Hug, Encourage, Flatter, Reward; a Cavafian approach to Steemit's marketing strategy

More than 100 years ago, one of the greatest Greek poets C. P. Cavafy wrote the famous poem "As much as you can"

And if you can’t shape your life the way you want,
at least try as much as you can
not to degrade it
by too much contact with the world,
by too much activity and talk.

Try not to degrade it by dragging it along,
taking it around and exposing it so often
to the daily silliness
of social events and parties,
until it comes to seem a boring hanger-on.

(Source: C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition. Princeton University Press, 1992)

Naturally, one would ask; how does this have anything to do with Steemit?

In my mind it answers the question; How do we market ourselves vs peers, in the social networks front?

A hundred years ago people were interacting physically with each other, they socialized in their local communities, established networks and friendships in order to shape their life the way they wanted, either socially or financially. A hundred years after people are still trying to do the same thing, but now they are attending the virtual parties taking place in the various social media networks.

Social media are thriving, why?

Firstly, because they give us some control on the impression we make on others, meaning they allow us to create an avatar of ourselves based on criteria we think that we have to fulfill to become more acceptable by Others (Chimp attitude n1; I need to belong to a group. Hormonal effect n.1; Increase in Oxytocin. Psychological dependency n. 1; I don’t want to die alone.)

Secondly, because once our avatar does get accepted by Others we increase our potential to gain Social Currency. With the right marketing of our products - which can vary from a well worked out six-pack to our entrepreneurial genius, our stocks go up. New potentials arise, that can help us shape the life we want. So if you are alone, you may increase your chances of fishing a date, if you need to change job you may get the call by a headhunter, if you need to feel better about your looks you can get a 100 likes for a selfie. The ability to influence the attitude of others towards you is Power. (Chimp attitude n2; I want to become the Alpha male / I want to mate with the Alpha male. Hormonal effect n.2; Increase in Dopamine, Adrenaline and Testosterone. Psychological dependency n.2; I want to be important.)

Thirdly, because we establish low-maintenance relationships based on virtual reciprocity. We like the posts of the ones that like our post, we upvote our upvoters, we follow our followers, we resteem the posts of those who resteem our posts etc. It doesn’t cost us anything! We even become fans of our fans’ fans and haters of our fans’ haters.

Unfortunately, our limited free time prevents us to assess the massively accepted criteria of what is worth and what is not, and we often allow ourselves to be carried away and copy the “successful” avatars of others. In the end we end up

degrading our life
with too much contact with the world,
with too much activity and talk.
by dragging it along,
taking it around and exposing it so often
to the daily silliness
of social events and parties,
until it comes to seem a boring hanger-on.

Should Steemit aspire to belong to the group of widely adopted social media, it should at least be able to

a) Accommodate its users’ basic biological and psychological tendencies that any other social media would,

b) Provide something extra to differentiate itself from the other social media, something better, something beyond silliness.

I’ll start from (b) because we definitely got this point going;

Steemit REWARDS you for posting and voting!

The Pros;

Obviously, this is an unbeatable argument why one should invest time on Steemit. When all others offer Social Currency, we offer Social Currency AND Digital Currency. No Brainer, right?

The Cons;

Well… from a purely legal perspective this marketing approach contains a misrepresentation. Steemit MAY reward you for posting and voting, subject to the liking and judgment of its users – not to mention that it has to be the most prominent ones. To the extent that users at sign up don’t have to pay something and Steemit doesn’t pretend to be a nonprofit organization or something, no material legal risks are to be faced yet.

From a user’s psychological perspective though, the risk is that Steemit will largely fail to fulfill the new users’ expectations (who are also largely spoiled by other social media where everything is made easy), ending up with a number of additional inactive accounts and zero added value to the platform’s net worth. And this is a material risk that needs to be mitigated. Let’s call this Challenge B.1

Last but not least, only a small fraction of people at this time consider cryptos to equal actual currency, and therefore are unable to understand how Steem can be a real reward. The fact that one has to trade Steem to Bitcoin and then Bitcoin to fiat, doesn’t help much either. Unfortunately, all financial experiments are subject to macroeconomics, and the way the world perceives cryptos is as macro as it gets. Challenge B.2

Now let me go back to (a). Does Steemit accommodate its users’ basic biological and psychological tendencies that any other social media would?

Going through the three reasons why social media thrive today, I tend to believe that Steemit is able to provide the same if not a better experience but only if the user is trained enough to overcome Chimp Attitude n.1 and able to endure Challenge B.1.

I have an extremely strong stomach when it comes to rejection. I make a HUGE drama out of it for… a few hours, days in the worst case, and then I reshuffle my pieces into what I think is a better combination and go out looking for more. But even I got a bit intimidated during my first days in Steemit. Luckily Curie found me. And when they did, Chimp attitude n.1 and n.2 got satisfied, Challenge B.1 got addressed and I also found out how to trade cryptos and have a reward spill over in my real life. This of course is also my answer to all those people who wonder why initiatives like Curie are necessary. The real question is; Are they enough? For mass adoption of Steemit, they aren’t. And I’ll call this Challenge A.1.

Unfortunately, when it comes to marketing – the political correct word for market propaganda, decentralized efforts may not do the thing. Maybe the political correct campaign won’t do the thing either.

Maybe it is the case for this unique platform called Steemit that it should be open to the masses, but rewarding to the elite.
Where there is the reward element, there is the business element. And if we mean business we need to negotiate, and we need to incentivize. In the end we need to reward. We need to capture our old favorite “American dream” in a global cryptocurrency platform, which provides

1. An accessible community, where people can feel proud for being a part of it - Hug [ addressing Challenge A.1]

2. Opportunity for its members to grow big within it - Encourage [ addressing Challenge B.1]

3. Psychological rewards to its active users - Flatter [addressing Challenges A.1 & B.1]

4. Financial rewards to its productive users - Reward [addressing Challenges A.1 & B.1 & B.2]

Opportunity to earn reward at each and every stage of the timeline should be offered through money transfer option other than voting. As witness @liondani has suggested many times a Tip button should be added, to encourage people to reward a post with much more than their voting power. Another positive side effect of this button is that it will attract fundraisers to the platform. That means more shares of Steemit post in other social media, increased faith and determination to trade Steem and a real spill over in the real world society we live in [addressing Challenge B.2].

Also, as Facebook eventually didn’t include the unlike button, Steemit also does very well to revisit the flag issue, which creates hostility and diminishes the first and basic need that one wants to cover when joining a social network; to make friends.

Steemit; the Mediator

However, in Steemit we don’t just make friends. We make friends with the smartest people on earth, visionaries of a new world, the crème de la crème, the best of the best. We are creating connections based on our minds and souls, our real interests, our views on society, our dreams, our journeys, our talents, and our interests. We are creating a new economy between ourselves and thus the opportunity to shape our lives the way we want it, without humiliating it, without degrading it, without exposing it to the daily silliness.

Thank you for reading.
M.

PS. Photos and drawings are my own