There are many ways to approach content creation and presentation on Hive, but I wonder how many people actively think about how their own approach is perceived by the audience. Again, this is likely going to be affected by the type of content, as well as the personality and other factors, yet I think it is beneficial to review what we do from time to time.
I think that I am pretty well experienced when it comes to creating Hive content and I have tried a number of things over the years to see what works and what doesn't for me. I have also been involved with quite a few curation initiatives and helped people develop their content over time. Sure, my own content approach and presentation isn't to everyone's tastes, but it doesn't have to be as I have spent time creating my own little niche of sorts on the platform and play to my strengths as well as to my curiosity through experimentation.
Do you question why you do what you do?
There are a couple of things that I notice quite a few people do, but I am not exactly sure why they are doing it. Well, I might have an idea as to why, but I don't think that their approach is having the desired effect. The problem is that every action has a reaction and there is a cost of some kind to it. Again, it is not that the approaches are necessarily bad or I am criticizing them as wrong - it is just that most people are looking for some kind of result and if they aren't taking into consideration the potential impression they are making on their audience, they are unlikely to get to where they want to be on what is essentially an attention-based economy.
- Very long content
Now, I am the last person to be negative on long content, but it does depend on what is being said. For example, I tend to look for discussion on various topics that I embed into each post, rather than focus on a single point, this allows people to pick and choose what they engage with. However, if the content was a competition announcement of some kind, it is far better to keep the content tailored and concise, with things like rules and conditions bullet pointed. The problem with a lot of text without delineation is that the messaging gets lost and people have to work to understand the content, let alone enter.
- Frequency of posting
Again, this is going to depend on the person but in general on Hive (where we are), posting too frequently is seen as spammy. It doesn't really matter what you personally might think of this and of course if you don't see it this way you are free to post as often as the blockchain allows you - but there will likely be consequences to action, with people unfollowing and muting people who they feel post too often.
I do get it though, as people want to earn something significant and posting more can potentially get more - but, it can also bring in a kind of "salary cap" where while the posts will earn a little, the account will unlikely earn a great deal. I used to post quite frequently and I can easily submit 4 or 5 posts of 1000 words each a day, but if I do this, I will likely very quickly lose any support I gained over the years. Instead, the higher my earnings went, the less I posted - I restrict myself.
For most, quality is also going to drop or there is going to be a wide variety of quality from one post to the next, making setting autovoters too random. You might post one brilliant article and then five fast image and a line of text posts a day, but no large autovoter wants to have their vote on the low effort content. Consistency matters for most people in this regard.
- Time spread of posts
Along these lines, there is also the problem of spread of content that should be considered. Regardless of the actual effort involved, if I see two posts from the same author very close together, there is the impression that at least the second one of those is low effort. It isn't necessarily true as they might have been prepared prior, but impressions matter in an attention economy. It is far better to spread them out a little and this includes the people who are cross-posting to communities. Instead of doing it immediately, wait a few hours.
There are benefits to this of course as we are a global community and without a high degree of automated search and discovery, if we stay within our local time zones only, we have less reach. Putting a few hours between content can mean reaching a different audience.
- Answering of comments
Further along the lines of time is timeliness of answering comments received. Posting and running without answering a couple of the first comments at least, leaves the audience disengaged. Waiting days for a reply means they are no longer in the frame of reference at all. Of course, it isn't always possible to sit around after posting to wait for comments, but try to get to them quickly and consistently will see better levels of engagement on average.
- Long signoffs
Now, I don't know who this has ever worked for, but having a massive list of cut and paste content at the end of each post advertising this that or the other thing is likely going to push more people away than pull in. Scrolling through what is essentially unreadable content is a waste of precious moments that annoy the average internet user. I have no idea who will spend time running through a list of links that take the viewer off site and into other platforms, for what could essentially be the same content -perhaps there are some, but is it worth turning people off on Hive? If this is necessary to do, perhaps it would be better to design an image-linked banner of some kind that can cover all of the links in a far smaller space.
- Wallet address lists
Similarly, I have no idea who will send someone Bitcoin, Ethereum or some other random tokens to users who post their wallet addresses to every coin they have a holding in or want a holding in. Firstly, this is Hive so people will naturally be far more inclined to send HIVE and with the tip functionality, it is far easier. In my opinion (and many others I have spoken to) these links appear beggarish and people seem to put them on any kind of content they post, which makes what might be a very good or serious post look cheap and tacky.
Is it just me?
Now, having commented on these things (there are others too), it could be that it is just me and a handful of others who think they should be considered. It might even be generational where my age shows and presentation matters, but I don't think so. However, "my age" is probably pretty average on the blockchain, especially among the higher-staked user base, the ones that people might be wanting to attract with their content for various forms of support through votes and shares.
Putting a little bit of thought and strategy into the presentation and behavior of how you blog helps build a far greater sense of why you blog. Most people (like me) don't have a marketing and promotions team surrounding them, so we have to do the best we can with the resources we have available - but we will tend to rely more on our own defaults than actively consider the defaults of others, our audience itself. Not taking into consideration the behavior of people means that while we feel we are doing the right thing, the results we are getting don't match up to our feelings. We then can think that the system has failed to recognize us, but it could have been our failure to recognize the processes of the system -Human behavior.
I might add to the list later, but I am interested to hear what people think and what kinds of content points they engage with or forces them to disengage. Most people are pretty forgiving when there is the odd random post or experiment they don't like, but when it becomes a consistent part of the presentation - they will move away and will be unlikely to move back, because the decision has already been made.
Bad presentation has more influence over behavior than good - but it is unlikely a positive.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
So no I don't think it is just you. I think a lot of it has to do with mindset of the user. They see others do it, they see or think it works for others, so they copy it. I have seen post where 90% of the post is the sign-off and the wallet addresses, not a good way to win friends and influence people to follow you.
The long content is dependent on what kind of content it is - but if a contest requires 2000 words to say what is going on, it is unlikely to get a lot of entrants.
There used to be one of the old accounts that was like this, posting 5 times a day. Super annoying.
I won't add much here as you covered a lot, but I think I pushed it to the top of the chain for others.
!ENGAGE 50
Yeah, the write a novel for my contest, and then oh BTW you didn't follow my complicated rules so you don't qualify for a prize.
Lots of contest like that and then the contest person wonders why no one tried in the second round.
I think you had a ton of good info in your post. People do need to step back sometimes and ask themselves, What am I doing
If the barrier of entry to understand is high, people are spent before they even enter.
ENGAGEtokens.Hi Taraz. Some useful pointers here, thanks.
I don't make many posts, but I've been ramping up a bit lately, and also started making sometimes several micro posts on D.Buzz but not on my blog. Any thoughts on this as it doesn't clog up followers feeds (well, not on Peakd anyway, but I think I noticed my D.Buzz posts appearing on my Dapplr profile - I will check this out). Do you know of a way to prevent autovotes posts (like short form posts on D.Buzz?
Re. Posting content looking for a result, for me quite often yes I would like a result. I'm not particularly bothered about rewards, what I'm really looking for is engagement, particularly for The Matrix-8 Solution to encourage people to learn about how it works by reading and asking questions and potentially sharing with others. My reasons for this are altruistic, albeit there may well be tokens issued for my and others engagement pre launch (if/when this happens).
Namaste
Atma
Edit, I just checked my blog/profile on @ecency and @dapplr and my @dbuzz posts do indeed appear there (so presumably in my followers feeds I'd they are using these front ends). Whereas on peakd they do not appear by default, only if All Posts is selected. So this is somewhat concerning, as I don't wish my followers feeds to be filled with my buzzes. If they wish to see buzzes too they can if course join DBuzz.
#Xfor1
Yeah, the problem with dbuzz is while capped at 1 dollar (I think), it still attracts autovoters - which means an autovoter would lose their vote value if the post goes over the cap - if that makes sense. Also, I am pretty sure that they appear in the feed and I know lots of people who have stopped following dbuzz people. I would probably create a secondary account for this kind of stuff (for now) and then reblog the ones I want everyone to see. As far as I know, there is no easy way to avoid the autos on a frontend.
Yep, unfortunately I think there is no way around this at the moment on most frontends.
Yeah, I understand your concerns and the issues that exist @tarazkp.
We requested that the auto-voting services exclude our community from their votes but our requests were not met w/results . . so the auto-votes still stand.
For now, we are innovating in spite of other Dapps . . and our next release of D.Buzz is a couple weeks to a month away (w/our promised features completed).
After that, we will try to find solutions for the auto-vote & front-end issue . . it IS an issue and I am confident it will get fixed, but we need to roll out a marketable product 1st, then we can handle the auto-voting services & 2nd party front-ends.
Thank you @tarazkp.
Yeah, I understand it is a process and I am not critical of you guys not having a solution for these things yet - but I am glad that you are working toward things. Communities as a function need to be cleaned up to allow better separation of content and resources if needed, so that dapps like dbuzz can have all the posts it wants without getting in the way of other experiences.
Good luck :)
Yeah, that's true and it's what we want. It will eventually happen (the separation of Community posts from feeds) IMO since it's what people will ultimately want.
And step-by-step, I think we'll help it get there.
Thank you @tarazkp :)
Thanks for responding.
@chrisrice, any thoughts on this?
You are always welcome.
I was actually laughing a little because I had to post and run on this post to get my daughter - and it took me a while to get home so I could reply :)
Thank you @atma.love.
I responded to @tarazkp :)
!ENGAGE 15
ENGAGEtokens.I don't think you're alone in this and some of the points you raised should be intuitive to many, for instance— posting too frequently or leaving a healthy breathing gap of time between two adjacent posts.
I personally don't mind long posts as I understand quite well the urge to elaborate on something. Then again, this is not always the case. If I like the writing style or feel comfortable with it—the length isn't an issue. Tedious repetitive or unclear writing can drive me away within a few lines.
What I find intimidating are long signoffs. They baffle me — am I at the end of this article? No? Maybe a bit more? When does it end?
I also feel like I'm not decorated enough seeing all that! Possibly I'm doing myself a disservice by not having a footer animation! Yep, I went ahead, spent one evening in after effects, and made myself a custom animated footer to escape that pit of self-pity. Nothing fancy but I've been thinking about making a lot humbler one these days.
There is another issue I think a lot of hivers go through — finding the topics to write on. Not everyone is expressive through words. While this is easily answerable—don't bother writing if you don't have anything to write on or don't write for just writing's sake—but since this is an incentivized platform, that line of thinking won't work here.
Still, writing on a popular topic or something without being comfortable enough about it—is a practice that should be avoided IMO.
Footer animation is horrible!
Think so?
Some people can swear by it. ;)
I know. Too bad I’m not dictator. ;)
I wonder how many actually get the benefits they think
Maybe it is cultural - for example eBay didn't do well in China when it started there because it was too "clean" - but Alibaba with all of its flashing fonts and randomness was loved.
Asians generally do not mind visual complexity as much as Europeans, at least judging by the fact that go servers Westerners are main user group of tend to have clean, simple and clutter-free interfaces where as the popular Asian ones have UIs that look very cluttered to the Western eye.
I went into a pachinko parlor in Tokyo - I think it tells a lot about style differences :D
This is also why I think some of my preferences are cultural though and possibly age related.
Cars are an example of some preferences. Asian cars tend to be super reliable but cheap and plasticky interiors are common. The interiors of German cars tend to have much better finishings and general levels of comfort while some have serious reliability issues (I'm talking about certain small turbo engines as well as DSG and particularly Multitronic gearboxes).
I am not a fan of footer animations for the most part, especially when they don't look professional. I'd rather someone sign-off with their initials.
This is the thing for most people. It is going to depend on the audience and what they like to read or engage with. There are only so many hours in the day and people are forced to pick and choose.
My hope is that there will be more ways rather than writing, but there always has to be some kind of hurdle to earn, otherwise there is no value.
!ENGAGE 15
ENGAGEtokens.OK, so I don't understand how you (and your brother for that matter) manage to put out two high quality posts a day. I've been reading them for months and I still get amazed from time to time.
3 per week seems my optimum. I know I'm fiddly, and I know I spend way more time on my photos than most (again not you) but it takes me some time to point my writing in any given direction. That is post with a day to answer the comments then post and repeat. I've written 6 or 7 days a week several huge chunks of my career and feel that is too much unless I'm writing about motorcycles and riding. That audience isn't real existent here.
You see, I think the comments are generally more important to me than the post. I want to answer every single person that has given me their most valuable asset to comment on my post.
I edit every post at least three times. I want to make sure that I get said what needs to be said and nothing more. It's that time thing again.
I almost inevitably say thank you. I think that is important.
I rarely watch a video. I know that a lot of people REALLY like the medium, but it gets to the time thing again. I can read a hell of a lot faster than you can talk and the spaces make me crazy. A very precious few that I actually watch, and at least half of them that I get up and do something while I listen.
Single photo short text posts make me wild. You want to get paid by me for your picture of a peony (or even worse a selfie) with the entire text block of "A picture of a pretty flower in my garden". Really? Not likely. One of the reasons I love the 'photo view' feature on PeakD. I don't have to open a post to discover 1 photo and nine words.
TLDR is not a problem with me, if you can keep me awake through the whole thing. I love good writing and will read LONG if it is. If not I'm out. Literally.
OK. It's a good thing you don't censor comments that are too long :) Thanks for another spot on and thoughtful post.
I think it is style of thinking and not being overly bound to any topic.
Like you said about the bikes, it is easier to write on some topics - hopefully in the future there will be an audience available that is both interested and knowledgeable about many topics. If they are knowledgeable, the curation process works well.
Yep. I have at times spent a handful of hours just on comments of some posts as I tend to get walls due to the topics I write about. It is very hard for most people to just say - "nice post" and pretend they read it :)
As for the video, I don't mind podcasts but depending on the speaker, I generally speed it up 1.75 to 2x. I like Dan's way of speaking as it is slow and clear and works well at a faster speed - it is very exciting to listen to at double pace :D
And then keep scrolling on by... like Instagram. Photographers need to start understanding that everyone is a photographer so if they want to stand out, they have to value-add to their content and slow people down enough to appreciate the images.
It would be pretty hypocritical! :D
!ENGAGE 15
ENGAGEtokens.Capping the number of top level posts per day to two or at most three is most likely the optimum when earning potential is considered. Also, posting much more could be perceived as not proper by some people even if the extra posts did not earn too much.
Hive is a kind of crypto soup kitchen, a distribution mechanism for tokens of monetary value. Once that is understood, many of the paradoxes of Hive begin to make sense. For example, what social media platform has a culture that frowns upon anyone posting too frequently? For the core value proposition of the social media or publishing platform use case of Hive it would be good if people posted frequently because frequent posting grows the repository of all the content that is less than a week old. That in turn cannot be to anyone's disadvantage because, properly organized, a large repository is always better than a small one. But because Hive is primarily a crypto faucet old content is largely meaningless.
Yes, and this will hopefully change somewhat in time, but right now, people are looking to earn Hive. If for example people were interested in only earning a dbuzz token, they could buzz all they wanted and never even look at the Hive side or, have it hidden completely. That is not where we are yet though.
Only the ones where there is value to be had and there are probably guides for Patreon that speak similarly that spamming content is unlikely to get support from patrons. The general rest however, don't care at all about the content, they just care about what they can send through the network out to users.
I'm afraid it could be a problem for those people in the DBuzz community.
I'm not talking about spamming. It's obvious that low value content is unlikely get rewarded regardless of who posted it. Besides, the devil is in the details. I don't know how Patreon works. Does one support an author on a publication by publication basis or by a fixed amount of money per unit of time?
In fact, those networks that do not have an incentive mechanism are all about the content because that's what attracts users and fuels engagement.
I seriously think what's holding Hive back as a content delivery platform is our obsessive focus on the rewards. Old content basically gets discarded and buried once the payout window closes. That's horribly wasteful! There's a ton of value in that content. There should be efficient content discovery, lots of internal links and a focus on building content that has lasting value.
That does not mean the global reward pool has to go. It wouldn't solve anything. It would be kicking the can. What needs to take place is improve content discovery sufficiently for all of the content on the platform to begin to attract both passive traffic as well as active participants. At that point, someone being a hard working and prolific content creator would no longer be considered a problem but an asset.
I think there are various options and "buy-in" points - one difference is that it is a tokenized thing - it is directly paid - real money ;)
They have their algorithms that push the content they want though, which is why Facebook can be gamed for political advantage.
A lot of things need to improve here with content discovery and longevity of content as it would incentive better quality, rather than flash in the pan content.
The funny thing is that while people think short content is valuable because it gets shared (like a meme), it isn't valuable to the creator, it is valuable to the platform. Does anyone know who creates most of the memes? There are "meme factories" out there who make that kind of stuff - name one creator.... Here, it is about individual accounts and authors - it is a different kettle of fish.
!ENGAGE 15
ENGAGEtokens.It seems that I am spamming all your posts as always. Don't turn off the notifications just because of that :P
A couple of things that I noticed being on the platform way less than other regular users.
Sometimes it is frustrating to see posts without significant efforts (that's what i think - may not be true) receiving high upvotes. I know I should not be worried about that coz the upvotes received are based on your social network, engagement and marketing in addition to the quality of the posts. Having said that, it impacts new users who come here to earn crypto.
I completely agree with @atma.love I almost stopped posting on @dbuzz just because I was not comfortable to share 240 words post with others. That could be seen as a post with less effort. The platform should manage (i don't know how) specialized platforms and their audience in a specific way.
I agree with all your points though. I am still trying to figure out what is the right balance of conduct on this platform.
I have notifications on for comments and reblogs I get, but that is about it :) I like to try and get to comments fast - depending on my life - like today I had to go and pick my daughter up just as I posted. I thought I could write faster ;D
It does impact them for sure if they think they can do the same .- but with the tiniest look at the ecosystem, it is pretty apparent it isn't possible for most people.
I would create an alt for shortform content like dbuzz
Hive has truly seeped into your life.
Yes, it may not be possible but I would like to think that I may eventually create something like that. Hopefully. Not sure about other new users.
It serves many purposes for me - especially being able to think freely, which was meant to be my post today - but this came up :)
!ENGAGE 15
ENGAGEtokens.I like to do things the simple way.
There's a million stories in my head, but I can only do one post a day. At rare times two posts.
I go out, take a bunch of photos, do my daily work and then transfer the photos to my pc in the afternoon.
Another like is to post fresh photos taken on the day and then as I place the photos the story comes.
So, in two or three hours I am finished with the post and editing and then I go and do all of the comments and replies.
Simple and sweet with no post footers!
I like this too and as I take the photos, the story might already be developing - kind of like the negatives in the darkroom :)
Keeping it simple always aides in keeping it consistent. A good process is valuable.
Thank you, I recognise my faults, especially in the investment fields, but at least I try my best with the things that I know.
At times I also feel the story developing as I take the photos, and this helps me to then focus on taking specific photos in line with the developing story. So on Hive I am a photo story merchant :)
I see that you also have very good processes going.
Good night to you and the family my friend!
!ENGAGE 15
Thank you @tarazkp
ENGAGEtokens.Thank you kindly!
It is helpful although i am a newbie here.i comprehend what you just said in your post and i hope it will help me and other newbies who are interested in this #hive community.THANKS;) @tarazkp
Welcome and good luck out there :)
Why posting? Well if this ain't a good question. I often have found myself having this in my mind while observing the posts throughout the feed. The motivation can be different for each user, but just like you, I find it disturbing and annoying to have spam like content. With no regards to spelling, quality, ideas. Just random posts about petty mundane things. Although if they can be of some interest for people, usually an audience wants to feel there is something more to it. An emotion. A well thought idea. A personality behind the black written letters on a screen.
I feel when others trully feel for what they put inside their posts. It is obvious. We live in a free world and people can have the ability to post, comment, show whatever they please, especially with no censorship. What I think some might need would be an inner guide towards authenticity. Too many try to appear what they are not and show the pretty side of life. We all know that's not the case. And I have a guess that deep inside we all want the "real" type kind of engagement. Not for the votes, likes, shares, attention, earnings. The kind of posts that people really wanted to do because they felt it.
Personality matters here more than many other places as on Hive, we are building individual accounts, not a factory churning out content from a small pool of contributors.
I think a lot of people explore their life through their writing and "aspire" to be something that they might not be, or might not be yet. Others are trying to be what they think the audience wants - I think it is a losing game to fake personality as it is unsustainable and therefore, inconsistent in delivery.
Churning content from a mental coal like factory. Ah I already visualised it in my head and it looks hilarious lol. I think our mental factory, together with our personality, can make a difference if we focus our energy in the right directions.
Aspiring to become better is not bad, as long as we stay true to ourselves, to what we want to be and do. Cutting off external influences is important in this because it's too shallow to live a life someone else designs for you instead of living it the way you want it and design it yourself.
!ENGAGE 10
ENGAGEtokens.It depends on what is considered "long." I consider this to be a long one-topic post. It's about the length of a lot of my posts, which are usually one-topic. I don't think I read anything much longer. If a post is on a lot of different topics, it would need to be by someone I am pretty close to on here for me to read it, because I prefer depth of exposition. Short topics compiled generally is going to be a surface treatment of each. But if I'm close to the person, I just want to know what they're up to and what's on their mind, so okay.
All the other stuff you mentioned, yep. I particularly hate it when people never reply to any of the comments on their posts. It's very egotistical.
Well, gotta run. I'm off to the vet to get surgery for my dog. Wish us luck.
this is about 1500 words, so pretty long. It depends on the topic and what needs to be conveyed I think - as well as style - mostly though, it depends on the reader. Most people in the younger ages don't read much these days, so 500 words seems like a novel.
I think this is very important to recognize, relationships matter. They don't even have to be personal relationships as if you have a favorite author you love, you might want them to write 1000 page novels - but wouldn't want to read 50 pages by someone else.
I hope everything goes well!
I think I’ll be shoring up my post signature, it’s only got one link externally in it but these are some valid points. I too just skip past the shit I see in some peoples sigs lol.
I advise anyone I see posting numerous times a day to bring it down to one or two max posts. Some listen but others don’t. I agree that many posts, unless multiple owners of the account, is pretty annoying for me.
This is a funny thing - as most people act a certain way themselves - but then do the opposite of how they behave thinking others act differently :)
Frequency is even worse (for me) when I scroll half a wheel turn and see three posts by the same person.
What's more of a pet peeve for me is when someone cross posts their original post into 2 or more other communities lol I've seen that several times. I know we are trying to promote our content and brand but if you need to share it with three whole communities maybe you need to rethink what the content is about!
It was tough but I just chopped my signature by 2/3's of the wording. It had 3 sections and now I just have one.
Still going to promote Presearch though, I believe in the project and their Keyword Staking I think is going to revolutionize internet searches in the crypto age. Wondering if I could cut some of the text down in it..
"Gems" :D
I think it is not bad - do you get traffic through it you think?
Hahah yeah, the gems community cracks me up. I tried posting in it a little bit but got zero benefit from it so I stopped. I find it interesting and funny that a lot of the new users that I encounter are posting in GEMS but they are new to Hive supposedly? Is there a big arrow pointing to that community for posting or are they not new at all? Lol something I've been pondering!
I have gotten a huge spike in traffic to my referral link for it since May when I started focusing on engaging on new peoples content rather than posting or spending time in my personal feed. None has panned out though, lol they give up using it and I get no benefits hehe. Unfortunate!
Yep - I enquire about it sometimes and the answer is always the same "someone told me to"...
They aren't new.
I did my intro post after a couple months here - because I didn't know it was even a thing :D
I would say that a lot of the people who click through will be looking for the "get rich quick" results - but it is never quick enough.
!ENGAGE 15
ENGAGEtokens.You're right: many people on hive persist in sharing more facts even though this approach has the opposite effect, they push people further away.
i guess they don't consider that more important than sharing more facts is to share them in a more relevant way.
Eh, cool !!! Coool, on the case. There are no more publications about anything, it is better to take a break than to publish just what. Thank!!!
Thank you @tarazkp,
You caught some of the key points that have turned me off to some bloggers who may write well but have some habits on the blockchain blog I would rather not see.
Length - Long posts really can be relative, but over a thousand words may lose me.
Frequency - I have a tendency to reblog a post I think is relevant sometimes twice or three times a day. I think that could be irritating to some of my followers.
The others on the list go without saying and just seem logical. I wonder if you ever wrote for a science journal. Especially the first two categories, length and frequency seem to describe the analytics of posting.
I would just like to add one more thing that turns me off to some articles I read is lack of personalization, no humor and no engagement. I would hate to feel like I just read a page out of Encyclopedia Britannica.
Well in hindsight, I'm curious why you chose the rear of a bicycle as your cover picture. Are you trying to imply something?
It's hard to be critical of those we know and love but I hope your advice is taken into practice here on Hive to make an even better blogging experience.