I can say from DM's and the replies on not only my contest page, but maybe more telling are the replies on the pages of the entries from those who were featured that I think they do help.
When someone is starting off on steemit it's just so hard to get noticed and hard to start conversations with people. The contests that are out there allow people to find a niche and engage with other people they may have been afraid to interact with otherwise...or worse their approach may have been viewed as spammy and then they get flagged.
The $$$ rewards tend to be pretty small, but I remember when I first started being excited winning like .35 SBD from a contest and then the next day winning another .25 SD. Back then SBD was under a $1 so the value was nothing, but winning was really cool.
Little things like this helped me stay committed to steemit and convince me to add cash into the system. In turn I have referred a few others who now own steem as an investment and my Brother Inlaw is here blogging...well posted twice now but it's a start. He owns 3000sp due to my recommendation which may not have happened without contests...so do they help, I think so!
I agree with you! Even some of my local friends who joined thinking they didn't have anything to offer Steemit have made friends and earned SBD through meme contests and the like. If there hadn't been a meme contest, they might not have stuck around long enough to get the hang of the platform.
This is great to hear!
This is all great to hear. I know many people are new to blogging as I myself am. I've never really been to direct on any social media platform prior to steemit. I have had Facebook since 2007 and started it for games only. I have since then added direct family and a few friends but still have not really ever cared for it much.
I agree that contest gives people a foot in the door so to speak. I don't really care for the types of post that make trending, nor the ones that were trending prior to bid-bots. Most of the time there was little to no engagment but plenty of comments.
I am glad you stuck around as I find you doing more to help the platform than many of the investors do.
Thank you for sticking your head in here and replying.