Note: This proposal was edited on 24th February 2024 to reduce its scope and to simplify it. Please see the summary of changes here.
TLDR - Summary
Strategizer is a new project that assists the Hive community to direct its own decision making & marketing by enabling access to high quality data and actionable insights. We intend to apply tried and tested digital marketing strategies to Hive in order to accelerate growth and to overcome challenges that have arisen due to Hive’s decentralized structure.
The main goal of this introductory proposal is to lay the foundation for ongoing improvements to the way Hive interacts with and responds to the wider world. This includes collecting insights from existing and potential users, market analysis, User Experience (UX) research & beyond.
Continual improvement on all levels requires that we first understand what is needed and why. Marketing is much more than advertising and should extend into the development of products/services to ensure that we all understand why Hive is collectively performing as it is at any given moment. Effective marketing and growth begins with detailed research.
Every avalanche begins with a single snowflake. ❄️
Introduction
We propose a process of market research, analysis and reporting in order to improve Hive’s digital marketing footprint. We will begin with market research and move on to data driven suggestion, primarily for improved growth strategy that benefits the entire eco-system. This will include the creation of reports that provide relevant market insights and actionable intelligence for the Hive community, assisting stakeholders to make better informed decisions.
Increased community awareness of Hive’s market positioning, performance, opportunities and threats should optimize the use of DHF funding, plus improve the rate of Hive’s growth. The benefits of decentralization are strengthened when everyone involved is empowered with accurate information.
Hive's quest to increase its share of the social networking market is opposed by vast, centralized corporations who are adept at manipulating markets and audiences. Hive and its dApps have not been able to powerfully compete due, in part, to the inherent benefits that centralization offers organizations in key areas.
While decentralization remains the only way to overcome some challenges - at which Hive’s historic competitors completely fail (e.g. freedom of speech) - significant changes are needed. In particular, Hive needs to learn to compete in the online information space with corporations that leverage their centralized structure to efficiently respond to the demands of their users and to market changes.
Despite conceptually being an ideal on-ramp for Web 3 and crypto in general, Hive only has around 3000 active (posting) accounts at present. It is clear that assistance is needed in order to reach a point of ignition that can substantially accelerate Hive’s growth. Regardless of your vision for Hive's evolution, one constant remains - Hive needs growth and new users in order to become more useful.
At a time when unemployment is rising, Artificial Intelligence threatens the work force and when Web 2.0 social media platforms continue to upset their users with censorship and exploitation of their private data, Hive should be thriving. However, Hive’s network growth has stalled, it has poor search engine presence, is almost never mentioned by journalists/influencers when they cover decentralized social networking and is almost non-existent on relevant pages on Wikipedia.
Hive's competition grows almost daily too. Several open protocols for decentralized social networking now exist and, additionally, strong competition has emerged from a Sequoia Capital backed ‘Decentralized Social Network’ called ‘DeSo’. Deso has slick marketing and could be said to be misleading the public by claiming that they invented decentralized social media. Despite being relatively new, they are already outperforming Hive in the Coin Market Cap tables (their market cap is currently more than twice that of Hive).
Being complacent here is a mistake, history shows that without a well executed, thorough and optimized marketing strategy it is common for the better products/projects to be overpowered by competitors who are more organized and who strategize more effectively.
Resolving this complex digital marketing challenge requires a multi-faceted approach, which itself depends on access to meaningful market data, user feedback and other relevant information. Actionable intelligence must be consistently and clearly communicated to Hive stakeholders in order to influence decision making in ways that can point Hive on a trajectory back towards the kind of growth and success that was seen during the promising early growth period of Hive’s predecessor, Steem.
Hive needs reliable translation of market activity and user sentiment into coherent strategy that meets the real needs of target audiences. This requires the application of professional marketing processes. This proposal sets out an initial plan to establish pathways towards success by producing highly relevant analysis and reporting, which the entire community can use as they see fit.
We foresee this proposal benefiting all aspects of decision making in the Hive community:
- App creators will be helped to shape their products and allocate resources in more optimal ways.
- Core Hive developers will be similarly helped when deciding which changes to include into the core blockchain.
- The entire community will be assisted as they market and co-create Hive as a whole.
We will also produce suggestions for marketing strategies that can form a basis of follow-on projects that accelerate Hive's growth and public visibility.
We aim to shine the light of understanding into areas that can only be explored through the application of integrated market research, user feedback and systems analysis.
Bridging The Gap Between Hive & the Global Audience
The Hive community relies on proven systems that generate the consensus that enables decentralization at the technological level. While this provides the basis for a system of pooled hardware resources, we understand that there is space for the creation of new approaches which assist community members as they themselves reach consensus on matters of governance, design and growth marketing.
Reaching understanding of and consensus about the more human-centric aspects of Hive’s evolution has often been hampered by a lack of reliable, shared data resources. Discussion of the state of Hive and any visions for Hive’s future will be greatly aided by access to trusted maps that show the social marketing landscape that Hive exists within and that help to highlight the available paths forwards towards greater success.
Understanding an ever changing social media landscape on a global level requires collaboration and access to shared resources that help projects to connect with their target audiences. The more that Hive’s community understands the decentralized social networking marketplace and Hive's potential new users, the more chance there is of optimized problem solving and sustained growth (backed by data, rather than continued reliance on what is often little more than personal opinion).
Decentralization implies a range of projects will naturally spring up on Hive and while it is not essential for everyone to agree on every topic, the more aligned the community can be on key areas, the more effectively it can take action to achieve goals on a large scale. If holders of so many diverse viewpoints are to reach a consensus on complex topics, they need to be on the same page as much as possible, which requires that they all have access to a shared pool of high quality information.
Data Driven Growth Strategy
The marketing and growth of Hive has so far not been scaled up, partially due to a lack of consensus among key stakeholders as to the most appropriate strategy for success in attracting potential new users, on-boarding them and to then motivate them to evangelize Hive to others.
Some voices claim that marketing Hive should not be attempted without technical hurdles surrounding on-boarding/retention being overcome, while others see opportunities being missed and a failure to take the initiative to help the community to profit from them. Growing/marketing Hive and improving Hive’s technology do not need to be separate processes - in fact, they need to feed into each other. This is how most successful technological businesses sustain growth and respond to their audiences.
The early success of Steem has already proven that decentralized social networking is capable of drawing in creative people to further develop the vision. Perceived shortfalls in website tech and other areas can be compensated for by the presence of structures in the community that can clearly be seen to be effective at creatively solving problems and that are moving Hive forward towards success.
Improvement of the website tech itself can be sped up through improved data availability, user feedback, system monitoring and communication/co-operation within the community. By taking steps to empower Hive’s stakeholders to solve Hive’s problems, we begin to close the gap between Hive and its competitors in multiple ways simultaneously.
Through an initial process of research, followed by the creation of data driven growth strategies, we foresee the potential for Hive to be rejuvenated and for the passion of community members to be effectively channeled towards our collective and mutual benefit.
Proposal Goals & Tasks
Achieving impressive growth goals for Hive in the long term requires a significant outlay and potentially years of work for numerous people. Steemit Inc. was burning through their funds at a high rate, yet without fully cracking the code for sustainable community growth - so it is understandable that the Hive community seeks to be careful with DHF funds. At the same time, moving too slowly could be just as fatal.
This proposal is intended to demonstrate and test the efficacy of our approach. The concepts can then later be scaled up (and potentially automated) via further proposals to the DHF once this proposal is shown to have been valuable to the community. This initial proposal is only for research and strategy, not for implementation of any potentially more costly marketing activities, such as advertising campaigns.
The tasks outlined below are aimed at establishing a baseline for market research and analysis that is oriented towards improving the overall performance of Hive.
Note: While we are open to advice from the Hive community and are flexible - once funded, the final decision on which tasks will be completed, how they will be completed and by who will rest with the team responsible for this proposal.
Key Areas of Focus
- Design & implement research surveys aimed at existing Hive community members:
Meeting the needs of the community requires gathering the views of the community in the form of usable data. Recording the observations of Hive users with regard to their experience on Hive and also their insights into other people’s perception of Hive is highly valuable.
PeakD’s ‘Open Polls’ project provides an excellent tool for us to use to collect such internal data from the Hive community. If possible we will integrate Open Polls into our research, however, other survey tools are available too.
- Design & implement market research surveys targeting the general public:
Gathering unbiased data from target audiences outside of Hive will yield important insights that can be used to guide decision making. We will subscribe to and use existing online survey tools to facilitate this.
- Investigate solutions for improved user feedback:
There is no way at present for the Hive community to easily provide feedback on Hive as a whole, or to view and track outstanding issues. We also have no way of monitoring the degree to which the community views these issues as problems. Capturing and reporting on this data is potentially a valuable way to improve public sentiment towards Hive, to empower community members and to help direct funding.
Individual apps may listen in discord servers and have GitHub issue pages, but these are not generally publicly visible or sufficiently easily referenced to enable real community awareness.
- Differentiate Hive in the global marketplace:
Identify the right approaches to use when describing Hive to target audiences. Many questions must be answered in order to appreciate how to optimally position Hive as a brand.
For example, do different types of audiences favor ideological aspects of Hive over specific design features of Apps?
This helps us all when using language to describe Hive in marketing materials, in conversation and beyond.
Timeline & Priorities
This work is predicted to be undertaken over a 3 month period, with team members working flexible hours, as needed.
The tasks have been grouped and prioritized to ensure that we first collect data from within Hive, then external to Hive from potential target audiences.
We will then analyze the results, publish reports and also generate new DHF proposals that either ourselves or other teams can make use of in order to implement suggested changes based on the data.
We will generally prioritize general reporting that benefits everyone on Hive, but also aim to produce data and reports that are specifically relevant to key Hive projects who respond to requests to participate in the process.
The following stages of work are planned:
1. Hive Census
Building community spirit requires that we go beyond just stake weighted voting as a way to assess the community’s preferences. To reach true consensus as a community we need to measure more than just wealth on Hive, we need to collect the views of people and to then make the results visible.
Gather information about Hive users:
Their preferences, pain points and why they like/dislike aspects of Hive. What do they want to see change on Hive? What is missing?
Learn about non-Hive users in Hive users’ extended networks:
Gathering targeted data from the internet can be costly and unreliable. We can leverage Hive's community to do some of the data collecting by providing insights about their own friends/connections and their sentiments towards Hive.
Consult with dApp owners/operators:
Tailor research to meet dApp operator's specific needs, plus to collect their own insights.
Segment the data into business users vs normal users:
Gather data from business users about their perception of what they need to see in order to want to invest and build more on Hive.
2. Global Market Research
Gather off-chain and general audience data, prioritizing crypto oriented social media spaces, but also reaching out to the uninitiated.
- Relevant market insights:
Gathering macro data to help us understand the big picture, plus insights into the smaller details. Aiming to identify key target audiences, plus highlight and explain psychological, economic and other factors that drive their behaviours.
- Pre-packaged market research data:
Potential purchase of commercial grade research reports on relevant topics that help us to navigate the wider social media landscape.
- Input from Hive’s Key Stakeholders:
Liaise with dApp creators and other decision makers to tailor the market research in ways they find useful.
3. Analysis & Reporting
Transparent collation and presentation of key data for consumption by community members.
- Intel Reports:
Publish key findings/insights in clear, unbiased and useful ways. Optimized for each category of Hive user and with focused areas for specific dApps.
- Community Feedback:
Publishing our findings of the views of the Hive community in order to more efficiently direct resources towards the improvements that people need/want.
- Independent Analysis:
If necessary, we will hire an external expert in order to provide analysis that is less likely to generate complaints of bias than might be the case if all analysis is generated by us as existing users of Hive.
4. Insights & Suggestions
Data driven suggestions for the Hive community to consider, aiming to improve key performance metrics for both Hive and its various projects.
Marketing Strategy:
Sharing the lessons learned through the research/analysis with the aim of better promoting Hive and capitalizing on identified opportunities.
New DHF Proposals (Bounty Proposals):
Rather than purely relying on the hit/miss approach of community members suggesting their own ideas for funding, we can highlight optimal marketing/development tasks based on our data. We will publish ‘suggested work requests’ as blogs with the intention that developers and others are inspired by them to adapt our ideas into their own proposals, gain funding and help Hive to grow.
Automation/Continuation of Market Research:
Finally, we will discuss the options for extending the work of this current proposal beyond its limited scope. Should this proposal be well received and achieve its goals, we can produce further proposals in order to provide insights to the Hive community on into the future.
Our Team
The highlighted tasks can be completed by our initial two person team:
We both have a wide range of experience in relevant fields, including digital marketing, community growth, systems design, software development and business operations.
@Ura-Soul
- A computer programmer for over 40 years. Has held a degree in Applied Computing (Business merged with System Engineering) for over 20 years.
- 15+ years experience of developing web solutions for clients.
- 3 years of running a digital marketing business, specializing in growth of decentralized projects. Developed and implemented growth strategies for a variety of online/crypto projects, plus ‘bricks and mortar’ businesses.
- 7 years on Hive. Involved in numerous projects, including 1 year of marketing systems development for Splinterlands.
- Skilled in business and systems analysis/design, SEO, digital marketing strategy design, multimedia production and various other areas that bridge creativity and engineering.
@AshleyMosaic
- 7+ years experience leading influencer marketing campaigns, increasing brand visibility and engagement. 8+ years professional blockchain experience.
- Designed and implemented comprehensive business strategies, resulting in measurable growth in community engagement and platform traffic.
- Spearheaded digital event planning and execution, enhancing brand image and user interaction within online communities.
- Successfully built and scaled several digital communities, with one surpassing organic monthly reach of 30M users.
- Conducted in-depth market analysis to identify trends and opportunities, informing data-driven decision-making for product and campaign development.
- Pioneered community development initiatives, building and nurturing active online communities through targeted engagement tactics and influencer relations.
- A futurist, specializing in the intersection of human potential, societal progress, and emerging technology.
Budgeting
In addition to our own labor, working solidly on this throughout the project’s time period - we are also budgeting for the following:
- Surveys:
Subscription to a professional online survey system, such as Survey Monkey, to enable the collection of market data, feedback and insights from a variety of sources.
- Audiences:
We have the option to purchase survey responses from demographically targeted audiences via sites like Survey Monkey. This will be a fallback option if our other strategies to gather data do not yield sufficient audience participation.
- Analyst:
Several days of work from an independent market research analyst, tasked with overseeing the data, results and conclusions. This is both to optimize the value of the data and to also overcome any claims of bias in the data.
We have estimated that to complete the tasks that we would ideally carry out for this proposal, we will need around 107 full days of work (8 hours per day) - split between the two of us.
At a standard daily rate (per person) of $504, this works out to a labor cost of $53,948 over the estimated 3 month period.
We are also allowing for:
- $2000 to pay for online survey and other research tools.
- $840+ to cover the cost of an independent data analyst.
- We also have the option to purchase an independent market research report on decentralized social media networks from marketresearch.com for $3808 (after a 15% discount). This may not be needed and will be considered only after we have completed our own research.
A daily HBD payout of $630 per day, for 3 months, will cover the predicted costs needed to achieve the goals of this proposal.
Note: The original estimate when the proposal was created was $670 per day, but it has since been scaled down. To avoid paying a second DHF fee we can just return any excess funds received at the end of the funding period.
For reference, the two main marketing projects that have so far been funded by the DHF are Leo Finance Marketing and the Ignite Visibility proposals. These two projects both spent money on external advertising. Leo Finance is ongoing and Ignite has completed.
The amounts which these projects asked for as follows:
- Leo Finance: $495 per day, over 15 months.
- Ignite: $1620 per day, over 4 months.
@strategizer aims to create materials and data that are usable by anyone wanting to build on, use or promote Hive. So while it will not immediately generate traffic in the way that advertising can do, we expect this proposal to create a measurable benefit for Hive that continues on in the months after it completes.
In the event that the proposal is only partially funded, we will do our best to publish whatever useful information we have to the community, as soon as possible after the funding stops.
Note: Any rewards from @strategizer posts will be retained as Hive Power in order to upvote users who engage with the work and to further the success of the project. In the event that the project winds down and is no longer supported by the community, we will either continue to use these funds to upvote or delegate to Hive marketing projects or may power them down, using them for other purposes at our own discretion.
Conclusion
We are excited at the prospect of helping Hive to evolve towards a position that enables all of its facets to shine. Please consider voting for our proposal to optimize and propel the Hive Blockchain into a new period of growth and success!
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please send them our way and we'll reply asap.
To our mutual success,
The @Strategizer Team
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