No matter what you do, your job is to tell your story. - Gary Vaynerchuk

Steem is no fast-selling item. Not yet. That's why we need (coordinated) storytelling.

Many of us have been in doubt whether Steemit, Inc as centralized birth attendant of the blockchain should be in charge of it, or the decentralized community themselves.

I argue that it actually doesn't matter who takes the initiative as long as someone does.

In theory, we can all become marketers of Steem.

During the past almost three years there've been infinite use cases being created and success stories being celebrated on Steem. Now it only requires a team of creative volunteers to pack those pearls into an appealing marketing campaign and make some noise.

Telling a story is no rocket science - many of us do exactly that all the time when blogging on Steem.

Now it's all about bundling those efforts in order to make the communication the most efficient possible - aiming to strengthen both the network and the coin STEEM.

Here's my proposal of how to do Marketing for Steem.

Tell a story.

The actual aim of Marketing is to reduce the need for Sales.

Marketing campaigns - if executed efficiently - can actually save you a lot of money.

This is why any stakeholder - and it doesn't matter if you're time invested or holding a huge amount of Steem tokens - should have an interest in promoting this project to the world in the best way possible.

Now the single most important thing before everything else is that you have a vision from where you start. That doesn't only apply for Marketing initiatives but actually for everything you do.

Contrary to popular belief, decentralization doesn't mean that everybody follows their own vision. It's rather the other way around.

If you believe it or not, decentralization follows a clear structure.

The big difference between a centralized and a decentralized system is that in the latter you don't only have one centralized institution but multiple of them. However, all of those entities still follow the very same dream.

The more participants are in the game, the more important becomes structure.

A vision is something that's completely seperated from the way you organize your staff or (here) a community, it's basically the untouchable umbrella under which you build up everything else.

One possible vision for Steem could be:

Become the best blockchain based host for tokenized digital communities in the world.

What function does a vision have - not only in the context of Marketing?

It provides orientation.

Furthermore, if the goal is clearly defined we all become accountable for our doings and success becomes measurable.

Once you've defined what you're striving for, it's hard to loose track and waste time, since everything you'll be doing from now on will 100% pay into that one account.

Now how could we manage to translate that vision into a Marketing campaign?

The overall strategy would be to recruit as much new members for our vibrant communities as possible.

Why focus on growth? The current number of Steem users (~ 40,000 daily accounts transacting) is not relevant in terms of influence, and influence is the currency dealt in the market we're part of.

Whether you'd want to sell Steem to a potential advertiser or an investor, the influence in terms of reach would always be a critical factor.

No advertiser in the world would run a campaign on a blockchain that is only used by a few thousand people.

Now how could one specific Marketing campaign for Steem look like?

Remember that Marketing is story telling and that products offer solutions to real problems.

Steem offers a solution to people and businesses who aim to connect online with audiences of a specific field of interest, while the network is able to provide them with attention and financial rewards.

Think about the music industry, for instance, which is one of the toughest battle-grounds in terms of competition. The music community on Steem offers a stage to talented singers and song writers they can easily access and exploit. It'd be much harder for someone to build up a music community from scratch.

That's a clear solution to a real problem in one specific target group.

Now since you want to be efficient, you wouldn't create one campaign per industry, but you could generalize the message as follows:

Find your community, access your stage, monetize the attention.

That'd be a clear call to action - underlining the fact that being part of a community is no self-seller but requires efforts from both sides.

Remember: we offer solutions to real problems.

Do you think we should launch a Marketing campaign like this?

I do.

We've got a lot of voluntary promoters who're already teaming up in communities like @oracle-d and @promo-steem.

Also no too long ago @timcliff organized the fantastic initiative called Steemblast, where members of the community were invited to promote Steem in their social media networks on a specific date and time.

I'd really love to see these type of community efforts being reactivated. What about you?

Let me know in the comments.

Happy weekend!
Marley -
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This blog was created in July 2016, aiming to provide thought-provoking content for open-minded people who go on adventure, step out of comfort zones and embrace the new.
Thanks for being part of the journey!

PS: All my blog posts are created and submitted via eSteem Surfer - my favorite Steem desktop client that was developed by @good-karma's @esteemapp team. Check out their account for more information.

Original content. Cover found on pixabay, Brogran qoute found on cubicleninjas.com