I saw a few conversations over the past few days on Twitter and Hive posts talking about marketing for the Hive blockchain. User growth is one of the most important aspects to making Hive a more valuable ecosystem and along with it, raise the value of HIVE.
These two variables go hand-in-hand:
- As we work hard to market the ecosystem and get more users, the HIVE token price increases.
- In turn, as the HIVE token price increases, we will get more users (because of post payouts being more valuable in their USD equivalent)
@dalz put out a great post which dove into the details outlining active accounts on the Hive blockchain. We frequently see people talking about active users on Hive, but the way Dalz framed the data makes a lot more sense. He categorized it by transaction types:
2 years ago, Hive activity was all about being an author or a curator. You were active on this blockchain because you either wanted to:
- Blog and earn HIVE
- curate and earn HIVE
Fast forward 2 years and now we have a thriving ecosystem of dApps that allow you to not only earn HIVE for playing, posting, vlogging, buidling, etc. but you can actually earn second-layer tokens like LEO, SIM or DEC as well.
Hive is one of the (if not the) most active blockchains in the world based on real people. Everyday humans use Hive which is what makes this blockchain so powerful. The usability of Hive is clear when you take a look at the Dapp Rankings or blockchain activity levels.
The only chains that rival Hive in terms of users are Ethereum and Bitcoin (in my opinion).. the cool thing is that these 2 blockchains have two entirely different use cases than Hive.
Hive is meant to be a platform for web-based social activities. Whether that's playing a game like dCity, answering a Quello, vlogging on 3speak or blogging on LeoFinance - it doesn't matter. The possibilities are endless.
How Do We Get More Users
As I mentioned at the start of this post, getting more users begets getting more users. It's a snowball effect - when you get more users & activity, you get more investors and an increased token price. When the token price increases, you get more users.
With that and various other network effects in place, why isn't Hive growing at an exponential pace?
Above is another chart from @dalz's stats post which shows the number of active accounts based on posts/comments. Again, we're seeing a rising level of accounts that are used solely for custom JSON operations (which this chart does not account for), but to me this is still an accurate gauge of the hardcore users of Hive.
These are people who use Hive daily and interact with/create content regularly. While it excludes a lot of users, I still find it to be one of the most accurate measures of Daily Active Users (DAU).
From the chart, we can tell that DAU are not on the rise - as one would expect with such an amazing blockchain that is filled with opportunities.
In fact, when you compare this chart to the chart of money locked up in DeFi, it can actually be a little depressing. Why are billions of $$ flowing into these crazy DeFi ecosystems while little-to-no value is flowing toward something like Hive?
It all comes down to branding, onboarding and ongoing marketing initiatives.
I truly believe that if we had the right marketing initiatives, we could bring in users from far and wide. The opportunities are here, we just need to light the path and guide new users properly.
My personal ideas when it comes to marketing Hive are actually not about marketing Hive at all. It's about positioning communities and having those communities market themselves.
For example, with LeoFinance we've got social media accounts on nearly every major platform. YouTube, Twitter, Medium, Facebook, Reddit, LinkedIn... We're using these accounts to propagate https://leofinance.io content links with the goal of getting more readers + more ad revenue + more potential account signups.
Right now, the main issue is getting a better account creation process directly on-site. This is something we're addressing with the new interface that we are building at the moment. Once that interface is live and we get the account creation features added, it's going to be just as easy to sign up to LeoFinance (which means creating a Hive account) as it is to sign up with something like Facebook or Twitter.
The point is that communities will market Hive if they are positioned correctly, have the right tools and understand the value prop. of bringing in new users for the whole ecosystem. LeoFinance's entire mission is built around that idea and I know that many other leaders in the broader Hive community have the same ambitions.
It's counter-intuitive, but to grow Hive we actually need to use other social media platforms. Similar to how Bezos grew Amazon by starting out as a service for his competition before absorbing their models and improving them, we must work with our competitors (the traditional social platforms like Twitter) to eventually absorb a % of their user bases and kickstart the network effect on Hive.
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Posted Using LeoFinance
First, thanks for the nice words!
Totally agree on the snowball effect on new users.
New users are the key, and there is no better way to onboard them, then other social media.
Glad to hear that you will be building on-site creation for new accounts. This is great!
An overall crypto bull run can help as well :)
Yeah I was considering an additional point in there about the crypto bull run effect -- that's one of the main factors for new users, sadly (and not so sadly depending on the viewpoint).
Keep the stats coming about Hive. I love reading those reports ;)
Posted Using LeoFinance
I like the idea of starting as complementary of back up service for what you do in other socials! I think the easiest would be medium and LinkedIn Pulse authors to get in first
I think we also need to make a distinction between post types! Some people want to blog, others want to post photos, others want to post updates!
I’d say a front end categorized post types you can kind of get a feel for what you want to look at and reward too, instead of this endless debate on post quality and rewards
You’ll see a base from for a blog post reward, vs a image post, vs a status update, vs a blog for example
Agree on the account creation and then supplementing that with a referral system to amplify that
I think we also don’t do enough to welcome other crypto projects! You’ll see most of them have medium accounts for updates instead of a HIVE account or both and connecting them
Yeah a complimentary blog is huge - especially for other crypto-based projects, as you mentioned. We will probably run campaigns in the near future for Leo to try and capture crypto-based projects/marketing companies and tell them about the SEO benefits, audience capture, etc.
For the front ends - the only viable future that I envision for Hive is a "splitting off" of content. What I believe will happen is what we're trying to do with LeoFinance and especially with developing our new interface - instead of making a website that caters to all Hive content creators, we're making a website that caters specifically to financial content creators.
Now imagine 20 other hive-based projects+communities doing the same exact thing. Creating amazing apps that cater toward a photo based user base, a long-form poetry user base, a digital design user base and so on and so forth.
Posted Using LeoFinance
Because there is no charismatic leader, no marketing, no ads, no roadshows, no nothing to promote Hive.
Your initiative sounds promising! It is key to make the onboarding easier.
But the next step, even more difficult, is to keep them attracted.
Completely agree on your words. New users is key, and the well known social media is the best way to reach out. To get the #hive word out to the world.
Seeing all the #hive activity over on Twitter is most definitely encouraging! I'm excited to see the expansion of off-platform marketing. More users has a positive effect for every single person on this chain :)
Posted Using LeoFinance
Good points raised, the on boarding side of Hive really needs to be address to enable smooth sign up process. Secondly keeping the new users should be our focus as well.
Your point about new users being a focus is huge. I think it's important to have a very strong welcoming party - not necessarily anything official, but just an active community of people that are there for you when you need them. I think Hive has this more so than any other crypto project out there
Posted Using LeoFinance
I think individual entities within the ecosystem will go a long way in marketing Hive. Platforms like Finsnceleo, splinterlands and the rest have to be "selfish" and push their individual projects as hard as possible, and that will have a knock on effect on Hive.
It actually isnt selfish. That is the owners of those platforms business. Aside from the cards and DEC, there are owners of Splinterlands. Them marketing the game and growing their asset is what a business owner does.
Their responsibility is to Splinterlands. However, the success of that game helps all that is tied to Hive. It all builds upon itself.
Posted Using LeoFinance
I know. That's why I put it in quotation marks.
What a fantastic well written and educational post . Everyone on Hive and beyond should read this.
14 out of the top 15 dapps are tron by number of users over past 7 days
5th is splinterlands 7.9k
All the rest are tron based 90% are gambling related
Correction one is a dex
One other eth dapp
This was my view of Hive from the start. Hive marketing didnt make much sense. It all came down to the applications. Market Splinterlands, DCity, Leofinance, Actifit, 3Speak, or whatever other application is on here.
As for the first chart, that shows how Hive is not an asset based cryptocurrency since the transactions make up the least amount of activity.
There are a lot more uses for Hive.
Posted Using LeoFinance
I agree with how we leach from other social media platforms. I actually want to introduce Hive to gamers who use different games to role play. Often times they use reddit and get no value for awesome content they are creating. I'm trying an experiment now and trying to "shill" Hive to popular DayZ youtubers
Posted Using LeoFinance
Can't wait to see what you come up with on the new front end in terms of making the sign up process easier.
I don't even bother to tell friends or colleagues about writing on Hive, because creating an account and delegating HIVE so they can begin is such a confusing process for all.
Hopefully it's as easy as putting your email address into a box and you're immediately sent an account with enough RCs to write, comment and vote.
Posted Using LeoFinance
Using other social media to make a good Hive marketing will be a great idea, we just have to see what TikTok could make to Dogecoin a few days ago.
In my personal experiencie Hive and Leo have most of the time that i spend on social media (before it was instagram), so it is just a matter of time before many users can see the benefits of using this Descentralized Social Media and I also think that in order to get more instagram users, we must make a Dapp that can make what instagramers feel by posting photos or a Dapp that can make twitter users feel at home as well
It's an interesting one - from an investment perspective how much something like splinterlands helps your Hive investment -
Many of those splinterlands custom jsons do nothing for the value of Hive because most of those users are only ever going to have a bare minimum of Hive powered up and won't buy any.
With blogging there is more potential for someone to power up once their part of a community, or for someone to just power up chasing curation returns.
Then again the curation returns are much better here on LEO.
I've no idea how to translate the different use cases for Hive into how they'll impact my investment.
All I know is that more usage is generally better!
Posted Using LeoFinance
I also believe Hive will grow through the marketing efforts of individual communities, not the marketing of the underlying technology.
On Splinterlands I think part of the gamers are not even aware of Hive, but use it. They might at some point become interested, but that's not mandatory.
If the new LeoFinance interface you are working on will have a simple, instant sign-up process as you mentioned, that will help immensely to not lose potential users at the front gate.
Posted Using LeoFinance
The thing is that i sometimes wonder if we're ready for mass adoption.
I can't help myself asking if we could create so big amount of accounts in relatively small period of time.
For instance, imagine if snowball effect works, and in one month we need to create mill accounts.
Is it even possible?
first of all thank for all information in post that helps me a lot in the know the value of hive blockchain hold I m stating to take hive and leofinance very seriously
and I started staking Leo which are around 25 Leo and other tokens can you tell me who to get rewarded for them?
anyway, amazing post love it
Posted Using LeoFinance
The more I learn about Hive the more I want to promote and share it.
I keep telling people, there's not enough hive for everyone....getting on now is the best time.
Posted Using LeoFinance