What I'm about to present to you people is not something that should be shared externally.
The term 'sharing' in this article isn't about allowing someone to temporarily use your property. I'm writing about 'sharing' content.
So
You managed to onboard another content creator.
Congratulations.
Have you noticed how the stage is getting fuller and fuller? New acts are stepping on, as some acts get attention, while other acts are dropping off the edge kind of like this:
Ever wonder why yourself and several others seem to go completely unnoticed? And at some point (based on what I've witnessed over the years), you're thinking or noticing other disgruntled members being all like, "WTF! This platform is broken!"
Yet the platform, which as a word is synonymous with 'stage', works perfectly fine. Look at me! I'm on stage! Mission complete!
There's literally nothing else this platform needs to do in order to be a platform or, stage. What you do on stage or, what you decided to use the platform for, is all that actually matters. It's all on you, kid.
So what's the problem?
Turn up the lights and look around.
There are millions of seats surrounding you. Notice how most of them are empty?
That's right! All these successful onboarding attempts placing acts on stage and somehow we managed to forget the most important part!
Consumers!
"Hooray!" Says that one guy in the corner...
Meanwhile, as I write this, elsewhere on the internet millions of instances of actual content are on display, and billions of consumers are lapping this shit up.
New Youtube video came out today! Almost instantly, within a day, we see 100k views and several thousand comments. I've never been one to yell at the TV but these days we call that 'engagement' and people love doing it.
So we have millions of people right now as you're reading this sentence; writing sentences somewhere else for free!
And not one of those people knows they can actually be rewarded for that behavior. Hundreds of millions of dollars are also exchanging hands, between content consumer and content creator, with a middleman taking a hefty percentage and ripping everyone off from all directions.
Hive's current business model, with improvements on the way, offers hundreds of millions of people a better deal than some of the richest corporations in the world can offer. Not bad for a virtual nobody.
One could spend all day yapping about content they consumed, as they do, and stand a chance of earning a little bit. One could achieve their goal of supporting or tipping or donating to a content creator, as they do, without that money leaving their wallet since they staked their funds instead. Consumers are not only supporting those who entertain or inform. Their money also goes to ensuring the stage never collapses or goes out of business.
But I digress...
This article isn't supposed to be about how this community has been overlooking the obvious and how incredibly disruptive Hive's business model can be when used as a tool and combined with an individual who knows how to use it. Nor is this about the billions of dollars that could most likely be entering Hive's ecosystem once this potential is fully realized.
It's about utilizing instances of actual content as free marketing instead of spending money on it.
The term 'sharing' is actually just a fancy way of making content consumers worldwide double as content distributors.
It used to cost ridiculous amounts of money to place an instance of content, like a newspaper, inside many homes. So expensive they'd hire children in order to cut costs. These days all they have to do is get you politically charged somehow, and within seconds without even reading the full article, you're already sharing it on social media, earning 'likes' and good job buttons like a bunch of kindergarteners.
The professionals on their fancy centralized content platforms can't even function without society being so generous these days with their time and energy.
I don't go on Facebook or Twitter to consume content directly. I'm offered headlines and links to content platforms. PeakD is a content platform that runs on Hive. Based on what I'm seeing, Twitter would be one of the more popular distribution tools people use around here.
But unfortunately, without a horde of genuine dedicated consumers actively engaging and sharing our works, the potential reach is spread incredibly thin. Sure people are sharing links to their own content to an outside following that's almost identical to their inside following but that's just a fancy way of going in circles and listening to yourself bounce off the walls of an echo chamber.
My friends, back in the day, when Facebook was new and going mobile (since they didn't know how to use computers or internet) found out about Youtube.
"How did they find out?"
Oh I thought you'd never ask isn't this exciting. Well I just started sharing articles and videos about Youtube and the technology and how they managed to place moving pixels in front of your eyes and how someday they could get paid to produce content there and how it was going to be the cable TV killer and I told them to invest their money in it every fucking day for five years.
Just kidding!
I just shared an instance of actual content that had literally nothing to do with Youtube.
People loved that and became interested in Youtube.
Simple!
I didn't even realize at the time, myself and the millions of other content consumers sharing content in this fashion would all be contributing to the success of something like a platform like Youtube. We were simply having fun and 'sharing' that joy with other people.
Now that I'm balls deep being a content creator all while studying this industry instead of just 'post content get paid', things are starting to make a lot more sense.
Common sense helps, too.
Some people might look at my three previous posts and think, "This guy is just fucking around and wasting our time. Why isn't he talking about Hive every day or writing generic brand information nobody asked for."
The reality is I'm trying really hard to create my own unique form of entertainment, just like any other professional in this industry, and a lot of people come to enjoy the show. It's designed for the consumers of the world to enjoy, not act as just some placeholder to collect rewards. It's designed to appeal to people on the outside as well as the inside, but today I'm taking a break to talk to you folks on the inside. Which is why I said at the start this shouldn't be shared to the outside.
In my early days sometimes I'd earn well under a dollar per piece, but I also had a large following on Stumbleupon. So I'd make some entertaining content that maybe got overlooked by the tiny local consumer base because I wasn't preaching to the choir, so I'd earn a few cents, but it's showing 1000 views.
Each instance of actual content circulating on the outside gave me a new reader and doubled as free advertising for the entire platform. My work drove thousands upon thousands of new eyes to this platform in the early days. One of the 'advertisements' for the platform was a story about a nutcase who was convinced a washed up and on drugs version of Elmo was his father. Or another story about how I worked with a guy named Fuk. I guess people like it. I can't control these things.
Then Stumbleupon shut down, I lost the following of thousands (which can NEVER happen on Hive) along with losing quick easy access to a solid consumer base; felt slightly devastated and realized now I could only depend on consumers going out of their way to share my work.
But we don't have those here. Some people won't even look at a post if it earns more than theirs. Consumers hear about this place from all you people and instead of being consumers they go try creating content hoping to get rich, then leave feeling like failures which they're not, while not realizing they could earn way more just being themselves and enjoying the show.
You look at a platform like PeakD, and they don't even make the 'share to social media' options obvious. It's hidden behind a button that brings up a menu I assume most don't click. Whereas everywhere else those share options are made obvious because they know consumers use it and drive traffic to their platforms, free of charge.
The Kicker
If those exposed to ACTUAL CONTENT located exclusively on this platform (which will be several platforms on Hive by the time I'm done with this and they all benefit from this info) were greeted with a message stating consumer habits like commenting and upvoting were rewarded behaviors around here, you'd have people lined up around the block trying to get in.
1000 consumers with a vote worth a penny is way more valuable than one consumer with a vote worth ten bucks.
Once they're in, then they're exposed to everything else on chain, and bring their money with them. With no mention of Hive, at all, a market of potential investors is knocking on the door.
One exclusive piece of content going viral because it's entertaining so people shared it to people who shared it who then in turn shared it to people who shared it makes all your marketing and onboarding attempts look like child's play.
Simply pick any one content platform website you frequent and consider how you found out about it, if you have trouble believing me. Was it an advertisement about that website or was it a link shared on social media that didn't even mention the platform?
I'm not trying to change the world here. Just offering you folks some food for thought. There is only one thing that frustrates me about this platform and that is the general lack of interest in attracting consumers and all the benefits that come with having them around.
I try my best, but I alone can only do so much.
If you see some solid content out there you think others are going to like, share it.
And don't be afraid to tell folks they can be rewarded for their consumption habits here.
Thanks.
Have a nice day.
