Steemit is in a very good position to be the one of the leaders in the attention economy and can easily move past social media giants like Google, YouTube and Facebook.

With this post I hope to make a case for Steemit Inc, the developers and the community to consider bringing advertising to Steemit platform as an alternative revenue stream.

We do have however need to get millions of people to join the platform, but more importantly keep people actively engaged in the platform. I am sure I will write a lot of common knowledge facts in this post, but sometimes it helps to put things in context. I also might say things that I assume or interpret incorrectly, but that is why we have a comments section for discussion.

I have written a post a few days ago on how Youtube, got some ads placed incorrectly and the massive impact this has on their advertising revenue and reputation. I have been thinking about how Steemit has an advantage over these social media giants for quite some time and decided to write a post, about these advantages and hopefully built a case for Steemit to consider implementing specific features to utilise the attention economy in the future roadmap.

I personally do not enjoy applications with advertisements scattered all over them, but if it is done correctly, and the adverts is actually targeted very specifically in my field of interest, with the added benefit of bringing value to Steem and potentially pushing up the Steem price, it might just be a different story …

Attracting attention has been an industry – advertising – since the second half of the nineteenth century. But in the last 25 years, it has turned into the basis for the entire digital economy. The crucial change was the ability to produce and consume media at increasingly low marginal cost

Quote Source

Image Source

Why is Steemit better off than Google and Facebook?

Well, I have read many posts on the Steemit platform, where people are very negative about the two Social media giants, as a result of their business models. Reason being that these giants are using our data, for their own benefit and pockets and are making billions of dollars but just giving a fraction back to the website owners and content producers which is attracting the adverts.

So what makes Google and Facebook better than anyone else?

Image Source

Google Business Model

Google has been the no 1 ranked in search engine technology for many years, for a few reasons:
.
- They do what they do very well, as a result of their page rank algorithm, which ensures that you get what you search for. For most of us it is common knowledge that you will receive the appropriate links to your search criteria when you use Google. When you really think about it, there are billions of websites across the internet, and the search engine pick the appropriate ones based to show you in your search results. How many times were you not really satisfied with the results.
- They are in the position to do this, by what is called a Hypertext-Matching-Analysis. HMA basically analyse the content of a web page and in conjunction with the page-rack feature the software decides what is the best result for the search query.
- This sounds much easier than what it actually is considering that they use more than 500 variables and search through billions of text strings, words and website.

When you are in a position to be able to match something like a one or two word search string to the appropriate webpage while searching through billions of webpages, you need to have a lot of data to search through and very well thought through ranking systems like the Page Rank Algorithm and HMA. This unfortunately also means that places like Google and Facebook, has a lot of your personal information in order to be able to personalise the results you are looking for, which opens up another conversation… Hypertargeting.

Hypertargeting

Targeted advertising to a consumer has always been a desire of marketers. Some techniques have been in place for years. Yet in today’s digital world, we’re able to drill down much further — to the bold new world of hypertargeting.

No matter your budget or campaign size hypertargeting can help your marketing dollars go further and achieve better results.

Hypertargeting refers to delivering customized messaging to a very defined or niche audience across various advertising mediums. Advertisers can reach these audiences by leveraging audience segment data and advanced technologies.

Source

Both Google and Facebook has the ability to utilise Hypertargeting as a result of all the detail they hold about each of us, and this pot of information is only getting better and better.

Image Source

So why does Steemit have an advantage over the other sites?

Steemit users has wallets

In order for Google and Facebook to pay the websites and content providers, you have to go through a stringent process where you need to register, add a few lines of code to your website for tracking purposes in order to be paid your share of revenue generated by the adverts which were displayed on your content or website. Google is making billions of dollars.

Steemit already has tracking mechanisms in place.

Each Steemit user already has it's own area, i.e. "Your portal", where you write and publish your blogs, vote for people who you follow - "Your Feed", "Your Wallet page" etc. Why not write a mall advertising engine, similar to google, where adverts are displayed at the top of Your pages, and this when people click or view the ads, get a share of the revenue generated from the advertising directly into your wallet.

Steemit users actively monitors their own pages

One of the main areas where Google, Facebook and Yourtube falls over, is that it is very difficult to monitor, where the advertisements of advertisers are placed. As per the article I wrote a few days ago on how Youtube, got some ads placed incorrectly . Steemit users can report adverts in the cases where it does not make sense. At the end of the day, it is important for all of us on the platform that the advertising works well.

There are many other advatanges, but this posts will get too long if I list them all.

Why use advertising on the site.

I am not a specialist in Crypto or Economy at all, but I have many years of experience in business and I have yet to see a business, which makes money, without having money flowing into the business. In my mind the only difference between Steemit Inc. and any other company in the world, is that Steemit has a crypto angle to it. All the other aspects of business still apply... and that is Steemit Inc must make money :)

In my opinion, there is a great need for new revenue, to flow into the Steemit platform, either by people physically investing money into the platform, or by generating alternative revenue streams to get money to flow into the platform.

When we have advertising on the site, we have a real business as the money flowing into the platform is not only printed by the blockchain, but there is actual fiat cash flowing into Steemit Inc. which can be used in many ways, including enhancing the platform to attract new users, as well as generating funds for marketing to the large amount of users, which either do not know about Steem, or don't want to use Steem for some or other reason.

Buy the user base, by incentivizing them not only through creating content, but give them a share of the revenue generated by the advertising on their Steemit "Spaces".

Increasing the Steem Price

Again I am not a trader or specialist in economy, but I do have some business logic as a result of my history with doing business. I believe that advertising will generate more revenue for Steemit as well as its user base. I have written a few posts about the "Internet of Value". The days of one large entity making a lot of money from others peoples content will soon be something of the past.

Investors invest to get a return on their investment and for no other reason…

When Steemit Inc generates revenue from external FIAT currency, I thoroughly believe that there is more reason for the traders, investors and other business to trade and invest in Steem. Why? Because they will get a better return on their investment.

One area of Steemit, which I am still struggling to understand, is why most people say that the Content Creator on Steemit should not do it for the money. I fully agree that people should not try to game the system, but why not do it for the money. I am lucky to be in the position, to not write for money, but there are hundreds of people, that can be do with the additional cash in their pockets when writing content for Steemit.

My questions to the community?

• Would you be interested in pursuing the opportunity to have advertising on Steemit?
• Will it and if so why will it be bad for the Steemit site and Community?
• Any other comments will be appreciated.

Happy Steeming!

---