Musings on Early Adopters and What it Means for SteamIT

In my introductory post to this community, I received a comment stating that I would find many like minded individual here, and, while at a surface level I was excited by this fact, the analyst in me began to wonder about the composition and ethos of this growing community I have since realised comprises a cosmopolitan of some of the world's early adopters.

Following its launch in 2016, SteemIT has experienced rapid growth, encapsulating a healthy user base of roughly 200 000 according to the steemd website. And, while this growth shows the tremendous potential of the platform and the attention economy in general, these user numbers pale in comparison to the more mainstream social media platforms we have all become accustomed to.

This data shows a timeline of the worldwide number of monthly active Facebook users from 2008 to 2017. As of the first quarter of 2017, Facebook had 1.94 billion monthly active users.

From this, we can assume that the comparatively small number of users actively engaged on steemit, comprise of a group of what is often referred to as the early adopters, and yes, I am talking about you, you tech savvy early adopter you. But, don’t take my word for it, here is how the highly regulated, and completely academically sound Wikipedia defines you. Reworded slightly of course to avoid any copyright infringements. :-P

Early Adopter:

A term coined in explanation of the technology adoption lifecycle, a sociological model that describes the adoption or acceptance of a new product or innovation, an early adopter is defined as an early user or customer of a given company, product, or technology and is often described as the first to try new ideas, processes, goods and services, said to generally rely on their intuition and vision, choose carefully, and have an above-average education level.

Now that you are feeling good about yourself, here is what I think this means for the community:

Remember your Roots:

SteemIT stems from an attempt to merge blockchain technology with the world of social media and digital interaction. And while the benefits of decentralisation and inexpensive microtransactions are probably best left for another post, the point to consider is that a large number of users would have been drawn from the world of cryptocurrency, finance and investment and decentralised applications.

Secondly, as a social network that promises monetary rewards for content creation, we should be noticing a steady influx of bloggers, streamers and people who consider themselves insta-famous.

Being aware of this, and should you be so inclined to make a buck or two, It wouldn’t be a bad idea to tailor your content to suit this audience. I would assume posts about crypto, blockchain technology, how to make money on steemit and/or steamit user guides would find decent success. The downside to this being that this content will be everywhere and you may find a large portion of the user base aggressive in terms of their follower acquisition strategies.

Everyone's a trendsetter:

While in your day to day life you may find that you are always the one to propose new ideas and share novel technology, due to the majority of Steemit’s userbase comprising of early adopters, in here, we are just a little bit less special.

Being aware of this, take note of what other people are saying, and I am sure you will be surprised with just how much you learn.

Make friends and mingle:

Getting back to where this article began, on this platform we have the amazing opportunity to meet many like-minded and intelligent individuals. It may be a long time before you find yourself as one of the first on a social platform specifically targeted towards individuals with similar interests to you, and I am sure we will all be surprised by the number of meaningful connections that this opportunity affords us.

I look forward to meeting, engaging and learning from you all soon and would love to hear your thoughts on the community.

Until then, keep being a trendsetter.