Refresh and move forward!

Back once again for another update! This week has progressed very smoothly and our plan to structure ourselves better seems to of paid off. Having fantastic members and quality feedback helps out massively!

As you may already know, Sunday is the day for our update post, Wednesday is our Drop in the Ocean post day and Friday is Hook 'Em Up. I'm going to go into more detail about how I've been boosting these three posts for added exposure of the community in the next segment. I'll be talking about the plan for the next couple of weeks and where we are currently at. Then to finish, I'll be letting you know a little bit more about the Gourami rank.

Let's get down to it then!

Buying votes... why, when and where?

Last week we started to use smartsteem on our BuddyUP posts. As I stated above, we currently have 3 definite posts eeach week, Hook 'Em Up, Drop in the Ocean and this update post on a Sunday. I've been boosting these posts with between 40-50 SBD to help the posts reach more people on the platform.

There is definitely some controversy surrounding the vote buying situation, but I don't have any worries for our use of the service because it lines up with our principles here within BuddyUP. First of all, I aim to be honest and transparent with you all when it comes to explaining how we're using the vote buying services. Secondly, I have decided to solely use the service provided by smartsteem. I believe they have a somewhat ethical approach when it comes to vote buying.

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_{source - photo by fernando cabral}

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• They provide a method for less active members to still utilise their vote. This not only benefits the user who sells their vote, it also helps the platform improve the distribution of tokens as a whole.

• The service is very easy to use and their whitelist ensures (on some level) that bad quality content isn't being rewarded or brought into the smartsteem community.

• They are very fast when responding to any problems and an answer is usually found within the Discord server quickly.

• The introduction of limits last week also improves the service further and adds further stability to smartsteem and Steemit.

Overall, I think it's a fantastic project with a lot of potential. I'm more than happy to state on record that BuddyUP supports smartsteem 100%. We will show that by maintaining our promise to the members, that we will only use their service for promoting our posts.

We will always wait until it's at least past the 30 minute mark before we vote using smartsteem. This means our members who have voted, and the members from the service, receive curation rewards respective to the final posts value.

We're going to introduce a fourth post to our weekly schedule in the next couple of weeks. This posts main purpose is to bring the newcomers to Steemit into BuddyUP. We are considering how to keep this post original and of high-quality, week after week. There will be discussions and voice chats about this in the Discord server in the week to follow.

What does the future hold?

I decided to take a step back from BuddyUP in the last couple of days. This has allowed me to think a bit clearer so I can consider where we are heading in the next few weeks.

As some of you are well aware, we have our BUDDYUP token set up and we've already had a great mixture of members within the community earning them for their involvement in the various features. We have a system in place for collecting the amount of tokens earned and we are working on a plan to make the weekly payments more streamlined.

Our Drop in the Ocean show has been fantastic so far and it seems like the interest is growing. We should be able to continue how we're going without any concerns and the weekly meetups on the show will strengthen all our connections. We will be looking for another member of the community to write out the Drop in the Ocean post for us on a Wednesday.

Hook 'Em Up is going very well too, thanks to our amazing @CoachJJ! Hook 'Em Up has been focused on our members and their work on the platform. The post gives us all a better insight into what they do.

We want to shift the focus slightly for Hook 'Em Up to make it more manageable and so it stays in line with our #the-hook channel. This is a call out to the Finder Frogs and Gourami of our group, you have the permissions to share exceptional posts in this channel, so that @CoachJJ can spot the members with potential, and then feature them in the following weeks Hook 'Em Up.

We will reward our Gourami and Finder Frogs with BUDDYUP tokens for curating promising Steemians.

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_{source - photo by volkan olmez}

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So... all good then?

Technically, yes! It's all going pretty well and you guys don't have anything to worry about. Over the next few weeks, my main focus is going to be networking and communicating with other communities here on the platform, while also managing and maintaining the various features in the server. I've already had some discussions with members of BuddyUP about their involvement and their commitments, I know that they cherish the community and see it as home. I do too and I believe I need to engage with other communities so I can help and offer them support, while also considering the protection of our community.

We may be in the BuddyUP ocean, but we don't want to be in the BuddyUP bubble!

Gourami-what?

The top level for members, without any solid responsibilities for the community, is Gourami. This role gives you the ability to represent the incredible members who are finding their feet in BuddyUP. To become a Gourami, you just have to show consistent involvement with the members of the community.

BuddyUP has always been (and always will be) about quality engagement.

You'll be selecting quality content from BuddyUP members and sharing it in #the-hook, so your ability to connect and find this content will somewhat depend on how interactive you are with the community. There are a range of channels filled with posts to share and we have some brilliant content creators within BuddyUP, finding someone with some unrecognised talent shouldn't be a problem!

Today I'll be ranking up various members to the Gourami rank for their continued support, involvement and improvement. Check to see if you've ranked up!

To finish with

I'll be gearing up for a busy week ahead tonight, the little break has helped refresh and invigorate me to build up some momentum for the community. I'll be speaking with some of you tomorrow at Drop in the Ocean (I'm very excited for that!) and after the show has finished we can chat and discuss some of your thoughts about the community in a group. If you haven't finished your post about Encouragement yet... get it done! We're only 27 hours away...

We still have 28,400 BUDDYUP tokens on pre-sale. They are currently 1 SBD per 100 and the funds raised for this will be put towards our promotion, branding and artwork. The first token drop is also active on BitShares, where they're selling at 0.3BTS. Contact myself on Discord (@calumam), if you would like to discuss. You can find our server at our SafeLink post here. Pop by and see if BuddyUP is the right fit for you!

We all grow together

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This has been @calumam, thanks for reading.

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All headers are from unsplash.com

_{top image: source - photo by kev costello}