The Attention Economy: money, friends, engagement, learning, which is the most important?

The attention economy is to me an economy built on obtaining and selling peoples attention, which is frequently called monetization: making money off people’s attention.
Usually it’s advertising.
But here it’s upvotes which pay content creators and content consumers for their roles in this special variation of the attention economy we call Hive.

Money

As I think about my 5 plus years on Hive, I reflect on many failed campaigns to increase Monthly Active Users, most of which focused on Money.

And quite frankly they failed because it is very hard to make money here unless you have a big stake and or you are adopted by a few or several whales. Sometimes even a big stake is no guarantee.

So from my perspective, recruiting people here for money is usually an exercise doomed to fail.

Friends

I think people often forget that social media is about being sociable, as in friendly, helpful, kind and being willing to help others.
While many cynically believe that without financial incentive all recruitment campaigns fail, I suggest or propose that life is a self-fulling prophesy: if you recruit only people who want to make money, and they don’t, they will leave.
But if you recruit people who want to make friends and or acquaintances, and they do, they will stay.

Engagement

”…Say my name, say my name…”

I have read, and I have written articles espousing the value of engagement.
I truly believe one of the most beautiful sounds to a human ear is our name.
We by nature like it and enjoy being addressed by it, especially when our name is followed by praise.
It seems superficial, and it is, but is it really so hard to understand?

If we write a post, we want people to read it, and we want them to comment on it, hopefully with praise.
In my humble opinion, one of the few things we can guarantee to new recruits is that if they read and comment on someone’s post, more then half the time they will get a reply. And a smaller percentage of the time, those people will reach out and comment back on your posts.

We can guarantee little in terms of monetary rewards, but we can assure people that if they interact, there’s a good chance people will interact back. (Reciprocate)

Learning

” …nothing you do improve your mind is ever wasted.”

I truly believe the learning curve in cryptocurrency in general, and on Hive specifically, is steep and difficult. And especially in the absence of an instruction manual and a decentralized organization with various self appointed rule makes and rule enforcers.
But one thing we can assure people is that they will learn, if they ask questions and if we are all willing to answer questions when we can.

Last words

We will fail to grow Hive if we focus on recruiting people with promises of earnings.
We can’t guarantee people will make money.

I personally believe most new recruits don’t make a lot of money creating content for many reasons.

But earning through engagement with comments and upvotes is more consistent and I suspect the return on time invested time is better.

I think we should recruit people to a social platform who want to be social, and learn.

I think we can promise to engage sociably with them ourselves, and encourage them to engage with others .

I think sociability is the easiest process to perform, and people love comments and the attention it represents.

This is an attention economy, so provide attention and you will most likely receive it.

Simple I know, but the most successful strategies are based on simple truths and involve simple steps.

What do you think?