The "Big Mac Index" was introduced by the Economist as an informal way of measuring the purchasing power parity between two currencies.
On Steemit we can use a similar concept to measure the quality of the engagement on the platform.
This following graph shows, for the month of July, the number of comments per day that included the comments "Follow me", "Follow" or "Upvote".
As new user it is natural to be eager to get followers, and it can be very difficult at the start.
Etiquette
When I joined Steemit last October I read some Etiquette about commenting. The advice was not to ask for follows or upvotes. Being new to social media at the time, I followed the advice but I see some reasoning for it.
How would you feel if you spent ages writing an article, agonising over the every word, spell checking, even getting it reviewed by people before posting for someone to come along and (probably not even read it) and just to comment follow me?
In some cases it may be ok to point someone to your work but probably best to engage with their work rather than trying to direct people to your own work. I don't think comments on other peoples posts are a place for self promotion.
Is there a way to measure how much of this is happening on Steemit?
Followmenomics
Using the concept of an informal index, like the Big Mac Index, I have creating a "Follow me Index" which will quantify aspects of the quality of the engagement here on steemit.
Follow Me Index
Looking at the number of comments that include the word follow (not followed) and scaling it by the number of daily comments I have created an index which measures the level of these types of "Follow Me" comments.
The index of "Follow Me" comments will provide an informal way of measuring two aspects of Steemit Engagement:
- The number of people looking for followers
This could be used as a yardstick for new users and in particular users coming from other Social Media Platforms where there is a recognition that number of users are key. - The Quality of the Engagement
This index is scaled by the number of comments per day which means a downward trend shows these "unpopular" comments are reducing overall, and combined with the number of daily comments would give an indication of the quality of the engagement on the platform.
Recent Related Posts
- Who does all the Chatting?
- Steem Payout Patterns
- Steemit Payouts and Author Reputation
- Post Payouts Since Hf19 Update
I am planning an update to this last post in the next few days.
Data provided by 
from steemdata.com.
Thank you for reading. I write on Steemit about Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Travel and lots of random topics.
