Your Hive blog isn't just for your Hive audience

in Cross Culture3 years ago (edited)

As of late, I came to the realization from a combination of twitter analytics, peaked analytics and feedback that half of my audience here comes from outside Hive.

That's awesome, because rather than just reach the 5-15 people I used to reach (who leave me awesome comments and motivate me to keep writing), I can reach up to 40 or 50 on many posts, and create more exposure for this amazing community that has changed my life. And I don't even have a massive social media following.

The most common habit at Hive is to try and get payout as possible. People like money, yes. I get it.

Something that many of us are slowly starting to realize is that creating a network effect is much more powerful than a few orca upvotes. Not only can you create a better situation for yourself in the long term, you can create a healthier and more enjoyable ecosystem, and reap but also share the benefits.

Of course more money on a post is nice, but I find that if I take a holistic approach, the results end up being a lot more satisfying in the long run, and I can avoid bothering people or feeling disappointed by who upvotes what. I feel like what I'm doing is much more meaningful.

If you bring new users to Hive, you are a hero, everybody will love you for it. Shilling Hive isn't the way to do that. If it was, we'd have millions of users already. Writing to your friends off Hive could be much more effective, and why not? They are your friends after all.

Sharing your posts indiscriminately on social media or in discord channels is far less effective than everyone is willing to admit. It's not meaningless, but it's a lot of effort for very rare results. The algorithms destroy you when you leave links, especially when you don't draw people in first, and post promo channels are mostly people who are doing the same as you, just leaving your content somewhere.

The people who are going to see your posts and upvote from hive GENERALLY find the posts at Hive. This may not ALWAYS be the case, but it USUALLY is. With communities and lists and different feeds and tags and curation projects, there are plenty of ways to navigate Hive and find stuff you are into. Very few people scour post promo for that.

All the shilling...we sound like a cult or a pyramid scheme.

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For the last few months, I've been taking a different approach.

It's a little less Hive-centric, and a little more of a "Whatever works...but Hive is best" approach.

I engage honestly with people on twitter, try to pick up a few extra friends and followers who are interested in similar things, and then I slowly expose them to what I'm doing on Hive. I post a link no more than twice a week (usually less), and make sure I do it in the comments with lots of context or an excerpt in the first tweet.

I also send links of posts to people who I am quite sure will be interested in the topic. I share other peoples posts as much as I share my own. I am trying to get Hivester friends and non Hiverster friends in the same discord chats and twitter spaces.

I don't go talking about Hive all day because the more you push people, the less they will respond.

You spent a lot of time and effort on your posts. You want people to read them, right? If you just focus on getting a higher payout, you often end up with nothing. You might get a whale vote sometimes, but that's cause someone retweeted it, not cause you pasted the URL around the internet. You look like a spammer on social media and you've wasted your time, and probably don't have anything to show for it..

By writing with your friends and acquaintances off Hive in mind, you have a chance to expose them to this platform without any pressure. It's a much more pleasant experience for them. By sharing others posts that moved you, you have a chance to show them what is on Hive rather than just preaching to them, and there it also feels much more comfortable because it's not as selfishly motivated.

If you DO want to try and convince your friends to join Hive....rather than talk their ear off, why not do it as a Hive post and invite them to read it. That way it draws traffic to the site, helps them see what you are talking about and might allow them to explore the comments and and other posts. They've already got one foot in the door.

They might not check it out the first time or the second time, but who knows? They may later decide to start a blog and remember your peakd or leo article. "You get paid for that?" Let them ask the questions.

Not only with Hive but with regards to everything, I am trying to change my behavior to be more about what I can offer others, without expectations that they will follow. It's not entirely selfless. In some part of my mind, I may hope that it comes back around and it helps me reach more people on the platform when they see that I've managed to bring a bunch of people to Hive. But if it doesn't work, that's fine. I'm having fun. I may even be helping people. And sometimes I manage to get paid.

What's important is that I'm not doing everything expecting others to act exactly as I want them to act to serve me in the moment. Everyone has free will, and deserve respect and the ability to make their own choice without coercion. They don't need to have their attention filled with appeals to do what YOU think they should do. Put something valuable out there. If they bite, good. If they don't OK.

Starting a chat for the sake of catching up is fun in it's own right, maybe somewhere in there you can say "I've been blogging a lot recently, met a lot of cool people, even got paid". If they bite, great. If not, leave it at that.

I used to believe that to make money or succeed you had to wield power over others, trick them into following you, or manipulate them through their animal desires. It sure seems to have worked among the corrupt elite.

It seems pretty clear that the world is changing though. I feel more and more that just being yourself and doing what you love and constant improvement will lead to success. It may not be the exact success you were planning, but you'll always be better off than you were before.

If I don't manage to convince people or find the clients I need or make the point I was trying to make, I just ask myself one question:

"How could I be more awesome?"

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This is the kind of attitude that gets more results. I find the shilling on Twitter a little painful because I see how it looks to people. Sharing posts that just happen to be written on hive is a great thing in my book. It's what people do for other platforms!

Right? Medium didn't get so big by everyone shouting MEDIUM! I get excited about this place too, but I try to be aware of when I'm freaking someone out or when they think I've drunk the kool aide. I think it goes much further.

I see a lot of people slowly starting to realize this though. I hope we see a shift in behavior.

Lol, I was actually thinking Medium. I remember when I joined it, I joined because I had been directed to posts on it several times and thought whats this all about?

A shift would be nice

I noticed in your tweets that you are promoting Hive in a less in your face way! That's cool! You seem to be killing it on here

In the end, if you can connect with interesting people, learn something, or help someone, that's what it's all about...I can have a lot of fun connecting on Twitter. But there is a lot more that's life-changing about this platform and it's not just the money.

Look at the comments on my post about Nigeria for an example, or the fact that I found the first readers of my fiction here, and the cover artist, who happens to be a great friend now. I learned how financial markets and some technology work from Hive.

Since this place has done so much for me, of course I want to share it. But the people here tend to be a little pushy sometimes when spreading the word, myself included, so I want to help everyone from the community self reflect on that lol

I'm glad you are still here, saw you stopped posting.

I'm here, just busy ATM. I am enjoying this place though!

Twitter being banned in my country makes it so hard to share my content, I guess I really need to put an effort in sharing out of the hive block chain.

Yeah, of course it does. Doesn't stop some brave souls, but iduno if I'd bother either. It's ok, you can still send a specific blog to a specific friend sometimes :-D or mention it in passing

I will try better, I feel it's my laziness connecting to a vpn

I only believe in building genuine relationships. This is why I am focusing on my community and helping people out in my little way. Plus, I believe if people are genuine about what they write they tend to connect with the things and people they like and that helps in creating a more favourable social experience.

Making money is great. I have been able to change my life for the better thanks to the money I make here, however, I do not want that to define my entire experience. I want to make engaging content and connect with real people.

For me, the easiest way to get out of the hive bubble is through my vlogs which I feel comfortable sharing outside the blockchain. And I have even had some important comments on that and that is a major boost.

So basically, the goal is to connect. I think once anyone achieves this to a certain degree, other things like money come easy.

I am also encouraging my community members to share their content a little more. And I am taking that cue myself. If you feel what you write or create matters then you should not hesitate to share it with as many people as possible.

Wow! Too many encouraging words to take from this. Thank you for sharing @nonsowrites

I am glad you found it useful.

It's true. If we are always seeking the result, we miss the whole process, where all the fun and learning is and we don't become the person we need to become to reach the results.

Enjoying things for their own sake is good enough. Results follow anyway.

Where else do you share your videos? I've seen you around forever but I recently realized I really like what you are saying.

well, i share my post on twitter, whatsapp, nairaland, and noise.cash... Looking to extend my audience outside the hive ecosystem and also get more nigerians into hive

I think I will also buy the idea of sharing outside hive by using my Facebook account and Instagram to reach out to more people

That's great. I just recommend doing it sparingly and based on what the people you connect to are interest in. Sometimes just 1 out of 5 or 10 posts are for that group of people. Or sometimes it's just too much.

Hmmm. I get your point, thanks boss

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This is definitely a wake-up call. Thank you for sharing this vital post. There are a lot of takeaways from it especially with shilling on other platforms.

If we are just more open and proud about what we are doing, and mention it casually, it's more than enough. Pushing doesn't achieve much, and we all want to push because we imagine the result and don’t let things happen naturally.

Solid point there. Like they say, little drops make an ocean. Every little mention here and there amounts to much.

110% agree. People shilling Hive on Twitter and other platforms need to up their game. One of the best ways seems to be engaging with smart/interesting comments on relevant tweets WITHOUT mentioning Hive. Not at first. Example: Someone tweets about censorship on Google, Twitter, FB, etc. Respond with something about how it's not possible on decentralized social media. If your response sparks curiosity (or derision), that's your cue. Time to shill SUBTLY. If the person wants to know more, tell them. If they are doubtful, address their doubts first. If they are hostile, find some point on which you can AGREE with them before even thinking about shilling.

But I think we are already on the same page.

Exactly the same page. I'm just scared now that everything you write is AI generated lolol 🫂

I think, putting google reviews with hive links is another great idea and I am doing that. Hive definitely is a very good fit for review dapps. Imagine Google integrate to HIVE for Reviews, Amazon embeds reviews in HIVE.....

That is actually a brilliant idea! Do they censor links though?

I know YouTube does. If you leave a comment with a link on YouTube it ends up in spam that the channel has to approve for public view.

No, so far, I see, its allowed and are in my reviews. I just upload few photos and then put couple of lines with the link to hive post.

did you make a post about this, I want to share it

Yes, see towards the end of this post from yesterday : https://peakd.com/hive-114105/@sanjeevm/decathlon-moments

I was thinking putting that link might come out as spam, Facebook and Instagram already shadow bans, probably it'll be different with Google reviews.

May be because Google does not want to compete in the social media space.

hive on dear.