How do you get people to join Hive and stick with it?

in Reveriolast year

My first question for @reverio
I have been on this platform for over six years. In this time I have recruited quite a few people, but many of those accounts are inactive. I get that everyone has their own priorities.
For many the rewards will not be enough to keep them coming back, especially if they do not have an easy way to cash out. I think there has to be enough engaging content to make it worth their time. Plus people want feedback when they post.
Getting people on here in the first place is even harder, but with toold like Keychain it can be as easy to use as some other blogging platforms. We have games too for those who like that.
I think we have a great platform, but the slow growth is frustrating for me. I get that some people think we need more development before we are ready for the masses.

What do you think?


This question was created on reverio.io, Reverio is a question and answer platform built exclusively for Hive. Answer this question on Reverio by clicking here.

Sort:  

Had a conversation on this topic with @nonameslefttouse at leothreads, made me think.

https://peakd.com/life/@nonameslefttouse/one-of-those-hive-stories

I think the small community turns some off. If you have 100k followers elsewhere why would you come to Hive? I think we need people with maybe 5k fans who can persuade some of them to use Hive. They can build something here. Just have to take a chance on it. It doesn't help when some people try to drive them away. I have seen that happen too many times. Just because you think someone is an arsehole does not mean they shouldn't be on Hive as long as they are not actively abusing it. We cannot afford to scare off people who could build our community.

I liked the idea of putting the content first.
Great content and people will join and stay.
His words; one book, many readers, one game, many players.
The masses are not all creators, they consume.

The wonder of Hive is that consumers can earn too! Curating and commenting can both pay. If a band bring their 1000 fans here they can build something cool and each of those fans will be into other things too. People pay into things like Patreon, but if they bought $HIVE instead they could soon be a minnow and give out a few cents each day.

I like your band & fans idea!
Let's promote that!

We have musicians here. If we support them then they will spread the word that it's worth doing.

You and I have talked about this before. You know I love Hive, Steve. I haven't been here as long as you, but I'm only about a year Hive-younger than you. So I am always thinking about this question and discussing it with other people.

I think basically outside of Hive, blogs are dead. Few people blog these days. For those who do want to blog, the tools are much better elsewhere, the other platforms are easier to use, and many of them have more users so even assuming the same low percentage of comments, the number of users on the platform itself usually leads to more comments. Also as to that point, most other blogging platforms allow non-users to comment. Here if a visitor does stumble upon a Hive blog and wants to comment, they can't unless they sign up, which they probably don't want to do. Hive needs to forget the money and the focus on blockchain; 99% of our potential users don't care about that at all, they just want something easy to use where they can share their thoughts and interact easily. It can still be that in the background but the focus for onboarding should not be that because that focus doesn't attract anyone.

For better or worse, the blogging aspect of Hive is currently the main feature. So as currently is, if Hive wants to attract new users, they need to improve the blogging engine:

  • Make the blogging a lot better. Custom CSS, premade templates, javascript support. For starters.
  • Make signing up easier / simplify the key system that is so confusing to so many people
  • Allow for comments by non-users or make it very easy for new users to enable a 3rd party commenting system like Disqus

Anyway, that's just off the top of my head. Less of an answer to your question and more of a rant. haha sorry. I'll watch on Reverio to see if you get better answers than mine.

!PIMP


You must be killin' it out here!
@dbooster just slapped you with 5.000 PIMP, @steevc.
You earned 5.000 PIMP for the strong hand.
They're getting a workout and slapped 2/2 possible people today.

pimp_logo


Read about some PIMP Shit or Look for the PIMP District

I still subscribe to a load of RSS feeds, so blogs are not totally dead. Some might see Hive in competition with sites like Medium, but I think a wider variety of posts are possible. There are loads of people posting about games like Splinterlands and Rising Star. We also have videos from 3speak. Actually playing the games is popular too.

Improving the posting experience is important. It ought to be possible to embed media from more sources. I know it works for a few already, but people don't want to think too much about it.

I can't see the keys system changing much. We need multiple keys for good security and Keychain makes them easy to manage.

Allowing comments from people without accounts would be good. There has been talk of 'light' accounts that would be easier to get. Maybe that will help.

Anything with blockchain will be more complex than Facebook, but we have some advantages apart from rewards. I think we need that critical mass of users for it to take off with lots of good content to attract people. I'm just not sure where that will come from.

Cheers and !BEER


Hey @dbooster, here is a little bit of BEER from @steevc for you. Enjoy it!

Did you know that <a href='https://dcity.io/cityyou can use BEER at dCity game to buy cards to rule the world.

I will tell only for my experience, been around long even if I post slowly (just following the logic that I create slowly, though I am always thinking about becoming more "candid" with my posts and somehow later fail at consistency, but no pauses, always around. I will tell you that of course the rewards are nice but what keeps me coming back is that I usually get feedback (and encouragement). It is quite uneven, sometimes you work hard on a post and it's rewarded handsomely but noone says anything. As an artist for me to have a potential audience listening is pivotal, and when just like last post, people join with an encouraging word, it motivates me to share next. Honestly I got more feedback on hive's post than elsewhere on the other platforms. And well not long of finishing my next videos that was really very encouraging.
Also on the other hand I like to know what happens with people I've met along the way, this happens in every platform, so I always check on people (personally) some are not even active around here anymore.
I also have quite a lot of you on twitter, and for me that's a reason also to browse home and friends here :) like what's up. I mean "community" matters

I think everyone should use Hive at their own pace. You must be busy creating, but then the finished music or video will be spectacular. I'm happy to hear you get good feedback. I am just on Hive a lot, but then it's fun. I ought to be off making music really, so I will try to do more of that.

Community really does matter.

Great question, Steve!

I've found that the best way to get people to join and stick with Hive... is to not tell them about Hive at all!

Before you say I'm crazy, hear me out here 😉.

Normies don't want to hear about a truly decentralised, censorship-resistant network blah blah blah, anymore than they want to hear about the technical back-end of the internet itself.

All they want is to use an easy to use website or app that solves whatever problem they have.

"Check out LeoFinance, where you can make money chatting about crypto."

"Have you seen Splinterlands? You get paid to play cards."

Those two Hive based dApps have a simple onboarding process that takes the technical side of using a blockchain account out of it.

So for me the key to getting them to join is to completely ignore the Hive blockchain and only talk about the dApps built on top of it.

Market Hive to devs as the best place for them to build.

Then market the dApps themselves to normies.

If the dApp solves their problems better than the competition, then they'll stick with it.

The dapps are what matter to end users, but it needs to be emphasised that you get access to all of them when you join up. It bugs me that Hive is barely mentioned on the Splinterlands site. Players could be earning by posting about it. They might enjoy some of the other games too.

!BEER


Hey @forexbrokr, here is a little bit of BEER from @steevc for you. Enjoy it!

Learn how to earn FREE BEER each day by staking your BEER.

I agree with you that the growth is very slow, both form the platform as from one's account. I'm here just for over 1 year, trying everything to get this working and unfortunately my conclusion is that if I don't put a lot of money in here or (and?) I don't get people with a lot of HP to curate my posts hte return is extremely small. If I put an hour or more to write this post for example and than after that it's worth 5 USD in the end that's simply not worth my time. Certainly when I consider that 3,33 USD would be from a boost which I'm "paying" and I'd be promoting the post for a whole week, which would cost me another 500 Ecency points... You'll tell me to be here in the first place for the fun and the interaction, but as a dad, athlete and full time employee I'm interacting all the time already...

I'm not sure Actifit is big enough to earn you much. If you just write one line on an activity then will people consider that to be worth much? Nothing wrong with your beer post, but how many saw it? You don't have many followers. I was really active from the start, so people got to know me and I built from nothing. I have put in a lot of time, but it's fun. Making it fun for yourself is vital especially if the rewards are low. I use Ecency on my phone, but I don't boost my own posts. I need to use up some points boosting other people.

I just don't have a simple route to success on Hive. I did have an advantage by getting in early, but I have put in the work.

!BEER

Thanks for your feedback and help but... I try to post more than "one line" on my actifit posts, and I try to add one or more pictures as well, which is not so easy, or I should be taking pictures all the time. Apart from that I don't expect to earn or to be appreciated from the few lines on Actifit (because of the small posts, a lot of people trying to make easy money from it, hence the small account AND because I'm aware that the big accounts - people that are in here from the beginning - are not here and don't appreciate it. On the other hand, i try to motivate people to continue and give tips for their training commenting on their trainings where I can.

How many saw my Beer post? Well I can't do much more than:

  1. Posting it in a quite dedicated an visited community
  2. referring to it when I can, trying not to spam ;-)
  3. Promote the post for the full 7 days
  4. interact with people in the #Beer Community, and with people in general
  5. thank and comment back to people who comment my post and/or follow me
  6. Trying to be consistent

If all of this brings me a value of 1,55 USD till now (+ seeing my post not even boosted by spending my own ecency points), I think it's not strange that I start to loose faith and I understand that people hook off earlier from Hive as well...

I do say that Hive is not always 'fair'. I've had someone else complaining that he is active, but doesn't get much engagement or rewards. I just checked and you have done more comments in a year than he has in much longer. Getting in early has given me an advantage. I have also been to 3 international meetups and lots of UK ones. That does get noticed, but it's not viable for everyone. Others have invested lots of money and get good votes that may be related to that. You are competing with possibly thousands of other people for votes now. Mind you, I made zero on a lot of my early posts whilst others made thousands as the algorithm was different then.

We each have to decide what is right for us. I want to see everyone having a chance to earn on Hive, but if it can be as fun as other platforms where they make nothing then maybe they will still use it despite low rewards. As I said, I don't have all the answers.

I stopped with all other platforms to dedicate more time to things that would bring me something (intellectually, financially or in respect to my health. I noticed that I haven't been posting anything on Facebook for about a year (I was posting there to keep some of my best "memory" pictures there and enjoyed the same day in the year.... over theer) and I stopped with instagram, because, just like on Facebook I stay there too long for doing nothing...!LUV

I can get obsessed with things and Steem/Hive has been the main one for a while. I do other things such as music and running too of course. Life is short and you have to find the right balance.


Hey @svanbo, here is a little bit of BEER from @steevc for you. Enjoy it!

Learn how to earn FREE BEER each day by staking your BEER.

Hive is working well for me. I'm just not very prolific and don't like to spend too much time on any social media. I think if you are serious about appealing to many more people, you may need to analyze your target demographic more carefully, and come up with a campaign based on that. Word of mouth or individual persuasion isn't going to work at any kind of scale - you need to build mass momentum, which is often highly unpredictable and subject to forces far beyond our control.

I do think there is potential in niche audiences initially, e.g. particular kinds of music. I know some have tried to get people to migrate from Facebook groups which have some limitations, but everyone has an account there already.

I'm not a marketing guy. That's why I put up questions like this :)

!BEER


Hey @daniellemurray, here is a little bit of BEER from @steevc for you. Enjoy it!

Learn how to earn FREE BEER each day by staking your BEER.

That is an excellent question. I suppose this issue requires everyone's attention for a full discussion. As a result of this, I've written down a lot of thoughts somewhere. Everyone in their specific region may have a different experience. Consistency on the side of the individuals I've brought up is a difficulty in Africa since it costs so much to get internet bandwidth to be active on hive. Despite the fact that many individuals have their own priorities, an internet connection would compel the majority of people to remain.

Because it is a difficult issue to fix, I have done my best in the past to encourage individuals to keep active by providing them with reasons to do so. However, some people will leave regardless of how things go, particularly if they do not receive what they came for. Over the coming days, we must be cautious about the message we send to others in order to entice them to join the ecosystem. Raising their aspirations so high sometimes leads to disappointment when things do not go as planned. Thank you for addressing this Steve @steevc

Setting expectations is tricky, but we do not want people to be disappointed. In Africa and other places the potential rewards will be a big draw, but people cannot expect to make $100 on every post and they need to resist the temptation to try and cheat the system with plagiarised content. I think building communities is key so that people support each other and have interests in common.

I do not have all the answers. That is why I posted the question ;)

!BEER

Thanks for this sir.


Hey @mcsamm, here is a little bit of BEER from @steevc for you. Enjoy it!

Learn how to earn FREE BEER each day by staking your BEER.

It's hard to say. I wish I knew. I think the rewards are part of it, but some of it is probably just time and commitment. If you consider the fact that many of us went through the same thing realizing rewards weren't going to be what we thought they were. Yet we are still here. Some of us have excelled, some are doing okay, some still languishing along. It is a lot of work for little reward at times, but if you view it as a hobby and not a job, that helps a lot.

Some of my musician friends have got in the with open mic crowd. I think you have to find your community. Just pumping out Actifit posts with no responses would soon get boring. Hive is different to other platforms and you have to find what works for you. Some people will just lose interest and go back to FB/Insta/Twtr.

I did the actifit thing for a while. It got hard to not feel like I was spamming the chain. I mean how much can you really put into a post about your workout when it is the same thing every day. People argued that the exercise itself is the content, but others don't see it that way. If there was less stigma about short form content, it might not be so bad. Hopefully that is changing.

I'm not against short form, but we need ways to filter it. You will see I try to make my running posts interesting. I feel I have to justify the rewards I am likely to get. That is why I am incorporating some gear reviews, but with four runs each week I will run out of things to talk about.

That's my point. That's why I stopped doing Actifit posts. It was tedious and too much like work after a while. My wife was doing it for a time too, but then she got sick of it. I think there has to be a place for that without judgement or backlash though.

Not everyone is a blogger. Photo posts can be valid too. There has to be something for everyone. Anyway, this post generated some conversations, so that's worth it to me.

Oh, by the way, you see my post from today? I wondered if you knew that band...

I'm still here after 6 years. Somewhat active. Hive growth has come and go with life and my other priorities. I wish I had more Hive. Now I just try to earn that naturally but it's sooo slow!

Most of mine has been earned, but that's with daily activity. Luckily I find it fun and I don't go out much anyway :)

!BEER


Hey @cryptoknight12, here is a little bit of BEER from @steevc for you. Enjoy it!

Learn how to earn FREE BEER each day by staking your BEER.

Can you think of a way I can monetize development efforts? It is altruistic for most. I onboarded a user and the first thing he asked was how to chat. The last question he asked was how to chat. I sent him to Discord. He never came back to Hive. 😐

There is a chat feature in peakd already. I hope that can be linked in with other front ends.

Developers can apply for funding through a proposal or get rewards by posting about what they do.

Yes, but I am thinking I'll have to use beempy in order to do it. I don't see any mechanism for DHF proposals on any web front end.

I think you can do it through peakd, but it's not something I've tried to do. You can ask on the Hive discord.

BeeChat is not open source. What I have will be opened source tomorrow. We shouldn't wait forever.

Sometimes it's better to remain silent.

Are you saying I should?

I agree with you but some people want to see the results before they can do anything

What results?

Possible result from hive in you

 last year  

Hi @steevc!

Congrats on your first question on Reverio.

Your question has received a small upvote from https://reverio.io.

We'd love to hear your feedback or any suggestions you have surrounding Reverio. You can get in touch by replying to this comment. Please consider following us on Hive to keep up to date with our latest announcements.

Light content like Reverio. Opportunity to make donations. Displaying the amount of donations on the site and the names of donators.