Questioning the influencer mentality on Hive
Recently, I read a newspaper article about the topic of job dreams of youngsters. They asked a certain number of kids between 14 and 18 what they want to become professionally speaking. I don't remember all the results but I remember that one job in the top 5 was „social media influencer“. I wasn't even surprised to see that there but in a way it disturbed me all the same. What does it mean that so many kids want to become influencers?
Do we really want our kids to become influencers?
I wonder whether it's the same for you, but I kind of struggle with the term influencer. I talked about that in the latest HHHlive ecency discord show lead by @ph1102. When there are influencers there are obviously also influenced people. I don't know about you, but I don't like to be influenced. Being influenced sounds like being manipulated in my behaviour by the person influencing me.
The whole concept of influencers sounds like a game of power where people try to legitimize their position through a certain number of followers and then use this position in order to influence or manipulate the people following them. I believe it sounds bad on so many levels. Do kids want to earn money with their content or do they want to reach a position of power where they can use this power to wield a certain authority for the sake of having power over others?
Do we have influencers on hive?
Like all the web 2.0 social media networks, I see a lot of actors who want to be influencers on hive. They want to impact and lead the people that follow them. Let's be clear, they are not doing anything wrong but couldn't we do better on a decentralized network?
Let's have a look at the interaction that happens on hive...
When I look at hive, I see a big portion of fake interaction. People following and commenting posts in order to get the chance to get some upvotes here and there. Do these people bring any value? I'm not so sure about it. Then you have all these give away posts where people leave comments to get a prize. Let's say you take all that away, what is remaining of the interaction?
When you go through a lot of posts, you see that most of them have zero up to a handful of comments. Among these comments, how many are signatures of curation projects? How many are real comments where people give their honest opinion?
What I want to say with all that is that probably around 90% of the posts of hive have very little real, meaningful interaction. Is it because people don't care? I believe rather that it's because 90% of the posts on hive bring very little value to readers.
On web 3.0 we don't have algorithms that place certain content in front of the eyes of others because this account has tons of followers. On hive, we need to work very hard to get some real followers who are willing to spend some time to read your posts and interact with them.
On hive, simply creating content isn't enough!
Interacting and showing appreciation
We need to interact and value our followers. I've heard quite often that users won't visit an author again if they don't get an answer to their comment. We need to answer the comments on our posts just to show appreciation and let's not forget that we have great tools to show appreciation with upvotes as well.
Offering real value
Basically, when you write a 1000 word post, the chances that somebody reads it from beginning to end are probably very low. If I see such posts, I tend not even to try to read them (says the guy who just creates a post with over 1000 words 😅). I only read them when I'm really interested in the topic.
In order to bind your followers you need to offer real value to them. You either need to enlarge their knowledge-base, to entertain them or to trigger their curiosity. It's not enough just to produce content. We need to produce content that people want!
Building relationships
On web 2.0 you might get thousands of followers but on web 3.0 you might get a handful of friends. Hive offers a way to learn about other people, interact with them, know them, earn their trust and maybe even become friends. It's the friendships that you created that will help you on the way.
Increase your skin in the game
When you look at traditional social media, you can grow your account basically only through growing your followership. Here on hive, your followership matters but what matters even more is how your account grows financially. The more Hive Power you wield, the bigger the part of the reward pool is that you can distribute!
Your hive power is your influence on the chain and your personality will define how you use it
On web 2.0 you influence, on web 3.0 you help, value and create bonds
The whole influencer concept simply doesn't work that well on web 3.0. Your impact on the chain will grow with your hive power. It will depend on the value that you give to others through your content or through your curation. It will depend on the relations that you managed to build and the friends that are around you... When I look at that, I believe that on hive we can have better and more human values to strive for than what we have on web 2.0. I prefer to have 5 friends rather than 10'000 anonymous followers...
Therefore, I don't see us as influencers but as members of a same blockchain where we can create relationships with the people we want to, support the authors and the projects we want to and define how the chain will look like tomorrow. Because let's not forget that you are part owner of this chain and you participate in the way this chain will evolve, with your votes but also with your values and your actions!
Let's connect ! You can find me on these platforms:
Any interaction with people does influence them somewhat. A lot of Hive is chasing votes and the reward related to it. I think influencers which show travel sites add value. Game reviews catch my attention also. Giveaways less so.
You are right that any kind of interaction carries a degree of influence. But when it's a job description it makes me cringe :-)
Very insightful post Achim. I think influencers have always been around, just categorized differently. For example, athletes and other entertainers have been "influencers" for decades as brand ambassadors, spokespersons, etc. Undoubtedly social media influencer can have a negative connotation attached to it. I think that can attributed to the Kim K affect - having fame without any worthy accomplishments or real value proposition.
Everything you've outlined is part of a general culture shift, imo. Quality and skill mastery in all capacities, whether through influencing, content creation, general business building, are slowly falling away. But I do believe that there will be a market correction of sorts to bring back proper alignment.
I agree but these people also a kind of example through their action. It's exactly what you point out "having fame without accomplishment or real value proposition".
I think it goes in pair with the values that people tend to live for today. I hope you are right and the pendulum will go into the other direction again.
Thanks a lot for this great comment!
You're welcome but I should thank you too because I've struggled with posting here because I wasn't sure if topics I want to discuss would translate well. Seeing so many post about their token holdings, and posts I consider to be pandering posts, had me a little nervous about deeper topics. But seeing the repsonse to this post, makes me want to dive-in. I appreciate you!
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Your text is incredible in relation to what we experience here at Hive, what often seems to exist is just a connection aimed at something financial, as you said, the comments often seem to be very superficial, just looking for a heavier vote on top from them.
This part:
Catching the attention and interest of the public that follows you sometimes becomes the real challenge for the authors we have here, as sometimes interactions are either forced or superficial, so writing something that really catches attention is difficult.
This is another very interesting point, as theoretically a text with many words should have a greater meaning for its readers. It is well known that the longer the text, the less interesting it becomes and readers probably didn't read it, so we got into an old discussion here at hive, about content that is quick and content that is more focused on something and therefore becomes long. I rarely read a huge text either, unless it catches my attention.
Finally, this point is intense, because if we are content creators or influencers (this title I think it doesn't really matter) we must have affection for our readers/followers and for this reason, I have had it in mind for more than months that everyone I respond to the comments I receive on my posts (from non-bots) and more than that, I leave two actions that I have also done:
I don't just stop at a comment response, if you go to my post and write, I will respond to you, you responded to my response, usually here the conversation dies, but I, whether boring or not, continue the conversation. I love seeing that the comments section has become a chat xD
Second point, I have tried within my time, to "return the visit" of the person who came to my post, I started this a little while ago, so I am still developing it, but, in short, the people who leave me some response, in addition To answer them, I go to your profile and look for your latest post and also leave a comment there.
I don't know if this is something we can call right or wrong, but I believe that the moment we visit someone who has visited us, we establish a connection of respect and mutual interaction.
Anyway, sorry for the huge response, but you raised points that urgently need to be changed at Hive! A hug.
I totally agree with you. The problem I see is that people often realize that quality doesn't really pay in the short term so they tend to go for quantity. Unfortunately this isn't really good for the author or the chain. When we have too many worthless posts, it's difficult to find the few nuggest out there.
I think there is place for both but especially if it's in the long form, I believe it should really carry some added value otherwise it's just a wall of words that everybody is scared of :-)
That's a very interesting concept that you have here. I like the idea to give back what you recieved. We all love to get comments on our posts but we also need to give some, so that others can feel the same. It's time requiring but I believe it's the best way to value your readers.
Thanks a lot for this amazing comment. Appreciate it!
The pleasure is all mine, I'm glad you liked my comment, I was a little worried about the size xD
Let's keep evolving and building a better Hive! Cheers!
I think that the term "influencer" comes with a negative connotation lately... I suppose that back in the day, influencers were Socrates, Archimedes, etc. but that was completely different as they didn't move so many people (only highly educated)... But today, some of these influencers, thanks to the Internet have huge reach and very often using the power in the same way as MSM...
We have something similar on HIVE, but it's much more different... With being transparent blockchain, it is harder to "trick" people in the long term... Of course, it happens, but it doesn't last too long...
Anyways, we are influenced by many things and many people, but I suppose that the most important is to not be influenced (and close minded) by one person, or one organization... That's usually a bad idea...
I liked your thought about rather doing a "team change" than blindly follow influencers...
They were role models and people with a special skill. Today influencers are defined by the number of followers and it's so obvious what they are doing because it's actually written in their job description lol.
In a way it's so much easier to let others think for us and just follow them. We need to use our brains, think critically and listen to all the sides. Otherwise we just all become dumb sheep that follow a stupid leader ;-)
I didn't think too deeply about the negative connotations of Influencer, but you are right, there are lots of them.
I think the term is so generally accepted that we fail to question what it really means :-)
Great post. I'm here first and foremost to make friends, and I've been succeeding on that.
The monetary incentive is awesome, but I'm not sure I want to be a web 2.0 style influencer.
It's not so easy to find a place online where you can meet people and make friends. Hive is such a place I believe!
In Web 2.0 it's more about getting followers in large numbers, but in Web 3.0 it's about something much more valuable: making real friends.
With Hive, you can learn about other people, interact with them and gain their trust.
When you make friends on Hive, those friendships support you and help you on your path to success.
It's great to have friends like that!
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Making friends is the real perk here on Hive. We all want recognition and being appreciated. Hive is a platform that can give you that and I believe that is is pretty precious.
You're right.I had been asked a few times how much am I making per month on hivr and when I told them I never withdrew my money,they started getting weird.
Its nice to have freshblood in our ecosystem.But when they are all in for just the money,posting mediocre posts,then that's not even worth my time and effort.
A blog that Sounds interesting and captivating is difficult to do here in hive
I think that the money can be a motivator but it won't make us go for very long. It's the personal connections that matter in the long run. It's your friends on chain that will connect with you that make the difference I believe.
It's funny to say that you yourself don't read these posts when you actually wrote over 1000 words yourself, man XD I try to read and interact with posts regardless of length as much as I can on Hive, and I do it with small accounts, not just whales.
I have to admit that I read much less posts than in the past. Probably also because I don't have that much time but it's something that I would definitely like to do more but when there are too many words, I tend to get discouraged before I start :-)
I agree with you, man. A lot of people don't read long posts. That's why I try to keep my posts to 1000 words or less.
I believe Hive has very few "influencers", and they are rarely successful in the way influencers are in Web 2.
Where the influence of Hive influencers lies, is in what happens on the chain or in certain communities.
I think real engagement on blogs started to fade away and only focus on places where it is welcomed and when the topic invites to more engagement, or in some cases when it is controversial.
We also have to keep in mind that the attention of Hive users is now pulled in various directions, from games to video, from shorts to short messages in different formats.
The thing I understand the least is going on Twitter or Discord to engage with other Hivers to the detriment of on-chain activity (unless you have private things to discuss). Or even attempting to pull people in from Twitter by engaging with them there. Instead of pulling them in, our "ambassadors" are sucked into those platforms and they are less on Hive.
This is something that I have difficulties to grasp either. I see so many posts on X from hivians and they hardly have any views and even less interaction. I don't really get the point of it when we have all the tools on chain. People think maybe that by spamming about hive on X, it will attract people but then these people come to hive and nobody talks to them... In my opinion we should first make sure that there is life in this community and that people want to join the fun.
Interesting sharing. I don't think I would see myself as an influencer - I am too shy to even show my photo hehe! To me, I am just here to connect with like-minded people, have a chit-chat within the virtual space, and learn new things.
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I think that we can all keep the level of anonymity that we want here and that's nice in a way. I remember feeling the same way than you and now I'm doing plenty of videos with my head on them :-)
Hehe you look good!
tbh, HIVE needs more short form style posts to attract the "influencer crowd". Like you said, most people wouldn't bother reading through a thousand word post.
That isn't to say that all those "influencer post crowds" who comment are any diff from those on HIVE though. How many of those replies on other social media is actually of any substance at all? 😜
I agree with you. There is often not much real interaction. It's a kind of one way street where the only thing you get back is a fake echo lol
It kind of depends but I do think that interaction is lacking. Everyone has different interests and I agree that the current structure doesn't really encourage interaction as much.
I miss the kind of interaction we had some time back where people really cared. Unfortunately I believe that the bear market has dissilusioned more than one here around.
I myself have seen here that people have studied 16th grade but there are no jobs here in our country and they do not know about crypton industry and they do not know about web 3. Let such people know about such platforms to ease their worries a little.
Hive can offer a solution for these people.
Yeah of course.
Right words. Interactions are basic need of life somehow
That's true
Influencing is very good but it come with so many negativities and that’s because of what influencers do these days
I love influencing though
Interesting ;-)
Do we actually think hive can produce more of influencers in the future
I don't know what you think :-)
Hmmm
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STOPAmazing. I try to share My hive links and My Community links to all My 2.0 web networks. Almost 20k ppl there but it's hard to make the real deal for the common people comes into Hive and Open the links. The ppl prefeer sadly the usual for consume content. But we try yo do our Best for show that Hive exists and all the time i'm posting about Hive in My networks.