As many of you are probably aware, the #promo-uk team has been working tirelessly for the past few months, whether it be making Steemit T-shirts, mugs, caps or professional business cards. The sole purpose being to raise more attention and understanding of the Steemit platform and what is can achieve for us individually and as a collective. Headed up by none other than @stephenkendal himself, this enthusiastic bunch recently took their mission statement one step further and setup a “promotional” road trip stretching almost the entire length of the UK from top to bottom, covering a total of 22 universities from Sep 18 to Oct 12.
So as a newly recruited member of this productive team, I decided to assist at the “Oxford University” stop-off scheduled on October 8th and was also super excited to meet the awesome @starkerz in person (organiser of this day's particular event).
Oxford University
After one and a half hours journey from London, I finally arrived at the University of Oxford.
Might I add that Oxford is a beautiful city in it’s own right. Chock full of amazing architectures, rich history and some fascinating cultural reference points. There were so many significant looking colleges, cathedrals and museums as well as plenty of parks and greenery for it's inhabitants to relax in. Especially now being autumn time, the University of Oxford gave off a very atmospheric charm with leaves of many varieties scattered on the ground. Everything was very elegant and captivating indeed.
A Very Special Steemian Meetup
I got to meet @starkerz at around 11am in front of the "Student Union" building which was an absolute pleasure. Within seconds, I knew this was a flamboyant, charismatic person whom I was about to spend the day with. In fact, just the right person for the task at hand. Though before getting started we decided to grab a coffee at a local cafe to begin proceedings, lol.
Whilst waiting in line to be served, both of us simply could not wait any longer and started chatting about Steemit. A guy standing directly behind me overheard us “spilling the beans” about decentralised blockchain’s, crypto and the like. So almost instinctively he decided to get involved as well! Off to a promising start! Of course, he ended up leaving the shop soon after. But not without a warm cup of coffee, some newfound crypto knowledge and one of our plush Steemit business cards, lol.
By the way, I must say how impressed I was with the quality of those business cards. It even has a QR code on the front to allow finding out more information much easier, together with highlighting of some Steemit's most popular tags (That's on the flip side of the card)! Very nice indeed!
During the course of the day, @starkerz and I spoke at length of our experiences on Steemit thus far. One thing we agreed on almost immediately was how mind blown we were when first introduced to it. @starkerz is so very passionate about Steemit and has quite a number of tremendously innovative ideas to push the platform to the next level.
We also spoke about the upcoming Steemfest 2, however at the time @starkerz has not made up his mind as to whether he’d go or not. I felt this was my cue to gush about the utter brilliance of the first one I attended last year in Amsterdam! I mean, there are still those of us out there that have yet to remove the Steemfest wristbands! If that doesn’t speak volumes of the greatness of that event, I don’t know what will! It was all expertly organised by the fabulous @roelandp whilst those in attendance were some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Ah, the memories! I feel that holding that Steemfest event strengthened the community in ways that connecting online could only hope to achieve. It really bolstered it's image in the mainstream and showed off the power of our strong social media platform.
I really tried my utmost to encourage him to come too and possibly even be one of the speakers at the Steemfest. @starkerz and @stephenkendal have done such an amazing job leading the #promo-uk team that this would be the ideal stage to voice their success. It would be be very inspirational for all Steemians to see and surely have a very positive impact on the platform in general. So to my delight, I believe he had a change of heart and may reconsider his initial stance. Awesome news for us all, I promise!
The Promotional Campaign
After the caffeine had done it’s job and kicked in nicely, we were both ready to undertake some serious promotional activities around the various university campus grounds.
Walking towards one college in particular, we suddenly found waves of people (mostly students) passing us by. They all appeared to be dressed in very sporty attire, with several of them having medals hung around their necks. It quickly came to our realisation that today was actually the Virgin Sport Oxford Half Marathon and the finishing line was at the university itself!
What a great and unexpected opportunity! @starkerz was quite eager to catch the traffic. Although I have undertaken a few Steemit promotions myself in the past, @starkerz natural ability to connect with people and interact was pretty much of a professional standard. Therefore, I thought the wisest thing to do would be observe, absorb his expert social techniques and attempt to follow suit later.
He started off by stating that he was writing a blog about Oxford University (which we actually are) and would be publishing it on a new social media website called Steemit, which we in turn are also promoting. He then went on to explain that the proceeds were helping fund his rest of his campaign tour to the remaining universities in the country.
We also engaged with some audiences (yes, there were audiences at times, lol) by asking if they were already posting on Facebook or Instagram. Unsurprisingly, most people answered yes. That opened another avenue for @starkerz to further divulge the one huge difference between Steemit and other social media websites. That being the user created values of Facebook continue to line the company's pockets with millions of dollars making it one of the richest internet brands in the world today. Whereas Steemit being a “decentrailised blogging platform” on the other hand, pass that user created value back to the end user. A difficult concept to grasp at first, but one handled exceptionally well by him.
Yes, I was really impressed with the way @starkerz talked to people. He came across very affable and smooth, yet not intrusive. And there is a fine line between the two. I must admit I learned a lot from him that day. Encouraged by this, I started to refine my own technique based off of that solid foundation and after a while, the confidence began to flow like water.
I wanted to shared my own personal experiences with the people I talked to as well as showing them a few select examples of my blog during my first year on Steemit. How in the beginning I only made a few cents per post but simple perseverance and consistency helped me achieve much greater things later on. I also placed particular emphasis on the importance of content quality and actively engaging with fellow steemians in our community.
Today, I have about 3200 followers and some decent payouts. I was hoping a retelling of someone’s “real-life and personal journey” would paint a more relatable picture for others to associate with. And for the most part, I feel that it worked a treat! I got some very positive feedback from the people I spoke to and throughout the day, the general vibe was that of positivity. In retrospect, this type of marketing speaks volumes in terms of getting the message out to the masses and I honestly feel we got a lot done in the few short hours @starkerz and I spend together that Sunday afternoon.
Some Reflections of the Events of the Day
What I took away with me from doing the promotion in Oxford was mainly this. People naturally love connecting with one other. Almost as if it's ingrained into our DNA. Most people I met are on Facebook or Instagram or some other form of social blogging outlet. But to explain the concept of Steemit to the lay person, one would have to break down exactly what Bitcoin is (and I was surprised to find less than half the people we spoke to hadn’t even heard of it!). Which would then lead to what crypto is, and so on and so forth. In fact, I was taken aback that even students of Oxford University weren’t aware of the existence of Bitcoin, but I guess that goes to show how early on in the game we really are.
We came across quite a few street artists on Cornmarket Street, near to a major shopping parade in the heart of Oxford. These individuals were extremely talented at singing, performing or playing an instrument. Very likely candidates who would have an absolute blast posting their stuff up on Steemit and finding commonality by mingling with the rest of the community! So we made sure to spend a good amount of time with them, again explaining what it was and how beneficial it could potentially be to their lives.
I also recall many oriental students walking in the surrounding area of the university but most of them seeming too busy, to the extent that I hadn’t even started to talk yet and they were already saying “No thanks!” Lol, if only I could have held up an addition sign saying “Listen guys, I’m not trying to sell you anything. On the contrary, in fact!” But that's to be expected I guess when being approached in the street. If only they could have seen the magnitude of the opportunity we were advocating!
Though I remained steadfast and was extra determined to find people from China to talk to, and luckily in the end, I managed just that. In particularly, there was one Chinese lady called Cathy who was nice and very supportive. Again, I’m not sure how much she understood about the whole “crypto” and “decentralised technology” lesson I was giving her but she totally stuck with me in regards to the Steemit platform and the whole idea of getting paid to blog and comment. She even offered help to distribute out some of the Steemit business cards to her colleagues and friends to help spread the word! Sounds good for a start, right?
Closing Thoughts
All in all, we walked around the university grounds promoting Steemit for almost 4 hours in total! And I do think we pretty much covered the key hotspot areas where there was the most amount of "people" traffic (near colleges, outside and within the history museum, outside some pubs). Very exhausted but completely worth it in my humble opinion!
Before we headed back home, @starkerz and I grabbed a well-deserved drink at a local pub and still found enough energy to continue our seemingly endless Steemit conversation. Some of you guys may think we had lost the plot by this point, but there is so much to share about this amazing platform and the feeling of being able to impart that knowledge to someone who actually “gets it” was far too great for words and a welcome release of pent-up feelings and information!
To wrap up, I feel that the most important thing we can all do, as of now, is spread the message (even if a complete understanding of the system as a whole is still an issue for some). It doesn’t matter if people don’t understand it right away. You are planting the seeds and they at least have a reference point to look back on if ever the name “Steemit” comes up again. But as I mentioned previously and we all know only too well, "cryptocurrencies" and "blockchain technology" has barely even begun. I feel we could be looking at years, if not decades, before this revolutionary new ideology garners mainstream acceptance.
So as time passes, global adoption picks up and the masses start to see value in all these various digital assets, those key words that held no meaning once upon a time, will now make complete sense. Like pieces of a puzzle falling into place. We can all do our part and, given some time and patience, the world will become better prepared for this digital evolution and the word of "Steemit" will ultimately spread like wildfire. This is one dream that actually has the potential of becoming a reality.
Thank you, my steemian friends. I cannot wait to see those of you who will be at Steemfest 2.
*(The Steemdollar payout from this post will be contributed towards @starkerz's university tour. Great effort and well done.)
你们当中也许很多人知道，Steemit英国宣传团队（promo-UK）在过去几个月一直努力地为宣传Steemit做了大量工作，制作Steemit T恤，马克杯，运动帽和名片等等。 他们唯一的目的就是为了提高人们对Steemit的关注和理解，吸引更多的人加入这个平台，让Steemit变得更加强大。最近，这个热心的团队把他们的宣传使命推上了另一个层次。从9月18日至10月12日，他们自费组织了一系列大学路演活动，涵盖了英国共22所知名大学！
作为新加入的一名团队成员，我决定在10月8日参与在牛津大学进行的宣传活动。能在线下与这次英国大学路演主要组织者@starkerz见面，我感到非常激动。
牛津大学
在伦敦出发经过一个半小时的车程，我终于抵达了牛津大学。
牛津是一个非常迷人的小镇，古朴幽静，处处弥漫着浓郁的学术气氛。在牛津大学里可以沿着多个学院走一走，欣赏古老的教堂和博物馆，感受一下这里的悠久的历史和学术文化。这里也有广阔的绿茵草坪，让学生们在紧张学习状态中的疲敝心情可以在大自然美景中得到放松。十月正是落叶分扬的秋季，满地橘黄的落叶为这所古老的大学增添了不少韵味。
线下相聚
我和@starkerz约好上午11点在学生会大楼门前见面。仅几分钟的时间，我和@starkerz就聊得非常投机，这将会是很有趣的一天，呵呵。我们决定先到附近买杯咖啡。在排队等候时我们就迫不及待地对Steemit各抒己见。站在我们身后的一个年轻人无意中听到我们聊关于区块链去中心化以及脸书（facebook），他也兴致勃勃地加入了我们的讨论！当然在他离开咖啡店的时候，除了咖啡还带走了Steemit的名片，哈哈。这是我们当天宣传活动非常好的一个开端！
补充说一下，这些Steemit名片设计得非常有水平，不但制版简洁大气，还在背面包涵了QR二维码以方便新人查询更多关于Steemit 平台的入门信息。
我和@starkerz谈到各自的Steemit历程，我们几乎一致的感受是这个平台给我们所带来的震撼！@starkerz对Steemit的热情，以及他的许多创新设想让我印象深刻。
我们还谈到即将到来的Steemfest 2，但是@starkerz还没有想好他要不要出席。我觉得很有必要告诉@starkerz我去年参加阿姆斯特丹第一次Steemit聚会 的亲身体验。那次聚会办得得非常成功，我和许多有才华和热情洋溢的成员聚集在一起。现在想起来还是满满的温暖和亲切感，有些成员至今仍没有摘除去年的Steemfest手腕带呢，呵呵！这种线下聚会增进了成员之间的交流，加强了Steemit社区的团体凝聚力，是仅在网络上交流所不能取得的。
我很积极地给@starkerz做思想工作，让他考虑参加Steemfest 2并成为聚会的演讲者。作为英国Steemit宣传团体的组织者，@stephenkendal和@starkerz为平台付出了很多，包括时间和金钱，这是鼓舞人心的正能量，对社区有着非常积极的影响力。
宣传活动
在获取了足够的咖啡因以后，我们正式开始了Steemit的宣传活动。
在去往一个学院的途中，我们发现了一路上迎面走来一波又一波的学生。他们都穿着运动服，其中还有很多人的脖子上挂着奖牌。很快地我们意识到了，今天其实是Virgin集团赞助的在牛津举办的半马拉松赛跑，而终点站恰好就在牛津大学里！
这是很好的机会，@starkerz 观察到适合的宣传对象，就迎面走过去与他们打招呼。我在过去也做过类似的宣传活动，但与@starkerz相比，他可是专业多了，呵呵。我觉得最明智的做法还是先观察，学习他的技巧。
他首先告诉大家他正在写一篇关于牛津大学的博客，并将在一个名为Steemit的社交媒体网站上发布。从网站上所获取的收益将资助他继续前往下一所大学，直到成功完成22所大学的路演宣传活动。
@starkerz很懂得如何与观众们互动，他会问大家有没有在脸书或Instagram上发布图片。不出所料，大多数人的回答都是肯定的。@starkerz会进一步解释Steemit平台与其他社交媒体网站之间的巨大差异。脸书利用其用户创造的价值把自己变成当今世界上最富有的互联网公司之一。而Steemit去中心化，将每个用户创造的价值返还给了用户。@starkerz能把一个难以理解的概念，解释得简单易懂，让人佩服。
我从@starkerz那里学会了不少与人交谈的技巧。在他的鼓励下，我也开始独自向大学里的年轻人宣传Steemit。经过几次练习以后，我与观众交流更加畅顺，感觉信心倍增，呵呵。我也和他们分享我的个人经历，向他们展示我去年刚加入的时候每个帖子只赚得几个美分，但我还是坚持了下来，除了出产高质量的文章，我还积极与社区成员交流。现在的我有3200个追随者也获得比较好的收益。我希望通过我的实际例子，让他们更能感受到平台的真实性。
我们得到了不少积极的反馈。感觉周日下午的宣传活动，收获很大，呵呵！
宣传活动感想
这次牛津大学的宣传活动让我陷入了思考，人类是群居动物，大家喜欢互相连接。大多数人都在脸书或Instagram或其他形式的社交网站上。但为了向外行人解释Steemit的概念，你还必须清楚地解释什么是比特币。我很惊讶的是，在我们宣传的牛津大学观众里，至少有一半人是没有听说过比特币的。这显示了我们还处于数字货币的早期阶段。
在牛津大学的商业购物中心Cornmarket街附近，我们遇到了不少街头艺术家。看他们唱歌，弹吉他都很出色，很有天份。Steemit平台对他们来说是一个非常好的机会，我们把握住机会向他们宣传Steemit， 解释平台的概念以及如何使他们受益。其中一位还认真地做了笔记呢，呵呵。
我在校区遇到了很多亚洲学生，但每个人都似乎很匆忙，甚至在我还没有来得及开口说话的时候，就已经被婉言拒绝了。如果有可能的话，我真想举个牌子，在上面写着“我并不是要向你销售东西”，呵呵。
我越挫越勇，下定决心要找个家乡人来宣传一下。皇天不负有心人，我终于找到了一位肯停下来与我聊天的中国女士Cathy。虽然我看出她对数字货币和去中心化区块链不是太理解，但她对在Steemit平台上发帖可获得报酬，非常感兴趣。她甚至主动要求多拿几张Steemit名片向她的同事宣传。非常热心肠的一位同胞，我太感动了！
结束
我们环绕着牛津大学一路推广Steemit，涵盖了很多人多聚集的场所，包括学院门口，历史博物馆以及酒吧等。我们干了足足四个小时，感觉筋疲力尽，但想到这次宣传活动的收获，还是非常值得的！
在回家之前，我和@starkerz在当地一家酒吧喝了一杯，继续无休止地谈论Steemit。大家可能会觉得我们太疯狂了，但是能碰到与自己一样对这个平台充满热情与梦想的朋友，那种感觉很难用言语表达，美好得似乎不真实，呵呵。
总而言之，我觉得我们现在所能做的最重要的事情就是传播信息。如果人们不能马上接受，这并不重要，因为我们这是为将来播下种子。如果人们再次听到Steemit，至少他们会有印象，曾经听说过Steemit。正如我前文所提到的，数字货币也许还在早期阶段，它也许现在对广大群众来说没有什么太大价值，但将来总有一天大家会真正了解它，使用它。我们现在只要做好自己的部分，给予一定的时间，数字货币最终会像星星之火一样传播开来。
谢谢我的steemian的朋友们，希望能在下个月的Steemfest 2上见到你们！
（这个帖子的收益将用于赞助@starkerz这次的大学路演活动）