I like steempower. Do you?
I'm Sid - short for Siddharth! I'm the co-founder and editor of The Indian Sun, Australia's leading publication for Indian diaspora. I have been in the business of publishing for over 13 years in Australia. Australia's Indian diaspora is growing rapidly fast. In fact, Indians are one of the fastest growing migrant community in Australia. Most of our readers are big fans of social media and spend hours of their time consuming content off Facebook. They do not have a large social network or family in Australia which is driving them to social media to stay in touch with loved ones and to consume news and entertainment. For Steemit world, I see this as a great opportunity and I want to use the magazine space - both online and offline - to get the community to back Steemit.
Australia's population is 23 million roughly and out of this at least 1 million are of Indian heritage. This is not the official figure, but you stack the numbers of who are culturally Indians, then you can safely put the number at over a million. The 1 million will include those Indians who have moved to Australia from across the world including India, Fiji, Africa, the UK and Europe.
Our readers love investing. Property investment is one of the main areas where most of their savings flow into. It would be sensational if I can convince them to spend a fraction of their investment into Steemit and Steem and spend more time on Steemit to grow their investment.
Images of our various front pages
My spiel on Steemit
The old media establishment controlled by vested interest groups have crumbled with the emergence of social media. Steemit is definitely the most interesting thing that's happened in publishing since Facebook. Since Steemit is a community of passionate content creators and readers, I see this as a great opportunity to invest and grow a revenue stream. Just by writing, sharing photos and videos, commenting and debating we can make an income. Not just that, it will stimulate content creators to embrace this community and enrich this platform with original content. Social Media on blockchain is a beautiful and novel way to break free from the clutches of advertiser controlled content. Money meant for content creators should go directly to content creators. There shouldn't be a middleman - no ad agency, no google, no Facebook decides what you earn. If your content is smart, people will pay you directly by showing their love and support. That's the coolest thing that has ever emerged in our industry. It's the equivalent to virtual busking. This is virtual busking. I'm a virtual busker! Like you and many other steemers.
Kids and me at Cradle Mountain in Tasmania
My Plans for Steemit
We have an email subscriber base of 38,000 members. The Indian Sun has a very active social media presence on Facebook with 19k plus likes. It has an active community group and a hard copy print edition that circulates across the country on a monthly basis. Our revenue model is purely advertising which means our content is pretty much pushed towards what our clients want. It also means as publishers, like most publishers, we are into client servicing. It's an important part of what publishing is these days. But the unfortunate bit is we do not get time to service our readers enough. We are unable to do cutting edge journalistic work that helps our readers. Our efforts are invariably spent on profiling advertising clients and communicating government campaigns to our audience. I'm not saying this is not a good thing. I'm saying this is not enough and we have to go back to our roots and service our audience to stand apart as a media organisation. So that fake news do not have a place.
I like metal music
With the traditional advertising model collapsing and more and more of our readers and advertisers migrating to Facebook and Google, our future was very bleak till Steemit was born. Now I believe in a future where we can service and deliver better stories, opinions to our readers. The success of this would purely remain on how we help our readers migrate to steemit. More and more users embracing Steemit will not only strengthen Steemit but it will also make Facebook more accountable. We need several of these publishing platforms to thrive together. Not just one!
I need your upvotes, your following to drive home the point and make Steemit bigger in my community. This is a path that has to be paved brick by brick and each of your upvotes and tips will help me move forward.
and I like my redwine
About me: I like music/ I listen to a lot of rock/metal/country/ like my redwine / and no I don't play the guitar. That's my son's guitar!
I love spending time with kids - a daughter and a son. What I love the most is going travelling with my kids.
Thank you and let's Steemit together!