Marketing plan for Bitshares 2.1

[yvv]

I am not a Marketer, this is why I work with Chris4210. He is out there every single day guys shaking hands with Executives from billion dollar corporations, flying to Amsterdam and other events (his parents paid the way for him thusfar, but cannot continue that forever!), organizing Meetups, tweeting and doing everything a successful Marketer can do with no income.
 
I can get a successful team of Marketers together, but REAL Marketers cost money. As you know, I do not hire Americans or other high priced labor, I know that sounds bad, but this is one reason why I can build so much stuff so fast. I will get us a Marketing team now that will blow the doors off any other out there.
 
As Chris said, it's time to get LOUD. I/we need your support for it though...

Fuck marketers. Become a marketer for yourself. It is not a rocket science.

[kenCode]

I am not a Marketer, this is why I work with Chris4210. He is out there every single day guys shaking hands with Executives from billion dollar corporations, flying to Amsterdam and other events (his parents paid the way for him thusfar, but cannot continue that forever!), organizing Meetups, tweeting and doing everything a successful Marketer can do with no income.
 
I can get a successful team of Marketers together, but REAL Marketers cost money. As you know, I do not hire Americans or other high priced labor, I know that sounds bad, but this is one reason why I can build so much stuff so fast. I will get us a Marketing team now that will blow the doors off any other out there.
 
As Chris said, it's time to get LOUD. I/we need your support for it though...

[mf-tzo]

should we consider Brian Page again to do some marketing with a marketing worker proposal (although I think he already got overpaid and dumped his shares on us so I don't think this might be a good idea..)? or Max Wright? or anyone else? Maybe kencode and Ronny are much more suitable.

[Chris4210]

This is better. Hangout recordings and transcripts are probably really valuable to some people. But this has also the problem of not having much really original content. No blog posts that are thoughtfully written and give "whoa, this is really good stuff, I have to link this to all my friends!" feelings to people.

"Ok, here is some straight and honest feedback:"

This community has about 5-10 members that will consistently click and upvote a post on reddit.

This community has about 3-5 members that will simply click retweet a tweet.

This community has 1-2 members that will Plus1 a Google+ post.

OC cost $ or time, and this community rarely (if ever) donates to people/groups trying to promote BitShares, mostly out of their own pocket(s).

Hangout transcripts cost $60 - $120 USD each or days of time and transcripts are OC, in the sense that you don't see them anywhere else, except the one other site I posted them to (on my time) after paying for them out of my own pocket.

I am very thankful for the Brownie Points from Dan via fuzzy that covered a small portion of my expenses to do so and the donations from around 10 community members from time to time after that supplemental funding ended, but that minimal support too has ended for the most part.

The point is, OC is expensive over time and the community by and large does not help promote this OC or for the most part any post about BitShares by simply clicking a link/button, much less offer any supplemental monetary support for these contributions and/or time.

But Tuck, what about a Worker Proposal? 

Yeah, that was brought up with "BitShares News" a few weeks ago but I discouraged them from persuing one due to the communities attitude towards workers (see various threads on this forum) and the lack of support shown for anyone attempting to market BitShares.

There's plenty of criticism dished out (see various post by community members on this forum), but very little support for the time given by those trying to help on the BitShares marketing front.

And these people trying to market BitShares asked for nothing up front (like some others who were paid handsomely and ran <cough>), but instead did the work then hoped even a few people would simply upvote/retweet or Gawd forbid donate for their time and effort.

That simply has not happened on a worthwhile scale or anywhere close to it.

Take a gander at the Ethereum subreddit and see how many upvotes a simple post gets.

Now go compare that to the most upvoted post of all time on the BitShares subreddit.

Do you see where I'm going with this? 

I think you do, so I won't bother spelling it out (even though part of me wants to, just to rub it in with some salt).

In my opinion (which has had about 9 months of trying to market BitShares to think it over) ultimately the lack of community participation (a simple upvote, retweet, Plus1, etc), complaining and negative feedback instead of positive support will pretty much kill off any efforts to market BitShares by people trying to do so on their own time or own $.

Any BitShares marketing in the future will most likely come from paid articles (see CCEDK), which have far less effect on the general public ... because it's a paid article and everyone knows it.

The days of people giving up their time and money to promote BitShares from their heart is currently on life support and no one's visiting them in ICU.

There are no flowers by their bedside, no teddy bears and no cards with well wishes ... just complaints and negative feedback telling them how they should have done more for the rest of you while they lay on their death bed.

I fully agree our current community efforts and participation is close to 0%.  Following #BitShares on Twitter will show 4-5 tweets a day. What a missed opportunity! It does not take much time to send out some news and ideas, visions and dreams on Twitter. Everybody can be a part.
Pro tipp: Use www.hootsuite.com and set up a channel with #Blockchain, #BTC and one with #Ethereum, #ETH. You can monitor all major news and retweet within seconds. The tool is for free!

I would like to set up a worker proposal to fund organized marketing efforts for BitShares. We will lose in the long term if we only spend worker funds on proof of concept features and 0% on marketing. We do we not focus on our core features and promote them? We cannot wait another 3 to 4 months until somebody steps up and promotes BitShares. We have to start today!

I would suggest to create a marketing worker and hire e.g. BitShares Munich and pay them to find and manage a marketing team for BitShares. #Kencode proved already that he can hire and manage teams very cost efficiently and deliver results.

BitShares Munich is also planning a BitShares Hackathon for Summer 2016 plus I am working on bringing BitShares on stage at the biggest start-up Festival in Germany: Bits & Pretzels 2016. (I am organizing the Blockchain track)

We could have several marketing teams, promoting BitShares features in different ways. The main agenda will be the same:

- price stable smartcoins (digital money)
- low trading & transactions fees
- international transfers within seconds
- stealth transactions (BitShares Chameleon)

New features and hard forks should be named, similar to Ethereum. All marketing teams use the same name.

If we have a monthly budget of $40k , why can we not spend 8-10% on marketing?


BitShares needs to get loud again!!

[Chris4210]

I totally agree with the marketing we need to take forward in making BitShares well known. I'have compare BitShares with other Bitcoin 2.0 protocols like Ethereum, Mastercoin, NXT, Counterparty and found that BitShares is a ready to market platfom for businesses and communities, especially with UIA, Rewards, FBA and now Stealth. Yep, we lack marketing and communication. I'm planning to start a Bitshares meetup group here in Montreal. We have a Bitcoin community and this will be great place to show Bitshares advantages. Next, I will be targeting independant artist to talk about PeerTracks, and Coop companies since they can use Bitshares blockchain to issue tokens that can be shares among their members. Bitshares BlockChain features are well align with Coop laws and regulations here in Quebec.  It will be great to have a user friendly Bitshares mobile wallet. Something that non-crypto savvy can use easily, just by having fun sending/receiving BitShares UIA and SmartCoins  http://jaxx.io/ , https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/
We are now features in french on BitOramag.com - a Gold Crypto WebMagazine: http://bitoramag.com/2016/02/27/bitshares-la-plateforme-technologique-qui-utlise-la-blockchain-pour-decentraliser-et-socialiser-la-finance/

Thanks @pam2,

do not forget to claim your bounty for setting up a meetup group! https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,21260.msg276075.html#msg276075

You can download the BitShares Mobile wallet at the Google Play store here:  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.bitsharesmunich.wallet.

That should help you to spread the word. You could sell BitUSD at the meetup directly . Which Canadian would not love to get his hands on some USD?

[xeroc]

@xeroc, do you have any updates you can share with us?  Thanks.   

2FA is essentially working .. There are still a few slight issues that result in bad user experience
Also, I will need some more time to simplify the "registration" procedure. It will probably be as simple as providing a mail address and clicking a checkbox in your wallets permissions page ..

[tbone]

I understand where @Samupaha is coming from.  I think it would also be good to know when the new hosted web wallet will be ready.  Also, how is 2FA coming along? 

@xeroc, do you have any updates you can share with us?  Thanks.   

[CLains]

@Samupaha  is clearly stepping up. He just needs the core information required to do so.

If we want to use this possibility for focused marketing effort, we need to know only two things:

1) Is the version number going to change to 2.1?
2) When the hardfork is going to happen?

@bytemaster, @Stan , @xeroc give him some fuel

For what it's worth i'd vote for a Samupaha worker (:

[Samupaha]

Let's just try simple things first, like I'm doing in this topic. I'm going to start a marketing campaign with my own resources, and everybody is welcome to join me.

I like that, how can I help?

Great! Do you have any special skills? Connections to individuals or groups that might be interested in what Bitshares can offer?

For now we have to wait until the devs decide will the version number change or not, and when the hardforks happen. Then we can start to do more detailed plans. But in any case, what is needed are good blogposts/articles etc. that can convince people that Bitshares will revolutionize the world. Pictures and infographics are also needed. And if we can get funding and/or enough volunteers, video would be great.

I'm still somewhat busy with fulltime job for the next few weeks but after that I can hopefully invest more time in this.

[Louis]

Let's just try simple things first, like I'm doing in this topic. I'm going to start a marketing campaign with my own resources, and everybody is welcome to join me.

I like that, how can I help?

[Samupaha]

If you need any assistance with marketing, please don't hesitate to contact CNX about it. The whole purpose of Cryptonomex International is to have a means of coordinating exactly those efforts, however, focusing on the CNX AND BTS side of things, not merely on BTS.

What's the best way to contact? I'd rather do it here on the forum so that everybody else can keep up what's happening. So far very little results.

I think, BitShares needs to figure out a way to have someone take "the lead" without giving the impression to dictate things. CNX tried to play that role and people complained. Now they are not longer taking that role and no one else stands up to take the lead .. yet ..

I think we have seen already enough and can say that Bytemaster/Cryptonomex-haters were just full of bullshit and we don't need to take them seriously. If Cryptonomex has any resources for marketing, they can take more responsibility for it. It has been clearly too early to let Bitshares handle it's own marketing in a decentralized way – it doesn't work because there is no accumulated knowledge how to do it.

Without talking bad about other projects, this is exactly what I don't like about Ethereum (among other things) .. They claim to be a decentralized network and still consensys defined and decides almost everything on its own. They seem to be quite successful with that approach though ..

Usually centralized way is more effective. Decentralization is not a panacea that will make everything better. It's great at increasing resilience and antifragility of a system, but it has also costs.

Would there be anyone interested in running a marketing campaign?
We could create a committee-owned account for referrals and then pay a marketeer via worker.
If he succeeds we get the referrals and if he doesn't manage to bring in a certain number of new users every month (including nr transaction generated by them), we could simply fire him.

Let's just try simple things first, like I'm doing in this topic. I'm going to start a marketing campaign with my own resources, and everybody is welcome to join me.

I'll focus on high quality early adopters. People who will get really excited about Bitshares and want to do something for it, like development or marketing. Or at least they'll see BTS as a good long term investment. This does not necessarily manifest as hundreds of new accounts, at least in the short term. We don't need people to open account and forget it after two days because they didn't see anything interesting. We need people who understand how great and powerful system Bitshares is and are willing to do something for it.

Other people can focus on other groups, like traders.

If somebody doesn't want to do anything, that's ok.

But we still need a little bit of cooperation:
- Decide what we are campaigning for (in this case: 2.1 with stealth and free transactions)
- Know when it will happen (when the hardforks are coming?)

[xeroc]

If you need any assistance with marketing, please don't hesitate to contact CNX about it. The whole purpose of Cryptonomex International is to have a means of coordinating exactly those efforts, however, focusing on the CNX AND BTS side of things, not merely on BTS.

I think, BitShares needs to figure out a way to have someone take "the lead" without giving the impression to dictate things. CNX tried to play that role and people complained. Now they are not longer taking that role and no one else stands up to take the lead .. yet ..

Without talking bad about other projects, this is exactly what I don't like about Ethereum (among other things) .. They claim to be a decentralized network and still consensys defined and decides almost everything on its own. They seem to be quite successful with that approach though ..

Further, I am happy to have a technically verse community with unlimited ideas and healthy discussions about tech and economics .. and I realize that we now need to sell our tech before putting it out to the public for everyone to copy ..

Would there be anyone interested in running a marketing campaign?
We could create a committee-owned account for referrals and then pay a marketeer via worker.
If he succeeds we get the referrals and if he doesn't manage to bring in a certain number of new users every month (including nr transaction generated by them), we could simply fire him.

[Samupaha]

IMOH(!) ... CNX is only a software provider for BitShares and nothing more. They probably won't and shouldn't be able to *just* decide on bumping the version number.
As they are merely the technological providers for BitShares, the marketing side of things has to be done by other parties (and it should be as we all know how well
marketing went with CNX/I3).

How come we have a decentralized network, decentralized community, decentralized exchange but not decentralized marketing yet?!?

Maybe I should have been more clear on this...

I don't mean that I want Cryptonomex to get fully involved with marketing. But they are a key player so any marketing effort will require some cooperation with them. They are producing the stealth feature so they know when it's going to be ready. And probably also they will know when free transactions feature is ready?

If we are going to do any kind of marketing campaign, we need to know the deadlines. There will be hardfork and marketers have to know when it's going to happen so that they can make plans and be ready to execute them at the right time.

This has been big failure point for Bitshares in the past. New features and updates are just rolled out without any effort to market them for outsiders. We can't just assume that if feature is completed, users and developers will just somehow magically find it and start using it.

Changing the version number would be really big help for the campaign, but not necessary. But we need to know if it's going to be changed or not! Bytemaster made already a positive comment on this, but didn't say anything final.

Decentralized marketing isn't something that happens automatically. There still needs to be real effort by real people to make it happen. This needs cooperation. What I'm trying to do here is get things started, let the marketing campaign emerge.

Imagine that we are a normal tech company. Engineers are making new products every now and then, but they don't tell marketing department anything about them or when they will be ready. That would suck for a traditional company, and it sucks for us too.

[Stan]

So what's the timeline here? When the stealth and free transactions features are ready? If I understood right, Bytemaster said in the latest hangout that they might be in a same hardfork quite soon.

If we want to use this possibility for focused marketing effort, we need to know only two things:

1) Is the version number going to change to 2.1?
2) When the hardfork is going to happen?

If we know these as soon as possible, anyone can make marketing plans either together or individually. We don't need to agree on a certain message, but we all need to make the effort at the same time to get the full benefit.

@bytemaster, @Stan would be nice to hear a comment from Cryptonomex on this topic.

IMOH(!) ... CNX is only a software provider for BitShares and nothing more. They probably won't and shouldn't be able to *just* decide on bumping the version number.
As they are merely the technological providers for BitShares, the marketing side of things has to be done by other parties (and it should be as we all know how well
marketing went with CNX/I3).

How come we have a decentralized network, decentralized community, decentralized exchange but not decentralized marketing yet?!?

We have a perfectly working decentralize marketing program. Can't you see. When it is decentralized there's no one person entity that can be held accountable for results which means there is no way to measure results. Decentralize means efforts can't been focus properly so we get what we have.

It's a two edged sword.  You can't have freedom without responsibility.

That said, we work behind the scenes to attract new "partners" so they can come here and be told to go play in the "third party" alt businesses sandbox.  Those that get past our friendly "welcoming committee" and decide to stay eventually build businesses like OpenLedger and they do the decentralized marketing that is in their own best interests.

With apologies to Reba McEntire,

It sounded like somebody else that was talkin'
Askin' Mama what do I do
She said just be nice to the businessmen Fancy
And they'll be nice to you.

[Stan]

So what's the timeline here? When the stealth and free transactions features are ready? If I understood right, Bytemaster said in the latest hangout that they might be in a same hardfork quite soon.

If we want to use this possibility for focused marketing effort, we need to know only two things:

1) Is the version number going to change to 2.1?
2) When the hardfork is going to happen?

If we know these as soon as possible, anyone can make marketing plans either together or individually. We don't need to agree on a certain message, but we all need to make the effort at the same time to get the full benefit.

@bytemaster, @Stan would be nice to hear a comment from Cryptonomex on this topic.

IMOH(!) ... CNX is only a software provider for BitShares and nothing more. They probably won't and shouldn't be able to *just* decide on bumping the version number.
As they are merely the technological providers for BitShares, the marketing side of things has to be done by other parties (and it should be as we all know how well
marketing went with CNX/I3).

How come we have a decentralized network, decentralized community, decentralized exchange but not decentralized marketing yet?!?

completely agree. besides, i bet CNX would like it if more of us stepped up and took on active roles.

That's why we've been trying to keep our mouth's shut, so that other people will be encouraged to take the lead.  I'm very pleased to see the new leaders emerging everywhere.  Very healthy.