we will maintain tools to help prevent abuse. Our feedback system will help users review previous transactions and make it unappealing to make transactions without any existing relationship.
Witness Servers!
Given my four areas of focus above make a full time job, I have partnered with witnesses that have the best technical skills that are willing to completely manage my witness server, seed, and backup witness to ensure the fewest missed blocks, fastest updates, and most effective communication. My servers are currently all
64GB DDR4 RAM
2x Intel Xeon E5-2630 V3
2x 240GB SSDs
1Gbit/s
Thank you very much to the 6,557 of us voting for me as a witness at https://steemit.com/~witnesses!
I am very grateful for all of the rewards I have received as a witness and I have not powered any of them down so far in 2018 with only one power down ever since I joined Steem which was fairly small compared to buying over 50,000 Steem power during my first seven months.
Will you join us in voting for witnesses at https://steemit.com/~witnesses because our witness votes are our most important choices we make for the future of Steem?
Our witnesses perform the function we usually call mining in other blockchains. Our intention with the witness system is to place responsibility for creating and maintaining a healthy blockchain in the hands of those we trust to act with our best interest in mind. Witnesses also receive rewards based on number of votes which provides an ongoing increase in stake and therefore influence on what direction we collectively take on Steem.
Every day I am thinking how may I help here on Steem while respecting what each of us is alrleady contributing. Steem is what I do full time thanks to your help and for that I am extremely grateful! I appreciate the chance to be of service as a witness, author, and investor! I hope this update has been useful for you to see what I contribute and stay inspired in making your unique contributions here!
Love,
Jerry Banfield