On giving the gift of steemit to your friends and colleagues.

in #steemit7 years ago

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Have you ever tried introducing a friend to steemit?

Was it difficult attempting to explaining exactly what it is to someone who's never heard of such a thing?

It's hard to convince people the value of steemit when they've never used it before. It's something entirely more difficult to teach someone who is new to crypto or isn't very tech savvy.
To all those amazing people running promotional campaigns and finding new members- Thank you for contributing to the growth of the platform and the community.


Steemit isn't your traditional social platform.

It doesn't even have a standard blockchain model. Trying to discuss the mechanics with someone you want to interest is nearly impossible. It's something they have to learn on their own, in time.

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So, if you can't efficiently tell people how steemit works, and you don't have anything similar enough to compare it to in terms they will understand, then what exactly can you do?

I have been lucky enough to have a few friends join me on steemit and give it a shot! I am grateful for their adventurous spirit and faith in my recommendation.
Please welcome some of my friends and family to the steemit world as I explain my thoughts on why they are perfect for the community and how I convinced them to join.


When I first discovered steemit, my intention was to use it temporarily as a test to see how effective it would be for a specific purpose. I think it's important to quickly explain why I joined steemit in the first place because I still plan to accomplish my original goals.

I belong to a group of gamers and friends who have set out to develop a turn based tactical strategy mmo that is the meant to be a spiritual successor to a game called March of War.
As amateurs, it is taking a long time for us to make much progress, but we are learning as we go. Our motivations keep us moving in the right direction no matter how difficult it gets.

March of War was this incredibly beautiful, horribly managed, wonderfully imaginative, yet poorly developed game that many of us players loved to death. Great friendships were forged in battles, as were lifelong rivalries.

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The game met it's ultimate fate on February 1st of 2016 when the servers were shut down for good.

My initial journey on steemit was an attempt to gauge the websites potential to raise funds for development and simultaneously market the future product.
It's safe to say that the potential I saw on steemit surpassed my wildest expectations and became so much more to me than just a tool.

steemit is a community and platform that I believe in. It has so much potential that I have even risked introducing it to people!


I have invited friends and family alike into the steemit universe- a total of 11 people in fact- 8 of which signed up, 6 of them have been quite successful, and 2 are still very active!
My brother signed up, made a test post and quickly dove back into the mining game! He is making a killing and even set up a masternode on one of the chains he invested a bit in.
However it seems that the electric bills in California soak up most of the profits. Luckily he found a solution! He's introduced mining to our other brother who's electric rate is fairly low, and also utilizes the heat during these cold winter months.

Thank you everyone who helped me welcome my friends to the platform when I introduced them in a former post. Please consider checking out @joviandres and @arinfinite.
I have introduced them in greater detail in this post.

One other friend of mine signed up, but never checked back in. Even though he hasn't tried it out yet, doesn't mean he never will. I don't ever bother him about it, I just hope he gets bored enough one day to log in and give it a shot hahaha.

I'm glad that I've been successful introducing steemit to people. I believe that there are a few things that you must consider before giving someone a serious invitation.


Who should we invite to steem?

I don't believe it's wise to invite anyone and everyone to the platform.

To be completely honest, it's just not right for everybody. Some people will lack interest, some will not want to give it effort and others don't have what it takes to succeed.

There's always a risk that a failed attempt will lead a person to believe it's a scam, even when it was their lack of effort or skills that didn't allow them to succeed. Here's how I avoid that pitfall.

When assessing which one of my friends, relatives, colleagues or strangers to invite onto the steemit platform, I always think of the environment and community first. I need to have a clear understanding of what each person can provide to the current trends and desires of the community.

Photography, art, blogging and music are all very popular on here. To a many of my friends, these things are a passion, a pastime and a source of great pride and inspiration- sometimes at a steep cost.

Everyone in this category has something to share, as well as the motivation and patience to really get involved. They aren't in it for the money, in fact they likely never have been! Yet steemit is the perfect platform to give them at least some reward that may help fund future projects, and an amazing opportunity to become well known and successful.

More important than they style of content provided is how creative and original their work is. This space has room fof so much growth and it's the people who think outside the box that will fill it up with all the best things to see.


Now I know who should join, how do I convince them?

Trying to teach someone about cryptocurreny and blockchain for the first time is like giving a 2yr old a rubix cube. They just don't get it.

Here's the secret- Don't even bother!

They really don't need to know about the intricacies. All they need to know at first is what they are capable of and that they have your support. In other words "You can make money sharing your passions and doing what you're already doing elsewhere, and I'll help you do it."

If a person is truly interested in maximizing their potential, they will take on the responsibility themselves, and they will ask you for help. Always be available, but don't force it upon them.

Where does the money come from?

We all know this trap. It's actually quite a bit more simple than most people make it.

When someone upvotes your post and comments, you are awarded with a bit of steem. This steem is only worth exactly what people are willing to buy it for. Right now it's $4.51 USD according to https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/steem/#charts.

Yes it's speculative, and yes it can change wildly in either direction fairly quick. I also assure them that I've personally cashed out hundreds of dollars. It helps pay the bills and provide for me when I need it most.

This is usually all they need to know at first. Assure them that when the time comes you will help set up their exchange and wont even charge a dime ;-). Your coinbase referral will give you each $10 when they have succeeded.

It will be wise to warn them that there is a waiting time when applying for a free account. If they are the impatient type, or you would like to give them a quick and easy gift- Setting up an account for them is a fairly easy and not too expensive.

A bit of advice before they start

When your friend has finally recieved the magic WIF they need to understand that their key is incredibly important. It should always be saved and stored in multiple locations. If it is ever lost, there is potentially no way for it to be recovered.

There's a fair bit of posting advice that I give people. But it's just a few simple rules to follow.

*This requires a more effort than facebook, twitter and instagram
*Don't post too much. I recommend no more than 3 per day. consistency, creativity and community are everything you need to build up a following.

Consistency: Posting at the same time every day will insure that it's always exactly when your followers are already online!
I have a hard time doing this, and I could really learn a thing or to by taking my own advice haha

Creativity: Don't do what everyone else is doing.
A little bit of a unique flare will help you stand out in the crowd and attract the people who are genuinely interesting in what you are doing.

Community: Find friends and interact with them.
Leave meaningful and constructive comments on posts that interest you.
Join steemit.chat and discord servers and make friends. Everyone coming together in support of each other is a powerful thing.
You can always find me hanging out in whaleshares discord, and sometimes bitshares or steemspeak.
There are so many communities to get involved in and events to attend, hopefully I'll see you there!


If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to ask in comments or general chat.
If you don't know what whaleshares are, now is an excellent time to find out!
https://discord.gg/NTKXJhK

Check out our calendar and sign up for a live tutorial.

Whaleshares are brought to you by @officialfuzzy


As Always,

Thanks for stopping by
Good Luck and Enjoy!

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Extremely well written blog!
+1 follower and resteemed to:
@BestOfSteem

Thank you!

My girlfriend's father introduced me - and since then I've tried to introduce content creators and influential people in my community. I'm hoping I can get some people from Facebook into this too. Good writing, it's nice to see you helped form a community out of your passions.

He either likes you and wants you to succeed, or is hoping that you'll lose all interest in girlfriends and become addicted to steemit like so many others do hahaha

Influential people would be interesting, however I think there's too much politics on here as it is xD

It would be interesting to see local businesses start advertising on here though.

Yeah, in terms of influential people I was thinking successful musicians and local event managers. I've even spoken to some business owners I know. I know some amazing people that have a lot of interesting brain worms to share!

I tend to only invite those I know who could excel on the platform, writers artists, artisans, nerds and gamers. People who have something to contribute. Otherwise they’re just using up my bandwidth for memes and terrible posts.

I believe it's good to priorities quality and creativity.
Some memes are ok, but damn there's a lot lately. Still preferred over the copy pasta however.

Well that’s what I mean, like a really funny and relevant meme won’t go unnoticed, but when people multi-post the same thing every single day and make 3x as much as I would make on something I put a lot of effort into seems essentially undermining to the system and it’s good to see that behaviour is being singled out and expunged.

Some abuses are managed by the community, but many of the worst voting rings get away with it because they are so big and fight back.
You really have to sacrifice everything and hope to make a difference.

As a musician the main response I get is "I haven't got time" and as a lot of independent musicians are also pretty poor, being as it's so hard to earn money from our art, I tend to focus on the opportunity Steemit provides them to earn a living from their music.

As I run a website with over 2800 musicians on it I thought the best way to get this across was to record a video series on "How To Make Money As An Independent Musician". Part 2 is all about using Steemit as a musician, especially the awesome "dsound" by @prc.

In the space of a month or so we now have about 10 or 15 musician on here and we meet once a day on Discord to upload and cross-promote each other's music.

Once people are on here and start to see the rewards in both financial terms but also in growing their fanbase and community, they are hooked!

I have to say though, it's damn complicated when you first start using it!!

Nice setup you have there!
Do you add the images after you record, or do you use a program to blend it as you record?

I add them afterwards although on the most recent video I did a screen capture as I was going through Musicoin and then added a few static images afterwards.

After the first few I realised it was quicker to do that than try and get my green screen flat enough not to look like a damn curtain! Also who needs to see my ugly mug! :P

Some great insight just when I could use it the most. I'm currently working with our local library to set up an intro to Steemit session. Living in the Woodstock area, we have a lot of very talented artist (writers, painters, musicians, you name it) that are struggling to find their outlet. Right now I'm struggling with how to give enough information to make it understandable to them without making it too complicated that they get scared off. So far I the points that I know I need to cover are:
a) It is not a make quick easy money platform, but offers the potential to make good money if you invest the time and effort to create quality contest. (This is a good thing)
b) It is not a ponzi scheme, there is no financial investment required. (It seems too good to be true to people who don't understand blockchain and have been bought up in a society that teaches you pay (financially) for what you get.)
c) networking/communities are extremely import to success. People want to know you before they invest in you.
d) The details/intricacies can seem overwhelming when you first start, but it will come with time and the more you understand the inner workings the more you appreciate the platform.
e) And of course I will make myself available to help those that are in it for the right reason, bring something to the platform, and are in for the long haul.

Who knows what questions will come up or what other points I will add to the discussion. If there is enough interest, it may turn into a regular community group to support and help each other.

That's awesome man. Let me know if you need a hand.
I live 2 hours NW of Woodstock :) Ever thought of hosting a meetup?

Cool, I'll keep you posted on how things progress. Who knows, if there is a lot of interest I might need some help. Still being relatively new, I have thought of attending a meetup if there are any in traveling distance, but don't know enough to consider hosting one.

Giving presentations at the library is a fantastic idea!

Feel free to steal anything from my video if you find it useful as I wanted to try and create an easy introduction without overwhelming people!

Wow, although I'm not a musician, I still got a lot of good info out of your video. I'm sure it will also come in handy if I get some inspiring musicians showing up. This was also the first I've heard of DSound, which looks really interesting. Not sure if you can answer, but do you know of a RSS feed solution for DSound or any Steemit audio site? I do podcasting outside of steemit that I would like to move into the steemit ecosystem, but most listeners want them delivered through their podcast catchers and aren't interested in going to a website to download.

Thank you! Glad you found them useful!

Get in contact with @prc as he is the guy behind dsound. He has a lot of new features planned but I think it is just him developing it and he's also trying to manage the dsound Discord too!!

Cheers!

Nicely spelt out @akrid, sometimes it can be so difficult bringing people on to steemit if they don't have the interest or just come for the money. I've enjoyed being here. Improved my writing skills and contributions to the community

Keep up the good work man! It's quality and creativity that is the real value here.

Thanks @akrid for writing this article. It will really help a lot. I am actually a promoter of steemit and i do it just because I love steemit and i want as many people to join as earn something for their ideas. But sometimes, I do get negative answer and it do worry me 'cus I am always thinking why are these people not seeing what i am seeing? Now I know what kind of people to approach. Not some random ones that are not even ready to give out their effort for their own benefit. But I will still be talking to those that don't know much about crypto and it related because i believe steem will make more people to learn about cryptocurrencies. Some people have the passion inside but on less they see a push they won't be able to move.

Thanks for your kind workds @seyiodus, I'm glad this helps you promote steemit.
One day it may be as popular as facebook and everyone who gave you a negative answer will regret it xD
For now look for those people with the passion inside :)

You are right. i will do that and by the time we take steemit to the moon, I won't be looking for them but they will be looking for me.

I think the greatest thing about Steemit is the fact that it has pushed me to think more creatively and be more imaginative with what I do create. Sure, I do the normal photography stuff here and there. But, I find myself going out into the world more to find what I can show here. There's an interesting, intrinsic, self-philosophy to it. Going in to go out to bring it back in to push it out. Almost like birth. Except, it's your psyche.

Thats awesome man. Keep growing, keep eveolving and keep expanding your talents!

Very well explained! Steemit is not for everybody but who have passion to write and enjoy networking can be successful for sure. Thanks!

Thanks @chetanpadliya. A bit of effort and interest is all it takes :)

Hey, very inspirational and motivational writing. I'll keep in mind this advices. Thank you for sharing it with us.