Yesterday I published an article titled, Conor McGregor: The Greatest Show on Earth. I was very happy with it, but after 16 hours spent floundering on Steemit with under $1 in Steem rewards, I realized part of the problem: it's a terrible title for Steemit. Now, I obviously can't rule out the possibility that it's simply not a good article, whether specifically for Steemit or just period. But I'm pretty sure the new title, "How to Become a Champion: Conor McGregor," is more appropriate to the medium. Steemit is a new platform and people seem attracted to the hope and aspirational nature of it.
Steemit feels like an opportunity to redefine ourselves, improve ourselves, and improve the world. For that reason "How to" articles seem to do better, especially when they are related specifically to Steemit. I played with the idea of naming the article, "How to Become a Champion Steemit Creator," but I felt that this was a tad disingenuous. I do believe that studying high performers in any field always provides incredible value, including to people looking to create better content that gets better traction. However that parallel isn't necessarily obvious enough in that specific article and I do not want to risk leaving the reader feeling as if they have been mislead.
That being said, I still think the new title could do well, but I can't help feeling that as an older post it is now at a disadvantage. The odds of it being seen are lower and there's nothing I can do about that.
That's why I wish there were some way to spend Steem or Steem Power to goose the article and attempt to regain some traction. I don't see any reason why this should not be possible.
It's not "unfair" for me to spend the Steem I have earned creating valuable content (content that did earn a lot of Steem) to attempt to get some of my lesser known stuff in front of more eyes. If I'm wrong and the content isn't valuable, then the only person I'm hurting is myself. To take this specific example, I would gladly spend $10 worth of Steem to test out my new title. If the current revenue from the article ($1.68) is a strong indicator of the article's "real" value, then I'd likely lose over $8 from the transaction. Which is fine by me. I should be penalized for attempting to boost bad content. But at the same time, I should be rewarded for creating good content, even if I make the mistake of giving it a bad title or (as another example) publishing before it is quite "ready."
I believe the importance of this cannot be overstated. High quality content is the key to Steemit. People may be drawn to the idea of getting paid to participate in a social network, but if the content isn't any good no one will feel the need to visit the site. But let's be honest. Right now the best content creators are not on Steemit and they won't be until it is a more attractive option than their current platforms. Where Steemit can differentiate itself (and to a certain extent already does) is in its ability to enable you to modify your content and continue to make money off of it.
I will often post an article before it is "perfect" just to get it out there to see how it is received. If it gets immediate attention, that usually tells me that at least the title is good, so I'll go back into the body of the post and refine it some more. I'll correct any spelling and grammatical errors I might have missed, organize it a bit better, remove any redundant text or elaborate on any points that might have been insufficiently fleshed out. That way the post actually gets better the more people read it, creating a virtuous feedback loop.
Giving users the ability to enhance this effect by boosting their posts with Steem could be a unique value proposition for content creators that Steemit could offer over the competition. By enabling Steemians to A-B test and refine our content we would be better able to compete with the "professionals" using other, more mature, platforms.