Ive been working on Hive marketing for 6 months now. It took a few months to develop a campaign strategy with Ignite, to gain their trust, to prove we are a worthy project and trustworthy entity to work with.
Ill try and keep this short and to the point.
Rating each marketing channel effectiveness.
1.Influencer marketing 4/5
In comparison to all other channels this channel is most effective based on fees spent on promotion but most time extensive with a variable dependent on the human factor. Both on the contributor side and influencer side.
We had some great results there. We will be getting the Hive name in front of a total audience of between 600k-1 million by the time the campaign ends.
2.Advertising 3/5
This is the "plug and play" option. It takes medium to low effort in the creative department. Ad messaging is fairly quickly and easily done. Landing page design in there. Tools to track results are fairly accessible.
But unlike with influencers, at a point where the Hive brand isnt well known, there is no point of trust the potential new user can relate to so creating brand awareness at first is imperative.
At this point of general anonymity for Hive ads do their job fairly well in some metrics, less so in others. Its main point is brand awareness and getting the Hive name known.
Understanding ad effectiveness is important as well as their limitations that are connected to the user experience on Hive.
3.PRs and promotional articles on publications. 1.5/5
This has been shown to be one of the least effective promotional channels.
Time expenditure is high for creating a compelling article, cost per impression and conversion is extremely high.
This again is dependent on the brand awareness Hive is lacking and the overwhelming amount information publications are presenting daily that completely waters down the potential attention we can expect there.
Some PRs had really good reach and clickthroughs and some have exceeded others by a factor of 30x. The randomness there puts into question the veracity of the investment which is why i moved most of the funds of the budget elsewhere.
Articles about Hive (remember the Decrypt Justin Sun article) need to be organic and before using them to a effective level we need to leave our general anonymity and work on brand awareness.
That is done by continual marketing efforts and not posting "Hive is great" on Twitter, or shitposting on Hive, which is unfortunately what some think is how you effectively promote Hive.
All of my conclusions are based on the input provided by a TOP 10 marketing agency in the United States that works with extremely high profile clients and their comparison of results to other projects they are working with.
In all channels we exceed average numbers by a fair margin yet, based on each channel comparison some channels are clearly more efficient than others.
Problems Hive is facing and some solutions.
1.User experience
User experience is lacking in many areas. Hive can oftentimes feel extremely complex and the signups suffer for it. This was clear with the Elischa first promo video with 25 000 views where people made it clear they dont understand how to sign up from a point of account creation.
@peakd was made the target site for signups and there you need to create yet another password or download @keychain and then figure out how it works, then input your codes..
All these dozens of steps make it insanely confusing for users which i made clear to some of the dapp devs.
Hive has multiple passwords, a huge barrier of entry is present since we require advanced understanding from our users of crypto to utilize our front ends.
Our current approach needs to be scrapped, centralized services utilized (yes i said it) and users slowly introduced into advanced use of crypto.
How to do that. Below.
2.Branding problem.
Hive has inherited the faults of Steem and still maintains the archaic focus on "rewards for words".
While that aspect is appreciated by all those that make money here, those same people tend to forget where the actual token value comes from. INVESTMENT and SPECULATION! It comes from people actually buying Hive.
While crypto platforms have moved to more recent market specific requirements Hive still maintains the focus on attracting users towards earning a part of the limited reward pool that creates a downward pressure on the token price.
I am trying to focus attention with the messaging towards the true value proposition of Hive but i cannot dismiss the earning potential entirely. Earning potential still remains a competitive advantage. AND IT SHOULD NOT BE. Not for the base chain.
The earning potential for creators needs to be moved to the second layer ASAP.
Even the content the platform encourages is wrong if mass adoption is the goal!
All of the focus is on blogging while mass adoption right now isnt in blogging. Even our competitive advantage is out of date! Blogging is a relic of the 2000s.
Social media mass adoption lies in short form content and we need to find a way to focus on that with our dapps. Most people cant spend their day writing 500 words blogs nor have the skillset to do so yet Hive community judgement of content value is based on the blogging model.
Right now to "gain the most" from HIVE you are forced to develop blogging skills. That is INSANE if we want to achieve mass adoption.
Im holding hope for @khaleelkazi "Blank project".
The way the system is set up right now with the community mentality in place you are "softly forced" to go BY DESIGN in that path.
We need to shed that design!
The solutions.
In the beginning i was a firm believer in maintaining the status quo and keeping the earning potential on the Hive base chain while distributing a large part of funds to content creators.
I believed that for a simple reason. There are plenty whales that gained their stakes in scummy ways and removing that earning potential shut off potential for others to earn Hive. Some of those have left Hive but some remain.
The bot owning witnesses, the ninja miners, the circle jerkers.
But since wer 5 years in its time to consider the fact some kept their stakes and contributed in other ways, the worse circle jerkers left Hive, the worse selfvoters are gone.
Its time to put this aside and move forward with the best for Hive. There will always be a way to earn HIVE indirectly through the second layer.
And here are the 3 specific things i propose when it comes to problems i mentioned here.
Frontends like @peakd, @hiveblog, @ecency adopting two levels of login. This has even been talked about in the past in the form of "guest accounts".
BASIC login: requires email, phone verification that allows use of the Hive platform through a placement holder account controlled by the platform. Once checked for advanced use, new user is provided with account keys.
ADVANCED login: Current system through use of @keychain and multiple passwords.Eliminating completely the earning potential from upvotes on the base chain. Rebranding the Hive chain to the level of "Binance smart chain", "Solana", "Ethereum" with a focus on social media and gaming. DEFI?
We can do that through a "plug and play" system of SMTs that allow the easiest token creation system in existence with 0 programing skills required, with a built in modular system including basic DEFI characteristics, proof of brain, etc. based on user request.
Inflation distribution from curation/author would be removed and placed into a base inflation for staking. Frontends like @peakd would have their own token and can maintain the current approach just the same.
The earning aspect for content creation on HIVE base chain has proven to not provide any benefit to the HIVE market cap and token value, proven by the fact that STEEM (ex. HIVE) went from top 5 tokens in crypto to the 200-300 placement.Stake delegation with built in payouts to consensus agreed dapps with inflation distribution towards dapps.
Eliminating the base chain curation/author rewards would be imperative. That being said, to maintain the functioning of dapps, part of the inflation distribution would need to be voted in by consensus from staking accounts similar to witness voting but separate from it.
That would allow for funding of dapps alongside the DHF that could use a "incubator program" for dapps. The DHF would still provide the bulk of the funding and could function in tandem.
I feel this is the path we should take.
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