Currently
With reference to the great work that 
I came across their initial post about the Steemit crowdfunded billboard campaign they had in Durban, South Africa, my home country. I was inspired that a fellow citizen in South Africa has made a massive change in a society and is contributing to the development of blockchain technologies. Awesome.
They also had massive success with their Durban campaign here - https://steemit.com/money/@steemdrive/sa-s-city-of-durban-to-be-engulfed-by-steem-the-world-to-follow
And here - https://steemit.com/steemdrive/@steemdrive/steemdrive-the-last-mile-for-27k-billboard-campaign-and-vote-of-thanks
They have been incredibly successful in their drives, and I wish them all the success for current and future campaign.
Issue
While I admire their determination, I feel that marketing using billboards is not the most effective form of advertising in 2016.
Having been involved in digital marketing and marketing for the last 5 years, I have come to understand some fundamentals. I met an owner of a South African billboard advertising company who I questioned the effectiveness of billboards. He said, and I quote, “Unless the traffic is moving directly towards a billboard, like a billboard positioned on a bridge with cars driving underneath it, it is a total waste of money”. He admitted that 90% of his billboard positions that he rents out to unaware advertisers were ineffective.
I tend to agree, especially if you think of the situation. A guy is driving in his vehicle, sees the billboard, and if he is anything like me, if he doesn’t have a pen and paper, or if he doesn’t pick up his phone immediately and type the address in (which is illegal and risk having an accident or getting a fine), he won’t remember when he gets to his destination. You must remember, these people are driving, and their call to action will very rarely be instant, and possibly not even carried through.
One could argue pedestrians, but in South Africa for example, billboards are for the drivers, not the pedestrians, and the reach is majority cars, supposedly.
Solution
My proposed marketing plan for Steemit will be to target users who are on their computers in an environment where they can safely and comfortably explore Steemit. It is a far better method of advertising also for the reason that because it will be online, the statistics and figures are as accurate as they are ever going to get proving the reach and effectiveness of the campaign.
I would create an advert that has a direct call-to-action in the form of a direct link to Steemit.com. It will be to boost traffic to the Steemit.com directly.
Having thought of the platforms to market on, I always suggest to my clients to use Facebook. It has incredibly accurate targeting across a broad range of topics, preferences, behaviours and alike, making it a very good value for money type of marketing. I am not a fan of Facebook, however, I understand the value and respect what they have done, and am happy to use it as a tool.
I have had many years of advertising experience with Facebook, and have found that even with a small amount of money, can reach a large amount of people very quickly and effectively. There has been huge success in most of the campaigns I have run on behalf of my own personal ventures in the past as well as for clients. No brainer for me personally.
Proposal
With the help of the Steemit community, I would like to offer my time and efforts in creating a Facebook campaign for Steemit, crowdfunded via up votes of course.
Why Facebook? Well it would be a bit cheeky I think. I have researched their advertising guidelines, and there is nowhere on there that says we cannot advertise a social network, or a blockchain social network, which is what Steemit is, so I don’t see a problem. And like I said, we may even make a bit of news, “Rival social network crowd funs Facebook ad to steal users”. I’m getting butterflies.
Facebook, with regards to South Africa at least, has over 13 million active monthly users. This is total potential reach. Not too shabby I think. It isn’t as big as the US and other regions, but my intention here is to attempt to broaden the content on Steemit. The issue I am having is waking up and seeing a whole lot of content published from the West, nothing wrong, but I think Steemit and its users will benefit from a global contribution, not just from the US.
Why South Africa? Well, I live here, and I would really enjoy content from the region I live in. Plus, there is a huge wave of internet connectivity being rolled out, and the mobile network coverage is conducive to under-privileged, low income earners who are stuck in a dead-end, slave-driven job that has a story to share with us.
We can also target certain topics if we want to, or just do a general broad reach of the whole country. I would do the whole country, I feel that every human being can benefit from the un-censorship value of Steemit, as well as rewarding users for the content.
Challenge Using Facebook
You need to have a Facebook Page. Now I am involved in a few businesses that have Facebook Pages. Individuals cannot create an advert.
Solutions to this could be that we use on of the pages that I have control over. I will create a post, which will be the advert, and then boost that post. It will be unfortunate that this is the rule, but I feel that I do not want to stop at this challenge.
The Facebook page I will use is the Media company I am part of called Free Mind Media to advertise to.
If Steemit has a facebook page, or someone has created one for the website, then I would be happy to boost that instead of my page. We will just need to clarify that before, but the fund raising can continue until we need to press play, and all these things have been ironed out.
How much?
As much as possible. I don’t want anything out of this personally, although I do understand that my wallet will be attributed with Steem Power.
I am happy to declare that whatever the amount of Steem Dollars I receive through Up Votes on this post reaches by Tuesday the 30th of August 2016, I will use towards the Facebook campaign.
I had a thought that the idea of giving Facebook money in any brings a slight ill feeling to my gut, however, it passes once we remember that the Steemit will probably take users away from them, so thats cool.
Duration of the campaign
I will run the campaign from the 1st of September to the 30th of September 2016. The reason I have selected September is because it is Spring in South Africa, and generally South Africans are in a good mood during that month. I will also get artwork and the designs of the advert posted on Steemit for the community to see and approve. Also there should be a discussion if anyone is interested in taking part in that will be about the content of the advert. I do like the “Blog. Get Paid.” style of the ad that @Steemdrive used for their billboards.
Sustainability
Towards the end of the month campaign, I would like to post another post to enquire if the Steemit community would like to run another advert, and a discussion can be had around this. We can have a continued sustainable Facebook advert running for ever if we play our cards correctly.
Possible negative outcome
One major possibility is that Facebook may not approve our advert, although, as referenced below, we don’t seem to be looking to violate any of their rules and regulations. In the event of that happening, it will be communicated with you, and the funds raised will be utilised in another way along the same lines of advertising. I do have one or two backup plans on a public transport system in South Africa that has the right target market of middle to low income earners who will be more inclined in using the power of Steemit
Other notes
While writing this, I had thoughts of users on Steemit not being for this campaign for whatever reason, and people tend to not want to share a system with everyone they know. For example, I don’t really want people who post cats on Steemit, but then again, with no censorship, and the way Steemit is structured, these people won’t be forced on our feed that we have full control over. We can always down vote them cat ladies! Mwhahahahaha!
Also, I have been doing research on the crypto-currency Dash. They have a dedicated percentage towards a budget that the network can use for developer fees, marketing budget, etc… I think every blockchain entity needs marketing to a degree. I respect the developers and founders of all innovative technologies, and they are incredible at what they do and how they use their skills, but generally, there are other skills lacking that are required for a successful website or organisation. It truly is a community driven thing, with the users individual skills, talents, vision and foresight brought in a unified way to better the community as a whole.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post, and I do hope we can post an ad for the community by the community, to at least cause some excitement in the market of social networks.
Facebook Stat report: https://www.webafrica.co.za/blog/social-media-2/social-media-latest-south-african-stats/
Facebook Stat report: http://businesstech.co.za/news/internet/98085/facebook-reveals-user-numbers-for-south-africa/
Facebook Advertising Terms: https://www.facebook.com/policies/ads/#overview
Steemit title photo origins: https://unsplash.com/?photo=_4Ib-a8g9aA
Steemit title photo created by:
Intentions
To grow and increase the value of Steemit.com for the benefit of its users and to show the world that the unbelievable is believable.