How a "trending" topic is bringing thousands of viewers to Steemit

wadepaterson (68) in trending • 8 years ago

A few years ago, a friend of mine told me about Medium, and suggested that I join. I didn't.

It's not that I didn't trust this friend. I knew he was probably right; however, when someone tells me to do something, I am, at times, reluctant.

Months later, I eventually decided to create a Medium account. But the reason I joined wasn't because anyone asked me to, it was because I noticed I was clicking on an increasing number of articles that lived on Medium. There were incredibly interesting pieces of content that I'd connect with, and it just so happened these pieces of writing existed on Medium.

I do "20 questions" for two reasons.

The first is that I strongly believe these interviews are interesting content. In my opinion, the eventual success or failure of Steemit will be heavily dependent on how strong and unique the content is.

The second is that I think there is a great opportunity to show influencers (as well as their thousands of followers) Steemit in a way other than saying: "Hey, you should go check out this site and create an account." As I mentioned earlier, a close friend told me I should check out Medium. This was a friend I trusted and someone whose opinion I respected. But I still chose not to. What are the odds of a celebrity joining Steemit due to an unsolicited request from a person he/she has never heard of?

But an influencer who agrees to my request is typically more than happy to share that content with his/her followers via Twitter or other social media networks after the interview. The result is: They are exposed to Steemit, and their thousands (or even hundreds of thousands) of followers are exposed to Steemit. And it's all because of good, relevant content.

The votes v.s. view count problem.

An issue that consistently happens on Steemit is that votes exceed view counts. I think it's obvious that these view counts look extremely suspicious to someone coming to Steemit for the first time. Why would more people upvote content than actually look at the content they're upvoting?

Take, for example, the #2 trending post at the time of writing this:

And look at the votes v.s. view counts:

This week, I came to a realization.

A couple of days ago, I penned this post about the fact my blog post had earned more views than the top 4 trending articles combined. The point of this blog post wasn't for me to complain, it was simply an observation about rewards v.s. actual interest in an article.

At the time, the view count on my interview was 500, but the beautiful thing is, that number has continued to grow at an impressive rate all week. And I feel very confident in stating: the people viewing it aren't Steemit users; rather, non-Steemit users who are stumbling upon this content elsewhere on the Internet.

As of right now, the view count on my interview with John Goehrke is at more than 1,700 views. (It went up another 400 overnight).

Keep in mind, this post has only been live for 4 days.

To put that into context... the view count for the 2017 Steemit Roadmap (an incredibly important document that many Steemit users would be very interested in reading) is just over 1,250. And this is a blog post by Ned and Dan that has been accessible for 24 days.

Where are these views coming from?

At first, I assumed that the traffic must have been coming from the Tweets I put out about this interview. I tagged both John and Genie in the Tweets, but neither one of them ReTweeted the link, so it was confusing me how this post was getting so much traffic. Here is a look at the analytics behind both Tweets:

It was clear that the traffic from this post wasn't coming from Twitter...

But then I noticed this...

When you Google "John Goehrke," the third link (it was second as of last night) that comes up is my "20 questions" interview with John. That means, one of the top search results for this popular name is a link directly to Steemit.

But will people even Google "John Goehrke?"

Yes. When a story is trending, people want to know more about the individual(s) involved. Here are some Google Trend maps that show activity behind the name "John Goehrke."

Past 12 months...

Past 7 days...

Why does this matter?

For me, this week has been an eye-opener with regard to what I do on Steemit. My "20 questions" series has focused on Steemit users and established influencers; however, I see the great opportunity to also jump on "overnight influencers" whose stories are trending. If these people were unknown in the past, there is an incredible opportunity to put content out there, which is 100% unique. Also, there is an opportunity to land on that first page of Google when Internet users begin Googling names they've never heard of, which are landing in their "trending" feeds on Facebook and Twitter.

At the end of the day, that unique content, which people can't find elsewhere, is what is going to bring new users to Steemit

I get pretty excited when a post of mine brings in a lot of Steem... but this whole view count thing is giving me a new buzz :)

trending steemit viewcount

8 years ago by wadepaterson (68)

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Trending

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johnjgeddes (75) · 8 years ago

I tweeted this out to 55,000 followers on Twitter - let's see what that does LOL!!

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surfermarly (74) · 8 years ago

Awesome piece, thanks for sharing! Upped and resteemed.

That´s why we all should optimize our content for search engines. Since the editor enables us to use HTML, we have all the necessary tools. I´ve recently published a short tutorial about key word optimization on steemit: https://steemit.com/howto/@surfermarly/how-to-optimize-your-steemit-blog-for-google-and-encourage-organic-traffic-9-steps-tutorial
It´s not only about the (exclusivity of) content, it´s also about how it´s prepared for search engines like Google.

$8.05

3 votes

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noisy (67) · 8 years ago

the problem is... that optimizing content for people which are outside of Steemit is bad in short term for authors. They prefer to focus on users on platform, which already have a lot of SteemPower. Votes from 100 new users which will find your article in Google and even register on Steemit because of your article... those 100 votes will be worth close to nothing.

guilds could actually help with that, if they would focus only on content which is very popular also outside a Steemit but on Steemit is undervalued.

$0.10

7 votes

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son-of-satire (69) · 8 years ago

You are on point with the views to votes inconsistencies. I feel the example you shared was not even such a bad one though.

My most recent post has less than 1 view per every four votes.

I regret to sound ungrateful, because obviously I'm happy about the $40 dollars, but I know that I would prefer 169 people to have read it and only 39 to upvote it, even if it reduced my pay out to a couple of dollars.

I'm often seeing posts with hundreds of votes and no comments, which I believe you are completely right when you say can spark some skepticism in the mind of anyone viewing from off-Steemit.

How do we fix it though? I tried reducing the size of my post and even putting the words 3 minute read within the title to get more engagement from those who haven't the time, but that has shown to be unsuccessful.

I'm hoping that when the achievements mentioned on the road map arrive, they will encourage users to actually pay attention to posts rather than just upvoting them and moving along. We shall see. But I know for me, I appreciate user engagement and people taking the time to read what I have spent my time writing, just as much as I value the monetary rewards- if not more.

Well done on hitting the first page on google by the way! And without SEO.. You are doing a good thing for Steemit.

$7.79

7 votes

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wadepaterson (68) · 8 years ago

Thanks for this comment.

I agree, the example I took at the time was a quick scan of the trending page, and definitely not a knock at @krnel (I certainly hope it didn't come across that way). Many of my posts have 15 views and 80 upvotes, so the same thing happens to me as well. This trending 20 questions situation (way more views than upvotes) is a rare instance, and showed me that it is likely content that is connecting with people outside of Steemit.

It seems as though this is starting a conversation with regard to the views v.s. upvotes. Some people have possible solutions as well, so hopefully there is something that the majority can agree is good for Steemit.

$7.74

3 votes

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abit (70) · 8 years ago

Thanks! Followed.
By the way it's easy to mark up the numbers if they're causing too much confusion rather than positive feeling -- just add the number of votes to the number of viewers. I'll make a github issue for this.

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3 votes

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noisy (67) · 8 years ago

that would be terrible idea. Having 260 views... and only few or no comments will be equally depressing. That would cause even worse feeling of ghost town.

We need to discourage autoupvoting. In my opinion, rewards for curation should be removed.

I vote for good content regardless whether I will be reworded or not. I know, that I could wait few minutes to receive even greater reward for curation... but I prefer to upvote content immediately to support good content even stronger.

There is a reason why other social media websites do not have to pay for peoples votes. People really like to vote if something is worth voting for.

$0.06

3 votes

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wingz (65) · 8 years ago

I'm happy you're verbalising the vision you talked about during steemfest.

My reason for joining was entirely that, a great source of info when the Dao hack was going down.

You're certainly onto something here, loved your guerilla marketing in your last 20 questions.

Best of luck, you're an inspiration.

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blockchainuk (35) · 8 years ago

You have hit the nail on the head so to speak, with a comment at the start of your blog, where you state that "when a friend tells me to do something I am often reluctant". I find this same psychological effect when telling friends about anything, in general a good trick is to make them think they have found the information for themselves by pointing them to it without it coming straight from you!
People love to have that "wow" moment as they "discover something new" even though thousands before them have already discovered it, these are not people from their direct peer group so they still feel like the "first mover" in this new space. And so, as you suggest, the contents relevance itself will bring more people along than someone you know pointing out that this content exists.

I have a solid, real life example where I have been buying boxed Lego sets over the years, telling friends to do the same, as an investment. None did. Now some of my sets bought for a couple of hundred pounds are worth thousands each. One of my friends recently started a collection after seeing something in a documentary. Years after I first told him to look into it. And he hasn't learnt a thing, when I told him about bitcoin (2012) he replied "no one cares!!" and carried on with his life!!! All you can do is shout from the rooftops and hope that what you say is being heard by strangers...who are more likely to listen than some of your closest friends. I'll still keep telling mine though, I have to try!

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steevc (73) · 8 years ago

Steemit posts seem to rank well on Google. We just have to hope some of the people finding them decide to join up. I would hope that some influencers will notice this trend. A few big names on Steemit could make a big difference

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How a "trending" topic is bringing thousands of viewers to Steemit

A few years ago, a friend of mine told me about Medium, and suggested that I join. I didn't.

I do "20 questions" for two reasons.

The votes v.s. view count problem.

This week, I came to a realization.

As of right now, the view count on my interview with John Goehrke is at more than 1,700 views. (It went up another 400 overnight).

Where are these views coming from?

But then I noticed this...

But will people even Google "John Goehrke?"

Why does this matter?

Let alone the worldwide web, to truly monetize Steemit, the Steemit minnows gravitate towards writing for whales; not even for the general Steemit community.

Evangelising Steemit