Beyond Blogging on HIVE [ - Beyond the #POSH Initiative]

@sharker is a Photo Blogger - Like Many on HIVE, they use the platform as a blog, and they would like to see the ecosystem grow, but how can @sharker adapt their blogging process to become more powerful?

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Let's take a look at what a HIVE blogger does minimally:

If @Sharker takes some great photos of Marakele National Park:

@sharker/marakele-national-park-views

And posts them through Travelfeed.io, he will get X number of HIVE rewards for his post.

Sharker does these posts daily and gets around $50 a week in payouts. He periodically takes out around 50 HIVE to pay for life expenses trading them out on Probit Exchange. He has no HIVE onchain, but has a nice 1300 HP stacked up, which is more than enough resource credits to use the chain, and even have your vote be worth more than nothing.

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This is the minimum. @Sharker is using his photo archive, to create compelling mini photo essay blogs about his travels, and getting a nice little ~$200 a month income doing so. Most of these funds leave the ecosystem, but a trickle is left to accumulate in staked HP.

This is because @Sharker, like every human in the world, has bills to pay, and I would guess, sees HIVE as an opportunity to monetize his passions by sharing compelling creative content with the world.

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So how does the #POSH Initiative fit into this?

The #POSH initiative is just a way to promote HIVE on social media. So, the idea is that on HIVE, you put in the #POSH hashtag, and then some benevolant whale is going to come along and increase the likelihood of boosting your post, so instead of $200 for othat week, you earn $225, or something like that.

The way this works best is if @sharker has an instagram or a twitter account, or a reddit account, and then leaves some photos with a link and some relevant hashtags #NaturePhotos // #travelblog // #photojournalism // #photoessay // #photography // #travel Etc. on that platform.

So the #POSH is so you can be rewarded here on HIVE, potentially.

And the platform where you link your [Proof of SHaring] is where you have these other discoverable hashtags. The point here being that other people who are interested in that content will find your post there on Twitter / Instagram / Reddit / Facebook -- etc. And then go to HIVE, and then be so impressed, that they want to join and become bloggers as well -- which in turn increases the raw stats and adoption, and in turn increases the value of HIVE.

Unfortunatly, #POSH does not solve all of the issues brought up by this, because the Bloggers are still looking for that hopeful "Whale Upvote".

So, what we end up with is people complaining about Circle Jerks, and Not Enough HIVE upvotes for Newbs, and people gaming the system, and all of that.

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So what can @Sharker do that is Beyond #POSH // and Beyond Blogging on HIVE?

First of all, let's give @Sharker a Hand -- Being a Committed Blogger on HIVE is nothing to sniff at, and his photo posts are great, and he's offering background and insight and being a good active commenter, etc.

@Sharker is Clearly an Upstanding Citizen.

But I don't want @Sharker to be an Upstanding Citizen - I want him to be an someone who builds a business on HIVE, instead of just using HIVE as a platform.

I'll show you what I mean:

@sharker/somewhere-on-the-edge-of-the-world-new-zealand-part-14-the-final

This post here is the last in a series of 14 travel blogs assembled here on HIVE, and the final post got an impressive $20 worth of HIVE for it's post.

Well Done @Sharker.

The problem here is that Sharker needs to make a living and pay for life, and so he takes out his HP when he needs to, and uses it to pay for his bills.

What if instead, @Sharker found a way to use USD Crowdfunding on Kickstarter -- to assemble a PROJECT out of his 14 part series here.

Obviously it's a hot one, because the sample audience here on HIVE liked it so much. I would guess that more people want to know about the Edge of the World in New Zealand.

So, if @Sharker creates a PDF Travel Photo Journal project on Kickstarter, that combines and expands on the information and photos that are in the project, he could develop an audience via Kickstarter, and Targeted Social Media OUTSIDE of HIVE, -- In Addition to the work he does on HIVE -- For the same project.

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That last statement is important so read it again.

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If @Sharker uses Kickstarter in this way, maybe he can create a PDF and develop a small audience and then maybe some section of his small audience found through Kickstarter and Instagram and Reddit and Facebook and Twitter would like some insider information that can be accessed through Travelfeed.io or Peakd.com -- essentially -- through HIVE.

So HIVE at this point is a backstage pass / content evaluation tool, for @sharker -- who makes photo essays that are published digitally via Kickstarter.

But wait - there's more.

Notice how this is QUITE different than simply using travelfeed.io as a blogging platform for travel photo archives.

Now what's more is that once @Sharker has done this, he can use KINDLE Publishing on Amazon, to publish Ebooks.

These ebooks are basically "Beyond the Edge of the World - A New Zealand Travel Guide Photo Journal."

Now we are seeing the project implementation, and we are seeing the scope of audience beyond HIVE.

Now the links for #POSH are replaced with links in the back of the ebooks, and the PDFs and the Instagram Posts, and the Facebook Posts and the Reddit Threads -- and suddenly @Sharker is like a spider, spinning threads that all lead back to HIVE.

And now that he's getting royalties from KINDLE, and regular Kickstarter funds for his experiments, he doesn't have to take out his HIVE, and so the HP starts accumulating.

And when he redirects his audience from those other platforms to HIVE, he can have them comment on the formative processes that lead toward his next project, and they can have a say, and he can upvote using his curation power to encourage them.

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You see how this all builds and works in a system.

The way this flows together is by looking at HIVE as a Toolset for engaging with an audience that you are building via a project based creative / curation based business.

The business that is being built, and the projects that are being built, and the audiences that are being built are BEYOND HIVE,

And the consequence of this is an expansion of people using HIVE, and more HP being staked, and more value being added on chain.

In this way HIVE grows in value sustainably, and then when @Sharker wants to take some profit, he can do so when HIVE is in a system wide bull market -- rather than at whatever price HIVE is when he needs the money.

He can afford to do this, because @Sharker is now using HIVE as an investment tool as well, instead of just as a sidecash generation tool.

Thinking Beyond @Sharker:

If @Sharker does this and manages to gather a small audience of 10 people who are centered around his HIVE account, and just came here to get on the cutting edge of his next photo essay / travel guide project, then that's 10 more regular users, engaging on HIVE.

If everyone who just uploaded travel photos onto a HIVE blog thought this way, that's significantly more people onboarded onto HIVE.

In addition to that, @Sharker and each other person who does this ends up transitioning in the ecosystem along to the Dolphin and Orca levels, as they end up becoming someone who has their incentives aligned toward increasing their vote power, rather than simply making a few bucks that week through regular posting.

The shift in position is something that people in all communities can take part in.

Actfit bloggers become Fitness Leaders.
HIVE Musicians become Composers and Cryptoart Collaborators.
3Speak Vloggers become project based content creators, or pilot a series, or become educators.
HIVE artists become project based art businesses.

All of these transitions in roles happen when the people who use HIVE do not use it as a blog in order to make a few bucks that week, but instead, as a tool in their toolbox, to provide a unique value to the audience that they are creating for themselves BEYOND HIVE.

HIVE offers something that very few other platforms offer, and in fact, it is uniquely valuable in a handful of ways.

The most obvious way is that it is super easy to reward audience engagement on HIVE.

The problem is that much of what people are doing on HIVE now is Myopic and Incestuous.

Myopic - Meaning, that they are only focused on the next post, rather than allowing themselves to operate on a project level.

Incestuous - Meaning, that their target audience is only the currently existing reward pool and members who are already on HIVE.

When we have this short term thinking for resource acquisition, and we have limited exposure to audience pools, because we are happy enough with the audiences that currently exist here on HIVE -- we end up with limitations on the eccosystem that prevent growth.

In order to encourage sustainable systemic growth of HIVE, we need to align the incentives of sustainable systemic personal growth of each person -- transmuting hive bloggers into "HIVE Centered Project Creators."

When these incentives are aligned, there is likely to be an aggregate effect of cumulative growth based on people who are leading small communities of audiences surrounding their personal creative or curation based projects on HIVE.

Resources:
Project Based Journal Exercise:
https://seths.blog/2012/05/the-shipit-journal-now-in-free-pdf-format/