I have some personal thoughts on this after just being here for a little under a month, hopefully it can be helpful to any of your other readers.
a. Because of the way visibility of posts on steemit works it will be extremely difficult to get noticed by just blogging. It might be faster to comment to get visibility, I know swissclive specifically mentions this is about blogging and the tips are good but if you are new then please note that generating a return from any blog post will be difficult without a voter base and/or a capital base to work with. I've seen countless people do nothing but blog all day and because they don't have any outside investments to work with and because they don't have any big followers their blogs always pay under a dollar, even if the content is good. Note that English is steemit's dominant language so try to use a translator if it's not your native language, they're quite good these days.
b. Making good content, even at the start, might seem like a waste of time but if your writing ability isn't "there" yet then it's still good practice to get in the habit of achieving a certain level of quality before you even get noticed by anyone of note, because your later blogs will be better.
d. There are lots of tag guides on steemit related to how to use/exploit tags, if you can only invest so much on a post you need to know how to work the tag system if it's going to get on the hot page. Take time to read those guides.
e. I think that intrinsically because everyone needs to eat food and most people aren't exactly here to learn how to farm that there is a bit of both writing for pleasure and pay going on, some focus more on one or the other.
f. At this point the new pages are so cluttered that to stand out from the noise you have to join one of the many chat groups you can find on discord or steemit chat, don't be insincere and kiss too much ass but if you find like-minded people to converse with then it can jump-start the relationship-building phase.
g. You might not be doing anything wrong in terms of any of the other advice given, but steemit is still in its infancy and it can be hard to find readers of many various niche topics that you might be interested in. Perhaps there will be an audience for that kind of content later when we grow!
iv. You will still get worthless followers like me even if you write interesting things.
v. Basically, spamming feeds to get an average post payout revenue stream might not be the best idea once you have large wallet clients with discriminating tastes.
vi. Let's not kid ourselves, we all watched even the crappy ones to find out how things turned out.
Also, you don't want to get in trouble if you get accused of convincing your students to gamble!
Don't be like literally every other person who begs for a witness vote.
No idea why the two numbers above aren't 12 and 13, lol.
I usually enjoy reading through the comments section to learn and grow. Oh dear, you did a pretty good job. This is the kind of comments that contributes to the post. I wish my voting power was anything useful to encourage your efforts. I'll come to your blog now to see what you do. I have learned a lot from just this one comment.
Thank you! comments like these mean more to me than a nominal upvote. Genuine feedback makes me feel like my essay-length comments are worthwhile. Just because you don't have massive steempower, doesn't mean what you say has no value. I myself don't have a huge amount of SP, knowing this, I would rather make comments of substance as a way to give back to the community, if I cannot do so monetarily. My blog is a bit embarrassing at the moment I am afraid, I've been working on a science article for steem stem, and have some more plans for the future. Check back and hopefully I will have more content for you similar to this. I'm just getting started!
Its okay. I studied chemistry in the university back in the good old days. Will enjoy some science work too.
I'll try my best not to disappoint!!!
Lots of really good points there @charitybot. Lets hope that some newbies benefit from them. Have you thought of turning these comments into a blog? There’s plenty here to make more than just a comment.
Thank you! I hope so too. I wasn't until you mentioned it, and it did give me cause to think about it in the future. I've just been working on a funny/serious science article I've been writing, maybe I'll try to delve into a different take on steemiting in a blog series too.
This is an interesting comment, aside from the useful advice, the witness chasing part I find interesting. Being relatively new activity-wise I'm used to other alternative sites that don't have such a firmly built-in whale system. Not quite sure how I feel about it but it certainly does add a unique feeling to the site.
Well said @charitybot, thanks for the addition
Any guidance on how to go about this? I am not sure I understand which groups to join and how to use them effectively.