Weekly update on audience-building for the [Popular STEM] community - December 18

Here's an update on our audience-building activities for the Popular STEM community during the week from December 11 through December 18.

TL;DR: We continued our STEM Saturday post promotion tradition for its 30^th consecutive week; Our second 30-day/30-dollar Facebook ad is nearly finished; We shared 19 posts from the Steem blockchain on the Science and Technology on the Social Blockchain Facebook page; we had continued participation in the proof of resteem/proof of share program; The "🔥🔥🔥" label has been applied to a second account in the community for burning more than 1 STEEM; And finally, several authors have been included in the automatic post-pinning service that's provided by @mod-bot after setting @null beneficiaries on their posts.

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Introduction

Continuing our effort to become an audience first community, and previously described in Delivering an audience for the [Popular STEM] community, we have a six-pronged effort in place to help STEM bloggers build an audience here in our community. They are:

1. Sharing posts on the Facebook page, Science and Technology on the Social Blockchain
2. Facebook advertising campaigns
3. Weekly STEM Saturday post promotion.
4. Automatic post pinning for authors who burn rewards through post promotion or burning of beneficiary rewards (Visibility as a service [VAAS]).
5. Incentives for resteeming posts from our community (proof of resteem) or sharing them on Facebook (proof of share).
6. Providing the "🔥🔥🔥" badge/label for one month for author accounts in the community who burn more than one STEEM (or the equivalent amount in SBD).

^{Any/all of these programs are subject to change or discontinuation at any time without notice.}

Click through to Delivering an audience for the [Popular STEM] community for more information about any of those initiatives.

The purpose of today's update is to report back on some of those initiatives during the week.

Facebook post sharing

This week I shared 19 posts on Facebook. The picture to the right shows the top-10 of them, sorted by "Reach". The top three entries were all tied among: @answerswithjoe, @sarahjay1, and @jorgebgt, so each of those authors has been set with a 9% beneficiary reward from this post. Here are the links to the top-5 posts.

1. They Thought It Was Hail. It Was Something WAY Weirder., @answerswithjoe.
2. Orion begins its return trip to Earth, @sarahjay1.
3. New compounds discovered, @jorgebgt.
4. SpaceX launched 40 internet satellites of the OneWeb constellation, its competition, @sarahjay1.
5. NASA will construction the NEO Surveyor infrared space telescope, @sarahjay1.

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Facebook advertising

Our second $30/30-day ad is continuing for the post, Good looking students stopped getting higher grades with the transition to online learning by @sarahjay1. It should finish within the next minutes or hours, since it has already spent $29.73. In 30 days, it has reached 3,819 people and generated 351 link clicks, at a cost of $0.08 per click.

Finally, both of the posts from our last two advertising buys remain in the "Featured" section on the Science and Technology on the Social Blockchain Facebook page.

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STEM Saturday post promotion

This week, @sarahjay1's post, High consumption of omega-3s oil caused baldness… in mice, was posted to the top of the /promoted page.

Proof of resteem / Proof of share

We had participation, once again, in our proof of resteem / proof of share initiative. This time, a post was resteemed by @steemit.contest with this comment.

We are renewing the opportunity here. 25% of this post's beneficiary rewards have been set to @penny4thoughts for distribution to accounts that resteem articles from the Popular STEM community or share them from the Science and Technology on the Social Blockchain Facebook page. Recapping from Delivering an audience for the [Popular STEM] community, here's how to be eligible:

Proof of Resteem

1. Find a Popular STEM post that you think would interest your followers. (It can be before or after payout time)
2. Resteem that post (not this one)
3. Post a reply to this post with a link to the post that you resteemed, a screencap of the resteem on your blog, and a sentence or two describing the reason why you thought the post would interest your followers.

• Note that the replies must be posted at least 1 day before this post's payout time.

Proof of Share

1. Go to the Science and Technology on the Social Blockchain FB page and find a post that you think would interest your followers. (It can be before or after payout time)
2. Share that post (not this one).
3. Post a reply to this post with a link to the post that you shared, a screencap of the share on your Facebook timeline, and a sentence or two describing the reason why you thought the post would interest your followers.

• Note that the replies must be posted at least 1 day before this post's payout time.

I invite other curators to monitor these comments in order to add to the incentive for audience-growth.

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Label for burning STEEM

This week, I applied the "🔥🔥🔥" to @o1eh's account in our community. This is because the post A Team Led by a Ukrainian Scientist Discovered a New Exoplanet burned almost 24 STEEM/SP at payout time.

As a reminder, the "🔥🔥🔥" label is available for one month for any authors who burn 1 STEEM or more (or the equivalent in SBDs). Starting in January, I believe I'll add a community portion to the label and restructure it into levels, maybe something like this (PS stands for "Popular STEM"):

Badge	Burn amount
PS🔥	1-2.999 STEEM burned
PS🔥🔥	3-5.999 STEEM burned
PS🔥🔥🔥	6-11.999 STEEM burned
PS🔥🔥🔥🔥	12-24.999 STEEM burned
PS🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥	>25 STEEM burned

Note that I don't have any way to track this easily, so authors need to let me know when they are eligible for a badge.

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Conclusion

If you are a STEM enthusiast and you'd like to help build a more vibrant STEM community on the Steem blockchain, then please join our community, Like our Facebook page, and help us build our audience. If you are a STEM blogger, and you want to build an audience for your blog, then we want to help. Please contribute your content here.

As a community, we succeed or we fail together, so let's get to work building our STEM topical audience!

Note that any and all of these initiatives are subject to change or discontinuation without notice at any time.

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Thank you for your time and attention.

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Steve Palmer is an IT professional with three decades of professional experience in data communications and information systems. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics, a master's degree in computer science, and a master's degree in information systems and technology management. He has been awarded 3 US patents.

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^{Pixabay license, source}

Reminder

Visit the /promoted page and #burnsteem25 to support the inflation-fighters who are helping to enable decentralized regulation of Steem token supply growth.