Would starting out on Steemit be easier after watching a new video course using a free coupon? Will our new Steemians be more motivated to invest in Steem Power and write high quality posts from the beginning if we give them a complete series of new tutorial videos all in one place for free to show them how?
My guess is yes which is why I am beginning to film a new video course named "Earn Steem with Steemit" which I hope will be a helpful resource for getting a strong start on Steemit! Before making this course, I used Google to learn that one other Steem course already exists which was created in 2016, requires payment to view, and currently has about 40 students. My vision is to create a new course that anyone can take for free using this coupon link https://u.jerrybanfield.com/courses/steem17?coupon=steem as well as other coupons I will make available on my website and YouTube.
To promote the course, I will put about half of the videos up for free on YouTube and Facebook where I will offer free coupons to take the full course. I also will probably make one complete tutorial and advertise that along with a free coupon to take the full course. On my website, I will include the new course on my free coupons page which I send thousands of people to every month at https://jerrybanfield.com/freecourses/ once it is finished.
With just launching the course today June 9, 2017 I currently just have about 4 videos in it as well as a text notice in the beginning that I am just getting started with filming. Within the next several weeks, I hope to have a complete course with 20 to 50 videos explaining what I think is most important to learn starting out with Steem along with links to the resources I found most helpful in learning by reading existing Steemit posts.
The goal of the course will be to take a new Steemit user on a journey from signup through learning the basics of Steemit, investing in Steem Power, and finishing with an exact formula to create posts that will add the most value to our website. The more valuable posts our newbies like me create, the greater opportunity we all have to increase the price of Steem and grow our community with new daily users.
Why take the time to film a video course when we already have a LOT of great guides and resources posted? Let me tell you the story of how I started learning music because I think it will help show the benefits of giving new users the option to learn with video classes.
In 2016 I had this strange feeling like the universe wanted me to learn music which motivated me to order a Yamaha electronic keyboard on Amazon despite knowing nothing about music and having hated most anything to do with composing songs since sixth grade music class where I gave the teacher the finger after she said something that made me angry. One night when my wife and daughter were out of town, I sat down and played the electronic keyboard for the first time for hours and just loved it. I went to bed with what felt like an awesome 100% organic high.
December 24, 2016 found me playing my last game of League of Legends ending in feeling like I was just totally wasting time. As I talked to my mother on the phone that night, I realized I wanted to see what my life was like without video games for the first time since six years old when I got my first Gameboy. The next day I realized without video games I now had time to learn and play music.
The problem was that without knowing anything about music, where would I even begin? I was so clueless it took me days of Googling to figure out that I needed a "Digital Audio Workstation" to compose music on my computer. After buying FL Studio 12 at the recommendation of viewers on YouTube, I realized that I had no idea what to do with it. While I learn a lot just by Googling and reading, clearly becoming proficient at making music was going to require a different approach because I needed to be able to hear music being played and see how that related to making it happen on my PC.
Video courses have been extremely helpful for me in learning music because they bring video and sound into the learning process both of which are absent just reading blog posts and guides online. I also have a client named Tomas George at http://tomasgeorge.com who is music producer and sound engineer. His guidance and inspiration have kept me motivated to keep learning music even when it seemed pointless in the middle of thoughts like "I am so bad why even bother" and "This is so complicated there is no point in trying" and "I am so clueless I do not even know what I do not know or should learn."
Talking to Tomas on Skype helped me discover Deadmau5's masterclass which I made a free summary of at http://u.jerrybanfield.com/courses/deadmau5?coupon=steem. To summarize my summary, Deadmau5 basically said he played around a lot with music in his bedroom until he found sounds he loved and he copied a lot from the format other artists used to make his songs.
After watching 10+ hours of video classes, a few more hours of video tutorials on YouTube, and spending now maybe a hundred hours using FL Studio 12, I have been able to make 19 songs which are available today on Soundcloud at https://soundcloud.com/jbanfield. Given I was 100% clueless and unmotivated to make music six months ago, this seems like a miracle today! Am I a great artist or musician after a few months of watching video courses and trying to play music? Absolutely not! Have I already made songs I love listening to and have got stuck in my head? Yes. Does it make my want to cry in joy when my almost two year old daughter asks me to play one of my songs for her and dance to it? You bet!
The point is that while many of us can simply learn new skills by reading guides and Googling, others of us need video classes to give us the confidence to even begin the process of trying something new AND to stick with it when things get difficult.
How much will we benefit if just a small percent of new Steemit users take the video class free and get the same results I have got out of the video classes I watched for learning music? Would you appreciate more Google search traffic coming in to Steemit from posts by new users that rank high? I know I would! With how hard we work to get our friends and family to sign up for Steemit, how much would it help us to make sure that we do not let all these new Steemit users fall through the cracks into the abyss which is trying to make the first successful posts?
Would you help me make this course by upvoting this post because I think this will help more new users enroll free?
Thank you very much for reading to the bottom or scrolling down to view the comments! If you would like to take the course for free, would you visit https://u.jerrybanfield.com/courses/steem17?coupon=steem and suggest any videos here in the comments you would like to see me add?
Love,
Jerry Banfield