One of the biggest aspects holding Steemit back from attracting more users within the cryptocurrency space is the fact that many users may not actually know about the platform.
Many new and existing individuals within the cryptocurrency community could reap serious benefits by utilizing the Steemit platform, but there are still many users who likely have no idea about the Steemit platform. There are likely many traders and investors that only keep up with the projects and tokens that they are invested in, and therefore would be much less likely to find out about and gain information on the Steemit platform. Coinmarketcap is a reliable website for tracking cryptocurrencies prices, market capitalizations, and trading activity, and is one of the most popular cryptocurrency resource sites on the internet. Coinmarketcap has been able to achieve the amount of traffic that enables them to work with advertisers directly, and I think advertising Steemit through platforms like Coinmarketcap could be extremely effective at drawing more users and individuals from the cryptocurrency community to the Steemit platform.
While any form of platform advertising should obviously be generally agreed upon by large stakeholders/members of the Steemit team, the advertising campaign could likely be funded through community donations and posting rewards. The minimum amount spent on the advertising campaign needs to be 2,000 USD, but I personally think that would be an achievable amount to raise over a period of a few weeks. The development of the advertisements themselves could likely be put forth by members of the community as well, and a reward system would likely be able to be easily implemented to promote and incentive individuals to design advertisements to be selected. Of course any rewards would need to be completely transparent and independent from the funding account, but I think that the community has shown just how well they can collaborate on matters that promote the long term success of the Steemit platform.
How could advertising on a site with an audience of cryptocurrency users help Steemit to gain an influx of new and valuable users?
This is not to say that all users aren't valuable because all users are, but the users of coinmarketcap likely have interest in a few specific projects and may be able to help to generate more cryptocurrency related content on the Steemit platform. Cryptocurrency posts have been dominant on Steemit since the very beginning, and I believe that they serve as a valuable resource for drawing organic traffic to the Steemit platform. Over the past several months I have encountered Steemit links in nearly every EOS and Graphene related google search, and in my opinion the abundant resources on existing and new cryptocurrency projects can draw many dedicated users to the Steemit platform. While a large value investor may not have any interest in earning posting rewards, most of the traffic to sites like coinmarketcap is derived by small and medium sized investors. I believe that the individuals who are most likely to use the Steemit platform for the purpose of publishing and curating content are small to medium sized investors, and the reward system is something that is very enticing to this group of individuals.
While an individual may originally join or come to the Steemit platform due to the reward structure, as they remain on the platform they may become increasingly involved. I assume many of us originally joined the platform to see if the concept was actually true, and the platform has proved it to be true so far. Many small and medium sized investors and users in the cryptocurrency industry likely haven't heard about the Steemit platform, and that's something that I believe advertising could actually achieve. While the advertising would require some form of funding, the benefits that the potential new users could bring to the platform would likely be much greater in the long run. As the adoption of Steemit increases,the native Steem token gains more value, so it is in the interest of all stakeholders to increase the size of the Steemit community.
While a large portion of the advertisements that are on coinmarketcap are announcing ICO's and new cryptocurrency projects, I assume that many users like myself simply ignore these advertisements the majority of the time. If the Steemit advertisements were presented in a way that conveys that the platform has been live and successful for over a year now, and has paid out over xxx$ in rewards since 2016 to users for posting content on the site. Instead of coming across as another flashy ICO advertisement or get rich quick scheme, the advertisement could let users know that the Steem token is actually earned on the platform by end users. I personally traded Steem numerous times on Poloniex ever before joining the platform, and would have joined much sooner had I realized what the Steem tokens actually represented. The advertisement would need to portray the reality that users actually earn valuable tokens on the platform, without making the user overly skeptical by it sounding too good to be true. The advertisements on coinmarketcap are consistently promising unbelievable returns and investment opportunities, so a factual advertisement by a top 20 cryptocurrency would likely grab many users attention.
Even if the advertising campaign was only able to bring 1000 new active users to Steemit, that would still be an over 5% increase in user base for a comparatively small amount of network resources. I believe that if the advertisements were constructed with the correct message in mind, an advertising campaign could be incredibly effective at bringing new attention and users to the Steemit platform. As a greater amount of content begins to find its way to the Steemit platform, Steemit becomes increasingly prevalent and relevant for drawing organic traffic through search-engines which is one of the most effective ways of harnessing new users. The promotion of the Steemit platform through flyer campaigns have been successful, but could a targeted advertising campaign at existing cryptocurrency users be even more effective?
This post is not announcing such a campaign, but simply is serving as a method of introducing the idea and attempting to generate feedback on it from the community. I really hope that you enjoyed this post, and I really look forward to hearing your feedback on the idea. Please feel free to leave any comments, questions, feedback, ect. in the comments below. Please feel free to share this post to increase its exposure if you like this idea, and thanks for reading!