I've left comments on other posts of a similar vein but really, what is Hive? To me, this is what makes the most sense.

I think Hive is the blockchain and code used as the foundation layer to build other things on top of and therefore THAT should be the marketing of Hive itself - to developers, app builders, platform designers etc.

Then those dapps themselves need to find their own niche and market their dapp that uses the Hive foundation. For example, things like Travelfeed for content related to travel, PeakD for bloggers, Dsound for music lovers etc etc...

They need us more than we need them

True, but you could also say that if no-one used Instagram or any other site. All these platforms need users but why should users go to these platforms in the first place?

These are just rhetorical questions and my own thoughts but I'm more of a "serious hobbyist" (i.e. not a pro but enjoys what he does and takes it seriously enough to put his best effort in to things) and I'm enjoying being around here for the time being.