For last couple of weeks I have been talking to people and was actively trying to recruit people to join Steemit.com. It was a very interesting experience. I have received so many different reactions from people. The main challenge seems to be explaining blockchain. There are still many people who have absolutely no clue what blockchain technology is and what it does.
Today I have attempted to do an informal group seminar to group of people. Group was very diverse: they had background, expertise, experience and/or interest in music, sports, culinary, landscaping, event services, and video games. There were total of 14 people in the group initially. They all know me personally, we interact with each other either in daily or weekly basis.
I gathered them all and said - "I would like to introduce you guys to Steemit if you are interested". Then I told those who are interested to stay, and rest could carry on. Seven people ended up staying to learn about Steemit, "50% stayed, not bad for the first try" - I thought.
I started the conversation with asking them if they use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit. Answers were various, but all were Facebook users, and none used Reddit.
I moved on explaining the reward system in Steeemit. "You get rewarded for your content, your interaction, your upvotes and comments" - I said. Then I stared demonstrating examples of my own blog and some from trending, just to show the potential of Steemit if they started using it. Immediately questions poured in and they all had one thing in mind - "Where is the money coming from? Who is paying and why?". I asked them if they knew what blockchain was. Unanimous answer was "No". I promised them to answer their questions about financial aspects of the Steemit system after I finish explaining how it works. So I did, I explaining singing up process and how things work in Steemit. Most of the time I had to rely on comparison to how Facebook works.
Now I had to explain blockchain. Have you ever trying explaining blockchain? I still have hard time fully understanding blockchain myself. But I thought good point to start would be bitcoin and I explained the history of bitcoin and its success. Once they got some idea bout bitcoin, it was a bit easier to explain Steemit rewarding process and concepts of decentralization.
At the end of this discussion, one person ended up signing up right afterwards. Another person already had Steemit account that he opened back in February, but never used. Now we got him back and he is excited to become active member of the community. One more lady is very excited about joining, I believe she will do so soon. She even showed me how some of her Facebook posts were getting thousands of likes. Obviously I was like - "Thousands of likes in Steemit would have a handsome about of financial rewards". So, no doubt, she is in. Rest are still contemplating and trying to really understand.
In conclusion, I brought one Steemer back to the community, got one more sign up, and another will sign up shortly. I say it was a success for the first time. I have gain experience, next time I do this I think I can do better.
Afterwards, I even went out and tried to recruit some seagulls.
