I’ve always wanted to write a series of articles focusing on the essence of the so-called social media tokens. No, not about the whimsical SMT (of Steem) that is yet to be born, but about the underlying logics of any possible social media tokens, including but not limited to, STEEM or even the Global coin of Facebook … Since the SCT platform aims to focus on crypto and blockchains and is on a social blockchain, I thought it would be great to write these here.
Incentivize What?
Basically, all tokens are created to incentivize something. Of course, you might want to distinguish the concepts between tokens and coins, the latter includes bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin and so on that are created for the sake of payment or running smart contracts. Although you may say that coins are created to incentivize the operation of their native blockchains, the incentivization in the beginning of the paragraph refers to facilitating behaviors outside or on top of the blockchain.
So, back to our question: what behaviors do social media tokens incentivize?
It seems the answer is so obvious and simple: To incentivize social engagement. But, does it make sense?
Social Engagement Is the Reward Itself
Humans are social by nature. That means we are naturally incentivized to engage with others, that means we are getting rewarded simultaneously when we engage. Why do we need extra incentives from those weird tokens to get us social? Didn’t you see the rise of the Facebook monster? They ain’t got any tokens and paid no one to gather 2 billion users on their platform!
Yeah, I know it’s bad. Mark is bad that he uses us to get rich and did not share a dime with us, the most valuable asset of his empire, users. So Steem came along and Dan said Mark is bad and we are not - we will create a social media token to return your influence to your pocket, so BOOM! STEEM is here and lasts until now.
The STEEM Case
Has STEEM incentivized social engagement? Yes and no. Yes, it does incentivize some kind of social behavior - I will never talk and engage with someone half way across the globe if there is no such token and network like Steem. But also No … STEEM does not incentivize social engagement per se, STEEM incentivizes people to come here from all over the world, and these Steemians engage with each other by nature. We social because we are here. We did not come here just to social. This causality logic is very important.
Good for Social, Needs A Purpose
Social is not a purpose by itself, although we are naturally built with this inclination. When we social with family and friends, we pursue family love and friendship by hanging out or social with them. We also social with colleagues and business partners, but the purposes are obviously different - we want to have a healthier career or we want to maintain a better business relationship… etc. Sometimes we might also enjoy from our business social engagement (who knows? you might meet your life partner from this…), but the initial purpose cannot be clearer.
Therefore, social media tokens (yes, back to our theme) does NOT incentivize social behaviors, it facilities them and you, as token creator, must find purposes first. You cannot just say let’s get social here and everyone will come. The concept of SMTs, Smart Media Tokens, of Steem, actually re-assign the quest for purposes to SMTs so it does not have to give the answer. Does Steem provide a good purpose and if it does what is it? I think the answer is: Steem invites people all over the world to explore how we can try to make social media tokens work. A purpose that makes sense only when you are the first mover of the market. That’s why I do not think Steem can replace Facebook. They are just different in their purposes.
How do we find purposes? I’ll leave that topic to my next post.
Welcome to share your views in the comments. We are here so let’s engage. :)
image source - pixabay
This page is synchronized from the post: ‘[Social Media Token discussion] Part I - Incentivize What?’