Introduction
Thank you to everyone that entered, commented and contributed to the competition.
There were a lot of great ideas and the primary aim of the competition was to use our collective brains to think about marketing and promotional ideas.
In this regard I think it was a great success. As a result it was a very difficult task deciding on who won!
There are some really great ideas here and I am going to be looking at ways and means of putting all of them in to practice (assuming that is possible). I have been considering creating an informal group (that anyone can join) to consider and discuss these matters on an informal but ongoing basis.
I may also use some of the ideas as the basis for future competitions.
Anyway I haven't decided yet exactly how I am going to proceed but one thing is for certain and that is I will need your help.
I will let you know of any concrete plans in a future post. Now let's get to the ideas already:
Runners Up (in no particular order)
Steemit Brand Ambassadors
The @steempowertwins suggested the idea of being brand ambassadors for Steemit. This is a great idea and the Steempowertwins are great candidates for this.
I think this is definitely something that the Steemit team could use as a low cost way of marketing. Brand ambassadors could be used to reach out to and cover a variety of demographics.
There is also nothing to stop any of us doing this individually. We are all effectively ambassadors for Steemit and spreading the word helps us all.
Vote for SteemPowerTwins as Steem's First Brand Ambassadors
Steemit Branded Profile Pages on other Social Media
This idea was suggested by @freedomengineer (as Operation Proudface) and @beanz (see her example above).
Having several thousand profile pictures on Facebook advertising Steemit would be a cheap form of promotion and marketing which would at present be resistant to shadow blocking.
One could also see it as less overt form of promotion that can bypass the usual conscious filters that people employ to ignore regular forms of advertising.
Using the Baader Meinhof phenomenon to advertise steemit
Promoting Steemit as a censorship resistant venue
@sykochica and @nxtblg suggested this.
There seem to be many topics that are either ignored or just not dicussed due to lack of awareness. Some of these things are controversial and could bring negative attention to Steemit but not all such subjects are like that.
Here is an excerpt from the discussion - I used a screenshot as markdown had some issues with formatting:
This would need to be handled carefully but could be a big selling point and means of attracting more attention.
It is definitely something I think we need to explore - particularly in light of the fact that other social media and web based platforms (e.g. Google/Facebook/Twitter) are engaging in more censorship.
Pay a famous writer to start writing on Steemit
This was suggested by @steemitqa and could be considered a part of formal marketing by the Steemit team.
My idea ( I've always thought this ) is to pay a famous writer to come here and post. A kind of writer where their posts go viral. Just imagine a TMZ writer posting something juicy over here and directing some of the traffic over here. I'll try to look into this myself.
Finding someone sufficiently famous to make a significant difference might be expensive but would be great marketing. They could be a celebrity ambassador for the platform and potentially bring at the very least a chunk of their audience over here.
Doing this formally via Steemit inc. using a contract would help to avoid people with large followings coming here for short term gains with no commitment to the platform.
We saw this happen in a number of cases with minor celebrities coming into Steemit during the price peak and cashing out all their earnings and disappearing soon afterwards.
An official day to promote Steemit on other social media
Thanks to @getonthetrain for this:
I love that steemit throws all previous social media sites to the side with the financial incentives. My idea is that we pick a day and everyone blasts steemit through the 'old' social media sites (FB, G+, Twitter, whatever you do). We explain that you GET PAID to post and upvote.
I like this because we have a great community here, and we can easily plan ONE day to blast steemit out to the universe - for FREE! There will be so much steemit talk going on that people will be bound to see it at least from one of us. Word of mouth is still as strong as it has every been, maybe even stronger! Then we can watch for the new people (25 rep) who will start posting shortly thereafter and comment and upvote their stuff. Make them feel welcome.
I really like this idea. By all of us concentrating our efforts on a single day I think we could make a much bigger impact than we otherwise could and potentially get Steemit trending across the web.
Video Testimonials
Suggested by @senseiteekay this is another great idea for promotion and creating curiosity amongst people who are not aware of Steemit.
He already has a short testimonial in his Steemit Open Mic entry (embedded above).
I think the easiest way and fastest way for us to market the platform would be through short videos submitted individually where we each express what Steemit is and why we like it. We could create a community incentive, like you've done here, so that users get involved. If we made it a month long event where the goal is to post your video on your own social media sites, we could start a trend across multiple platforms that should get noticed.
Overall this is a great low cost way of marketing Steemit which also gives that very useful personal touch.
Educational resources to attract people
Suggested by @lemouth - the web is a major source for factual information and also for learning for many people.
If Steemit becomes a place where people come to learn new things as well as being entertained then it would be beneficial for us all. Appropriate tagging could be used to differentiate educational posts.
Steem Viral/Steem City
Thanks to @charles-d for this idea:
A few days ago, I was checking what was going in the crazy world of ICO´s. And, I noticed that several project were using viral marketing campaigns to promote their projects.
On those platforms in exchange of liking, sharing on different social media websites you would earn points that you could then exchange for Bitcoins or other coins/tokens.
I am already familiar with the Viral Exchange which I initially encountered during the Stratis ICO. Check out their website for more information but a similar idea (or even using TVE itself) could certainly be a good way of promoting Steemit.
Steem Viral | Steem City - Few Ideas for Steemit X-Prize
The Winner
The Winning Idea is from @winstonwolfe - the "Just A Second" Video
Congratulations @winstonwolfe! This was my favourite idea of all.
If you have not seen Winston's original "Just A Second 2013" video please watch it now. You will be pleased you did:
It is one of the best videos I have seen on Steemit or Youtube.
The basic idea is to produce a two minute video made up of 1 second clips of different Steemit users.
More information about it can be found in this post here.
Here is an excerpt:
One Moment Per Steemian
I've been saying it for a while now that we need something to go viral outside of Steemit for us to break out of our little bubble. Any video that's going to do that, in my opinion, should be one that is just as community-driven as the site it represents.
Therefore, I want each clip to be from a different Steemit member. I want to end up with a video that shows just how diverse a group of people we really are.
I think this video would be fantastic marketing for Steemit and would help to show the diversity of users that we have. There is no guarantee of virality but if anything has a chance to it is this.
The Prize
According to SteemD 1MV = about 462 Steem (at the time of writing).
I have therefore powered up @winstonwolfe's account with 470 Steem Power (just to be safe) as indicated in the images above.
Thank you all for taking part!
Even though there was only one prize we have all "won" with all the great ideas that have come forth. Keep an eye out for the next competition and future developments as I discussed at the start of the post.
Next time you might win the prize:)
Finally don't forget to contribute to @winstonwolfe's video here.
Your Reward for Reading:)
If you like my work and aren't already, please follow me and check out my blog (I mainly discuss photography but I do other topics too) - @thecryptofiend
Photo Credits: All photos are from related posts or taken from my personal Thinkstock Photography account. More information can be provided on request.
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Some of my other recent posts
- Steemit Quick Start Guide: Step by Step from Registration to First Post
- Steemithelp.net a new resource for helping new users (with an updated version of the "Missing FAQ")
- Idea for Steemit - Tiered Voting Power Regeneration According to Vests