There are many ways to approach content creation and presentation on Hive, but I wonder how many people actively think about how their own approach is perceived by the audience. Again, this is likely going to be affected by the type of content, as well as the personality and other factors, yet I think it is beneficial to review what we do from time to time.

I think that I am pretty well experienced when it comes to creating Hive content and I have tried a number of things over the years to see what works and what doesn't for me. I have also been involved with quite a few curation initiatives and helped people develop their content over time. Sure, my own content approach and presentation isn't to everyone's tastes, but it doesn't have to be as I have spent time creating my own little niche of sorts on the platform and play to my strengths as well as to my curiosity through experimentation.

Do you question why you do what you do?

There are a couple of things that I notice quite a few people do, but I am not exactly sure why they are doing it. Well, I might have an idea as to why, but I don't think that their approach is having the desired effect. The problem is that every action has a reaction and there is a cost of some kind to it. Again, it is not that the approaches are necessarily bad or I am criticizing them as wrong - it is just that most people are looking for some kind of result and if they aren't taking into consideration the potential impression they are making on their audience, they are unlikely to get to where they want to be on what is essentially an attention-based economy.

- Very long content

Now, I am the last person to be negative on long content, but it does depend on what is being said. For example, I tend to look for discussion on various topics that I embed into each post, rather than focus on a single point, this allows people to pick and choose what they engage with. However, if the content was a competition announcement of some kind, it is far better to keep the content tailored and concise, with things like rules and conditions bullet pointed. The problem with a lot of text without delineation is that the messaging gets lost and people have to work to understand the content, let alone enter.

- Frequency of posting

Again, this is going to depend on the person but in general on Hive (where we are), posting too frequently is seen as spammy. It doesn't really matter what you personally might think of this and of course if you don't see it this way you are free to post as often as the blockchain allows you - but there will likely be consequences to action, with people unfollowing and muting people who they feel post too often.

I do get it though, as people want to earn something significant and posting more can potentially get more - but, it can also bring in a kind of "salary cap" where while the posts will earn a little, the account will unlikely earn a great deal. I used to post quite frequently and I can easily submit 4 or 5 posts of 1000 words each a day, but if I do this, I will likely very quickly lose any support I gained over the years. Instead, the higher my earnings went, the less I posted - I restrict myself.

For most, quality is also going to drop or there is going to be a wide variety of quality from one post to the next, making setting autovoters too random. You might post one brilliant article and then five fast image and a line of text posts a day, but no large autovoter wants to have their vote on the low effort content. Consistency matters for most people in this regard.

- Time spread of posts

Along these lines, there is also the problem of spread of content that should be considered. Regardless of the actual effort involved, if I see two posts from the same author very close together, there is the impression that at least the second one of those is low effort. It isn't necessarily true as they might have been prepared prior, but impressions matter in an attention economy. It is far better to spread them out a little and this includes the people who are cross-posting to communities. Instead of doing it immediately, wait a few hours.

There are benefits to this of course as we are a global community and without a high degree of automated search and discovery, if we stay within our local time zones only, we have less reach. Putting a few hours between content can mean reaching a different audience.

- Answering of comments

Further along the lines of time is timeliness of answering comments received. Posting and running without answering a couple of the first comments at least, leaves the audience disengaged. Waiting days for a reply means they are no longer in the frame of reference at all. Of course, it isn't always possible to sit around after posting to wait for comments, but try to get to them quickly and consistently will see better levels of engagement on average.

- Long signoffs

Now, I don't know who this has ever worked for, but having a massive list of cut and paste content at the end of each post advertising this that or the other thing is likely going to push more people away than pull in. Scrolling through what is essentially unreadable content is a waste of precious moments that annoy the average internet user. I have no idea who will spend time running through a list of links that take the viewer off site and into other platforms, for what could essentially be the same content -perhaps there are some, but is it worth turning people off on Hive? If this is necessary to do, perhaps it would be better to design an image-linked banner of some kind that can cover all of the links in a far smaller space.

- Wallet address lists

Similarly, I have no idea who will send someone Bitcoin, Ethereum or some other random tokens to users who post their wallet addresses to every coin they have a holding in or want a holding in. Firstly, this is Hive so people will naturally be far more inclined to send HIVE and with the tip functionality, it is far easier. In my opinion (and many others I have spoken to) these links appear beggarish and people seem to put them on any kind of content they post, which makes what might be a very good or serious post look cheap and tacky.

Is it just me?

Now, having commented on these things (there are others too), it could be that it is just me and a handful of others who think they should be considered. It might even be generational where my age shows and presentation matters, but I don't think so. However, "my age" is probably pretty average on the blockchain, especially among the higher-staked user base, the ones that people might be wanting to attract with their content for various forms of support through votes and shares.

Putting a little bit of thought and strategy into the presentation and behavior of how you blog helps build a far greater sense of why you blog. Most people (like me) don't have a marketing and promotions team surrounding them, so we have to do the best we can with the resources we have available - but we will tend to rely more on our own defaults than actively consider the defaults of others, our audience itself. Not taking into consideration the behavior of people means that while we feel we are doing the right thing, the results we are getting don't match up to our feelings. We then can think that the system has failed to recognize us, but it could have been our failure to recognize the processes of the system -Human behavior.

I might add to the list later, but I am interested to hear what people think and what kinds of content points they engage with or forces them to disengage. Most people are pretty forgiving when there is the odd random post or experiment they don't like, but when it becomes a consistent part of the presentation - they will move away and will be unlikely to move back, because the decision has already been made.

Bad presentation has more influence over behavior than good - but it is unlikely a positive.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]