I've been thinking about @JerryBanfield's post from a few days ago where he highlights some of the problems that is holding the STEEM community from going forward and proposes a new way of funding marketing and ecosystem development proposals similar to Dash, which I think is a great idea and first step. But I'm not sure it is enough.
The main problem that I see that Steemit has is that it's too centralized around the STEEM blockchain, odd as that might sound. When you look on Steemit you'll find tons of posts praising STEEM and Steemit, but look on other social media and you'll hardly find anybody talking about it.
For example, when I investigate a new cryptocurrency the first place I go to is Reddit. Well, the STEEM reddit is a terribly quiet place that doesn't ooze enthusiasm at all. Why is it so quiet there? Why is nobody discussing STEEM and where are all the moonposts? As Steemians we know these are on Steemit, but if you're not already on Steemit then how are you supposed to know?
Posting on Steemit is like an echo-chamber, because it is it's own closed ecosystem. Whereas other social media platforms are linked and messages from one platform cross over into the other platform, the STEEM blockchain seems to have created it's own little island on the internet and simply hopes for people to magically stumble on it through Google or otherwise and start adopting it. It's a very passive way of marketing.
That's why @Jerrybanfield's suggestion is a great one because it retakes the initiative and turns the marketing outward, which will be much more efficient. But there are more steps we could take. I've often wondered for example why it is so hard to keep up with STEEM development? There seems to be no central discussion forum, or central 'news page'. The answer is usually to follow 
Maybe some people don't want to use other social media platforms because they feel it's 'better' to just use Steemit instead, and I can understand that, but we'll end up creating a closed circle of the same people and not drawing anybody new in. So the next time you make a post on why Steemit is so great, consider posting it on Facebook, Medium, Reddit or other social media as well (or instead)!
Ideally, there would be a way to link Steemit to other social media platforms. Similarly to how some platforms offer a 'Share with Twitter!' button, or how Youtube lets you embed it's videos on other platforms? It would be lovely if Steemit posts could be shared on Facebook in similar ways. Perhaps Steemit could offer an easy copy&paste script to embed Steemit posts onto other sites? This way we can more easily breach through on existing platforms as a brand rather than an URL.
These are just some of my thoughts as a user of Steemit, hoping for the best for this platform.
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