Getting big influencers interested in Steemit

I was brainstorming with someone about how to attract more influencers to Steemit. Here's what I see holding Steemit back, and how to start bringing more users with audiences onto the platform.

Some background first: I have a decent platform myself (best-selling book, 25,000 email subscribers, 5,000 downloads per podcast episode), but I still don't make the big bucks, as I'm not interested in the currently-popular monetization models.

Here's what I think Steemit has holding it back from attracting bigger influencers:

• It's cumbersome to post on. It's not an elegant posting experience like Medium, for example.
• It's complicated to understand how to earn on it.
• Most people with big platforms currently have other reliable ways of earning, so the chance of earning isn't that promising to them.
• It's unclear how much it helps build one's audience. It appears to me that Steemit hides its referrers (is that true?) For example, I have no referrers at all in my site's analytics, despite having published many links back to my site. It's hard for me to know if it's really helping me grow my audience.

Basically, for most influencers I know, they have other priorities going on. The only reasons they may mess with it might be out of pure curiosity (like Kevin Rose...who still has yet to post). When I talk to people like Noah Kagan or Jordan Harbinger, it's hard to get them interested. They're already making money in other ways, and have plenty of ways to build an audience. They're not likely to be amongst the first to use a new platform, because they already have pull in existing platforms. Trying a new platform is time and effort down the drain for them when things are already working for them.

Additionally, these people have found ways to be successful in the old paradigms of media: Build a platform, and use that platform to sell something else. The things they create aren't the product, they're the marketing.

I see a much bigger opportunity with creators who have an audience, but who are struggling to make money off of it.

You could probably search around on Graphtreon.com to find creators with Patreon pages that are making $100–$500 a month. They have sizeable audiences, but are having trouble monetizing. They aren't doing things the "old" way, so they're open to trying a new way of monetizing (just like I was).

Probably a plus if they're in a technical field, as it will make the platform less confusing to them.

Get enough of those folks on Steemit, and then it becomes a platform people are paying attention to. Only at that point might bigger influencers take note.