The Infrastructure for Massive Growth

Recently, I posted an article on the opportunity Steemit provides for publishing original content. Bloggers, journalists, writers, artists, videographers, moviemakers and more can get paid right away for posting their content here. 

With this post, I’d like to begin a discussion of how we can best prepare Steemit for these content experts. While we can ask them to help us build out the topics, and that is what they will be doing by joining us and posting, Steemit can make it easier by setting the table for them first. Here’s what I have in mind. 

SMALL FISH IN BIG POND
Many of us would rather be the big fish in a small pond, where we have more fame and influence even with a smaller audience, than the small fish in a big pond. However, most people who publish content want it to reach a big audience. The bigger the audience, the more effective this promotion will be. Some smaller niche audiences might make ideal consumers for particular blogs, and those blogs may play a big role in influencing opinions or buying habits in that particular niche. 

But niche marketing is only one form of blogging and there are many other forms. If you give most writers, bloggers, or other content providers a choice, then they’ll tell you they want the biggest possible audience. If the phone rang and Oprah was on the line, is there any book author in the world who would willfully turn down that sort of publicity? 

Most content creators would rather be in a big pond where they have access to a larger audience. A medium such as Facebook or YouTube or Reddit offers ready access to millions or billions of readers or viewers. Of course, not all of them will be tuning in to read or watch Barney’s blog or video about his favorite brunch place. But the fact that those readers or viewers are out there gives Barney a hope and an opportunity to increase his readership or viewership and reach a whole lot more people. 

Most content providers would rather be the small fish in the big pond with dreams of greater glory. Also, the truth is that most people have a herd mentality. Few people are natural leaders. 

So if we build it, they will come to us more reliably than if we ask them to help us build it. Of course, we want both types, but as we are promoting Steemit to bloggers, writers, moviemakers, recording artists, studio artists, and anyone who wants to earn money posting their content here, our success rate will be higher if we set the table for them first. 

SETTING THE TABLE

Setting the table means presenting a good first impression and an easy means of getting started. That’s where not having to fund one’s Steemit account, and being able to make money from posting right away, is such an advantage. Setting the table also means building out and adding useful content to some key categories. That way, when a top wine blogger or a TV station’s technology correspondent stops by, those people will be far more likely to take this seriously and want to join the fun. 

What are these magic categories that can become robust Steemit Topics? Read on. 

TOP MAGAZINE CATEGORIES (PRINT AND ONLINE)
Based on two recent lists of magazines in circulation, ranked by sales, I have clustered results into the most popular areas. It’s a rough list, but good enough for starters. Don’t stop reading at the end of this list, since you must see the online mag and blog lists also. 

Most popular categories of magazines by sales:
--Retirement
--Home and Garden
--Games
--Animals & Nature
--Entertainment (TV & Celebrities)
--Sports
--Fashion
--Health & Medicine
--Food & Drink
--Weight Loss
--Regional Living
--Parents
--Science
--Travel
--Cars
--Scantily-Clad Women 
 
Sales of print magazines have been declining for years. And it’s clear that some of these categories may appeal to older demographics. These are not necessarily the same people who would use Steemit. And that’s why my similar analysis of online magazines also uncovered a few more categories (add to those above, as the full online list also includes some of them):

--Technology
--Humor
--Computers
--Lifestyle
--Law
--Hobbies
--Arts, Literature & Music
--Business & Finance
--Consumer Affairs
--Religion

Then factor in the top blog categories.

TOP BLOG CATEGORIES
The most popular blog categories in a recent year, according to Google:
1. Music
2. Fashion
3. Cars
4. Real Estate
5. Beauty
6. Travel
7. Design
8. Food
9. Wedding
10. Movie
11. Photography
12. Law
13. Health
14. Green
15. Technology
16. SEO
17. History
18. Marketing
19. Lifestyle
20. University
21. Dog
22. Money
23. Business
24. Fitness
25. Education
26. Science
27. Shopping
28. Entertainment
29. Sports
30. Cat
31. Social Media
32. Medical
33. Wine
34. Celebrity Gossip
35. DIY
36. Nature
37. Gaming
38. Pet
39. Finance
40. Political
41. Career
42. Parenting
43. Economics

That list essentially is taken from keywords that bloggers use to self-identify, so it is quite possible some blogs overlap into multiple categories. But just for perspective, the #1 Category of Music is listed by more than 5,000,000 blogs, and #’s 1-16 are all over one million, but by the time you get down to #43, the number of such blogs is only 130,000. 

Why are some categories much more popular for blogs than for magazines? Magazines have to sell, whereas most blog authors aren’t making serious money. It’s a passion for them. And with categories like Music and Fashion and Food and Travel, there is so much material for analysis and commentary. These subjects are perfect for blogs.  

TOP REDDIT CATEGORIES
The Reddit site is different from Steemit, but there are many similarities. It provides another good source of categories. Here are Reddit’s top categories by subscriber:
1. AskReddit
2. Funny
3. TIL
4. Pics
5. Science
6. World News
7. IAmA
8. Videos
9. Gaming
10. Blog
11. Movies
12. Music
13. Aww
14. News
15. GIFs
16. ELI5
17. Ask Science
18. EarthPorn
19. Books
20. TV
21. Life Pro Tips
22. Mildly Interesting
23. DIY
24. Sports
25. Shower Thoughts
26. Space
27. Today I Fucked Up
28. Jokes
29. Internet Is Beautiful 
30. Fitness
31. Food
32. Photoshop Battles
33. Gadgets
34. History
35. Not the Onion
36. Data Is Beautiful
37. Futurology
38. Get Motivated
39. Documentaries
40. Personal Finance

So those provide even more ideas. 

BUILDING UP TOPICS ON STEEMIT

We can let it happen organically, but Steemit’s growth will be faster if the community manages this growth a little bit. It’s like opening up a pizza restaurant. When a new customer comes in, you don’t ask them what they’d like to see on the menu. If you already know what’s popular (as we do), then you hand them a menu which already lists some of the most popular pizza types/toppings. Plus, with Steemit, they can always mix and match the toppings, and even put on an apron and jump into the kitchen—they can make their own pizza if they want! But we’ll get a lot more business, much more quickly, if we have those popular categories already up and looking good. 

HOW TO START NEW TOPICS ON STEEMIT

When posting on Steemit, you are not limited to the existing topics on the right. If there’s no topic for “Wine” or “Virtual Reality” and you want to start one, go ahead. When posting, just select “Other Topic” from the drop-down menu and write in the name of your new topic. All names are in lower case and you can use up to one dash, I believe, so “Wine” would be wine and “Virtual Reality” would be virtual-reality. 

YOU ARE AN EXPERT
I live in the United States where the court system makes heavy use of expert witnesses. Most people think an expert witness is someone with two PhDs, years of practice or teaching experience, and a long list of patents or publications to his name. But that’s not always true. Technically, the only requirement for someone to be an expert witness is for that person to have an ABOVE AVERAGE knowledge of the subject. 
That means that if you love video games, and maybe one game in particular, you sure as heck know a lot more about it than a judge or jury do. So you COULD BE accepted by an American court as an expert in that subject. 

To say it another way, you have more than enough expertise to pen one short article on a topic you are passionate about. 

Do you like drinking craft beer, aged whiskey, or fine wine? Travelling to exotic locations? Trying out new and different restaurants? Reading books? Publish some reviews, in print or video format. 

Do you collect or obsess over rock climbing gear, Pez sticks, baseball cards, vintage dolls, tactical knives, sports cars, smartwatches, or foofoo earbuds? 

Do you have a talent for analyzing sports, politics, stocks, or movies?

Do you have an eye for trends in the fields of food, fashion, technology, gaming, or weddings?

Do you want to help people by providing useful and accessible articles in fields like science, health, law, and search engine optimization?

COMMITS ARE NOT JUST FOR GITHUB -
LET’S EACH COMMIT TO ONE CONTENT POSTING!

Each of us is an expert in something, at least enough to write meaningfully about it for a page or two. That alone is going to add more value than you know for people who are reading it. The tech developers of Steemit are working their asses off and there are all these Github commits. 

So how about we each commit to writing ONE CONTENT POSTING on Steemit in any of the above categories that are popular with blog and magazine writers. That way, when we promote this to original content creators, we can say that we are building something. And we will attract not only the pioneers, but also the joiners. Steemit is the place to be and it’s the place to post original content.