Introduction
Welcome to the Aaron’s Steemit Series (ATS). This is the series where I publish educational content to help you get started in Steemit.
If you haven’t realized by now, getting started in Steemit is not as intuitive as the other social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
However, the Steemit’s sales pitch is incredible! Earning good money while writing about your passion is almost like a dream comes true for most of us.
I do need to point out that I’m not an expert or have had earn loads of money from Steemit. What I can provide, is an authentic perspective on how things work here from a layman point of view. It can sometimes be intimidating trying to learn the ropes around here.
The main objective of this post is to convince you the readers on why you should start publishing your content on Steemit.
I understand some of you reading this might not even know what is Steemit yet .. I intentionally leave that explanation to next posts of the series. I feel it’s important to address the potential impact of this new platform first before proceed to explain how it works in detail.
Why Steemit?
Steemit has found a way to reward you money from the attention and content you pour into the platform.
I try to avoid using money as the reason why most people use Steemit, but I suspect that is probably the truth.
Nevertheless, it is also completely possible for you to join for the money but stay for the revolution. I’ll elaborate below.
Steemit or rather the Steem blockchain, in essence, solves a pain point every content creators face. Whether you’re small-time blogger/writer, struggling youtuber, or a newbie podcaster, chances are you can’t survive with the money generated from the usual platforms.
In order for you to earn enough money to bring food to the table or pay your rent, you need to build a pretty significant following, web traffic, or high search results rank. That usually takes months if not years.
I’m guessing 90% of content creators would not be able to experience the full potential monetary value of their work. The business models of current platforms rely on the execution of their sales & ad-tech team, as well as advertisers willingness to pour marketing dollar in. These are high-friction barriers only Facebook and Google/Youtube managed to crack very successfully. In return, we are sharing a great part of the profit from our content with them.
Now, here comes the mind-blogging part — Steemit is changing that paradigm.
Steemit has successfully found a way make you money, without advertisers or other middlemen. Essentially, the blockchain technology behind Steemit enables every uploaded post to be permanently recorded into blockchain.
You own your content, and whatever value (money, views, followers, etc) generated from it.
This is all done without huge centralized middlemen like — Facebook, Youtube, Spotify, etc. Using a blockchain over centralized servers maintained by tech giants saved billions over dollar/year.
Okay … but where do the money comes from?
Steemit’s blockchain has a software network that creates their own currency. Every day, new Steemit currency units are created by the network and automatically distributed to the people who engage with the site. The more you engage, the more you get.
Content creators are rewarded for their content. Other users who upvote content are rewarded for helping to curate the best content available on the site. Commenters who add to the discussions are paid too.
All the scenarios that I’ve mentioned demonstrated how users add value to the ecosystem, whether you’re a content creator, curator, or someone who engaged in quality conversations in the comments.
In short, the Steemit blockchain-powered system rewards users who provided those value in a fair and transparent manner. Just like how the Bitcoin’s blockchain is unbelievably secured from fraud and attacks, Steemit’s blockchain is similarly secured.
Alright, I get the idea of Steemit and where the money came from, but why should I invest my time, effort, and creative IP on it?
The simple answer is the Steemit network of users are still comparatively tiny compared to other social media giants.
Steemit is designed in the way whereby the more users the platform has, the more valuable the network will become. Read up Metcalfe’s Law to understand the underlying framework.
Just like phones, it is pretty much useless if you’re the only person in the world has one. However, it will be exponentially useful if there are 10 other people owns a phone. And as more people start the own a phone, the network will be ridiculously valuable.
The Steem network, just like Bitcoin. The value of a network will increase as more people start to use it.
If you are curious about Steemit’s user growth statistics, do check out @penguinpablo weekly overview of the platform’s key numbers.
Conclusion
We are still at the infancy stage of a digital economic evolution. Steemit’s user experience is still lacking compared to the social media giants, but personally, I don’t see any harm we give this a try while earning some money along the way.
Get started by signing up a free account. It’s 100% free to post, upvote and comment.
Key coverage of the next posts in this series:
- Guide to Steemit
- Guide to Payouts
- Guide to doing well in Steemit
If you find the content useful, please upvote, comment, resteem, and follow.
Thank you!
