Top 5 takeaways from my SIX weeks on STEEMIT - Minnows, listen up!

in #steemit7 years ago (edited)

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STEEMIT is a great community....if you have a community that follows you.


Photo source: http://vmwareinsight.com/Tags/TIPS-AND-TRICKS

I have been on STEEMIT for about 6 weeks now, and I have just under 100 followers; I have played around with quick posts and more thoughtful posts; I have inserted pictures and kept pictures out (having a picture gets more views, btw); I have followed some people with few followers and a lot of people with a lot of followers; I have upvoted many posts and resteemed a few articles; I have left comments and replied to comments left for me; I have promoted my articles (which is a total and complete waste), and I have left them alone.

After these first six weeks, I feel like I have a pretty good sense of the platform, and I am starting to understand the best ways to get paid (although the calculations of payment are still bizarre).

But I am still not sure exactly why STEEMIT exists.

In my short observance and participation with STEEMIT, I am beginning to think there are ways to game the system.

New, fresh, and informative content is actually pretty hard to find.

And the site is not very intuitive. Most articles are opinion based on stories from the news three days ago that you can find with a quick Google search. And those that aren't regurgitation of CNN of FOX really don't add much value.

So here are the top 5 takeaways I have made over the last 6 weeks on STEEMIT:

  1. To make money, you MUST have a following.


    How do you get a following? Well, unless you have sources to get your breaking news, your articles probably aren't that interesting. It may take you a while to research and write, but without a following, you likely won't get the recognition that you think you deserve based on the time you put in to write.

    To get around this, you build a following by perusing the "hot" articles and following the authors who have big payouts. Ten times out of ten, those authors have hundreds of followers and if you follow them, you get on their feed. Why is that important? I'm glad you asked...

  2. UPVOTE popular authors EARLY.

    Be careful how much you up vote, but by up voting early on an article that is written by a popular author, you are getting extra curator rewards. For example, if you are among the first to up vote an article that gets hundreds of up votes after you during that first week of publication, your curation rewards are significantly higher than those who vote later in the week.

    So, what do you do after upvoting? Good question....

  3. RESTEEM the articles from popular authors.

    By RESTEEMing, you are essentially creating content. People who see your "content" will notice that you have access to articles that are heavily voted upon. In turn, they will follow you.

    But you don't want to just share a bunch of content; you want to contribute as well, right? In the early days, to add thoughtful content you should...

  4. COMMENT on the articles!

    Here's a dirty little secret: You don't even need to read the article. Sometimes the title of the article tells you all you need to know. Either way, the earlier you make thoughtful and/or provocative comments on a popular article, the more views those comments will get. The more views you get on your comments, the more potential followers you will get. AND you can get up votes on your comments...which means more $$$ for you.

  5. Once you have a following of a few hundred people, you can post anything you want

    and make a good amount of money per post. Why? Because most of your followers will be doing steps 1-4.

    In fact, you will get to the point where you can post an "oops" article like this one and still make 30 bucks!!

So you see, STEEMIT is run by people with followers. Almost like a dictatorship ;). The content is mediocre (no breaking news or life-changing perspectives) and most everyone here is creating that mediocre content with one thing in mind: making money.

If you don't get your status up, you are just wasting your time, and you'd be better off blogging on your own site.

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Great tips thank you very much for sharing because I included this in my Upvotable Day 2 post!

Thanks man! I appreciate that very much!

I am here because I saw your post link on @jerrybanfield's post and your name, @bitbybit is kinda like mine, @bitsy :) Aside from all that, I really enjoyed reading your post! Upvoted and followed!

Thanks! I appreciate that!

I don't think upvoting on popular articles early is a good strategy because those authors have a ton of voting bots attached to their account that vote waaaaay before the 30 min penalty period is up!

Even if you manage to vote in the first minute and have a ton of curators follow you, 99% of that reward is going to the author.

The part about not reading the articles and commenting is very sneaky indeed haha I actually read yours tho because of that bomb ass title. In my opinion as a minnow you need hella followers, a high rep, and bomb ass titles so people actually read your articles!

Thanks for the comment! You are totally right about the up voting. The rewards are minimal, but I would say about 90% goes to the author, not 99%... ;)

I experimented on two articles last week where I was within the first 5 votes of both articles that now have over 300 votes and $250 in rewards. Still have a couple days before the payout, but we'll see if that early voting helped...

Your last paragraph is spot on. Also, to get followers early, I found that resteeming popular authors is an easy way to "generate" content that appears to have a lot of activity.

BTW, I just hit 100 followers! BOOOOOMMMM!!!

This is a nice article buddy. Plenty of information for us Minnows. I don't agree with everything you've said. But i do appreciate your thought process and work gone into this.
Keep up the good work.
P.s. We're not all in it just for the money ;)

These are just my observations - I am still trying to figure out the platform and how to optimize the value behind it.

What don't you agree with? I love to hear other perspectives....

I totally get you. I do however think it exists for a reason. Everything seems to be moving onto the Blockchain. Even things that have no business being there.
There will always be trailblazing people who do things first.
I do think blogging (or whatever Steemit morphs into) has a place there.
I'm super interested to see what Steemit becomes.
Thank you for being open minded enough to ask.
Steem On

I think that the more people are only here for the money, the crappier the quality of the content. Just like unchecked or regulated capitalism. For now I'm still hoping to find super creative people, not gold diggers. If it's just that, then in the long run it's no different from FB.

Hopefully the cream will rise and the dross will get thrown out. ;)
If somebody comes into my feed and says "follow me" or "upvote me" I just say no thanks.

Solid article my friend consider this one resteemed. It seems like we have been here about the same amount of time. Look forward to more "tips and ticks" keep up the quality postings

Excellent article, good tips in general. For #4, that can get a bit tricky sometimes especially with long write ups or people who do a short paragraph description followed by a lengthy Youtube video. Sometimes I have to view or read the entire post to make a thoughtful comment.

I just resteemed it.Very informative man !
Thanks for share

Very helpful tips bitbybit, bookmarked it. Thank you.

Upvoted this instead of resteeming it cause I was late in reading this.

That's crazy man, it took six weeks? I got over 100 in less than 2, but I wasn't hustlin like you. I guess I just wonder how people feel about commodifying their time on social media, if they are only on here to be on here, because being on here means getting paid to be on here. Naw'mean? It's awesome if you like it or are successful in the way you measure it, by making money. But what would you do with an opportunity to use technology like this... to spread a message, be yourself, help others, whatever if the money incentive wasn't there?? Our screens are turning us into Dopamine junkies anyway, now it's like a literal slot machine added in. I dunno, maybe just a bit too philosophical at the mo, but I both liked and wondered about your article. Found you through Jerry too. Lots of good tips. Will adjust behavior accordingly. BEEP

If you weren't hustling, how did you get 140 in 3 weeks?

Congratulations! I see you got a nod from one of the whale god kings, mr @jerrybanfield. See? I told you it would pick up! You do good stuff and you'll get recognized eventually. Well done @bitbybit !

talkin to people, postin stuff. Watching videos on how Steemit works a bit. I guess I didn't think of it as hustling since I am pretty specific on what I want to do here and there are already lots of people I see doing great stuff. Once I stopped trying (first few days or so) then it got fun and I just enjoyed learning more about Steemit and what is on offer here. You look like you have some cool stuff and a direction you wanna go. I think you will do great on here. Just keep refining as you think you can or want to, and have fun. It's contagious.