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.
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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