Everyone had a blast at the Steem Creators Conference this year.

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In addition to meeting so many talented and passionate Steemians this past weekend, I got a chance to share my personal experience with Steem in an exciting 30 minute presentation.

Huge shout out to @steemcafe, @ogc, and @larrymorrison for putting on such an incredible event in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The name of the presentation was called:

How to Quickly Develop Your Steem Authorship

I was honored and blessed to be able to share my point of view in front of a crowd of people who were eager to hear me speak.

Speaking in front of an audience can be challenging, especially for those who are naturally introverted like myself.

Based on the feedback received, people gained a lot of value from this presentation. A lot of time and preparation was put into making it special for those who attended the event in Las Vegas.

For those of you who did not attend, I hope that you join us for next year's conference in Austin, Texas.

Here is the text version of the presentation:

What is Authorship?

It generally refers to the writer of a book, an article, or a document. The definition that I like is: The creator of a work of art.

That is what we do on Steem. We create, we innovate, we design, we are artists at heart.

Why develop your Steem authorship?

A few reasons could be:

1. To attract more followers and grow your reach
2. To deliver more value to your existing audience
3. General improvement on your blogging skills
4. To earn more Steem, SP, and SBD
5. To become a full-time online content creator

These are all valid reasons why someone would want to further develop their authorship on Steem.

Below are the seven aspects of quickly improving your Steem authorship...

1. Crush Your Fears

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Fear will hold you back from developing your Steem authorship. Often times it is brought on by putting too much attention on selfish gain. In other words, putting your own desires and needs ahead of someone else's.

In order to go to the next level in your authorship, you need effective strategies to crush your fears, stopping them from halting your progress.

There is always another level to go to such as live video or public speaking. Don't let fear get the best of you by remembering these points:

➔Remember Who You Are

Take a moment to reflect on your value. You are worthy of success and deserve to achieve your dreams. Stop belittling yourself and believe that you have what it takes to be great.

➔Focus on Others

Shift your focus from selfish gain to other-centeredness. When you give a birthday gift to your friend, do you ever feel fear? No, because you are thinking about the other person, not about yourself and what you can gain from them.

➔Higher Purpose / Mission

Realize that what you fear is all part of the bigger picture. The fear you feel in the moment exists for you to overcome and therefore become stronger as a result.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.

-Eleanor Roosevelt

2. Study Your Audience

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Studying your audience involves knowing the type of persons you want to direct your message towards.

➔Dive Deep

What are the demographics of your audience? Are they primarily male or female? How old are they? Where do they live? What type of jobs do they have? What are their interests, fears, and questions that keep them up at night?

➔Root Reasons

What are the root reasons behind their desires? Example: The phrase "I want more money" actually means that they want to spend more time with their family. Everyone has root reasons that lie behind their surface level reasons for desiring a particular outcome.

➔Speak Their Language

Create content geared towards their root reasons instead of surface level wants or needs. Tailor your message towards those deep rooted desires that reside at the core of who they are. One good way of doing this is by creating videos as if you are standing right in front of them in real life and making eye contact.

I can't stress enough how important it is to study your audience. The more you study them to find out what really makes them tick, the more effective you will be as an influencer on Steem.

People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

-Theodore Roosevelt

3. Delivery Style

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Before creating amazing content, it is best to establish a consistent and unique delivery style for your audience which includes:

➔Post Objective

Determine your post objective such as news, education, life experience, humor, how-to’s, etc. I like to stick to a couple different objectives, but do what works best for you and your audience. Sometimes it takes a bit of trial and error to see what objectives they interact with more than others.

➔Content Type

Cater to yours and to your audience’s content type. This could be in the form of text posts, video posts, photo posts, etc. Stackedit.io is a great tool to use for text writing because it makes formatting with Markdown extremely easy and user friendly.

➔General Flow

85-90% of your posts should have a similar feel, or general flow so to speak, so that your audience becomes familiar with your style. Here is an example of the general flow that I like to use in a majority of my posts:

Video -> Intro -> Text Body -> Images Throughout -> Call to Action

Another one flow style I like using is this one:

Intro -> Video -> Text Body (Using Markdown) -> Call to Action -> Closing Remarks

Come up with your own flow that you can be consistent in and use that in a majority of your posts. Your audience will be appreciative.

It is not as much the message as it is the manner in which you communicate that message.

-Ken Melendez

4. Fresh Ideas

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To develop your Steem authorship, you need a steady flow of content ideas. Here are a few great resources to spark your creativity.

➔BuzzSumo.com

Shows top performing content in a specific time period based on social shares. Type in a search term or phrase and sift through the results. Keep a notepad beside you to track your ideas.

➔Quora.com

Q&A service where real people ask questions and receive answers. Often times you can capture new ideas from people in your niche who are asking questions. You can then take those questions and create content that provides their solution.

➔Facebook groups

Join FB groups that are relevant to your topic. For example, if you are into cooking, then join groups that discuss different recipes. Find out what members are thinking and even interact with their posts to dig deeper into the conversation.

Obviously, is it not wise to copy and paste any work that you find while browsing other websites.

Only use these tools as a method to start thinking of ideas and ways that you can create a post with a similar topic.

The defining factor for success is never resources, it’s resourcefulness.

-Tony Robbins

5. Impact Factor

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Before hitting the “post” button, ask yourself this: How will this post impact my audience in a unique and compelling way?

Consider the following aspects when it comes to your posts:

➔Past Feedback

How was your message received the last time you published a similar post? Use this as a gauge to determine how your current post will perform.

➔Engagement

Watch the way people react in terms of upvotes, comments, and resteems. The more quality engagement you are getting, the higher the impact factor will be.

➔Action

Are they clicking the video, visiting your promo link, or choosing to follow your profile?

The answers to the questions here will help you determine the level of impact your post will have on your audience.

If, after you've reflected on these notions, you feel that the impact factor is low, then spend some more time tweaking and improving your post until you feel the impact factor rise to a better level.

Your impact is not measured by what you do, but by what happens to other people when you do it.

-John Jantsch

6. Unique Angle

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Everyone comes from unique backgrounds. That means that each person hearing this message has something special to contribute.

➔Share your story

Your story could be something that happened yesterday or 20 years ago. No matter when it happened, share it. There is a saying that states, Facts tell, stories sell. It is true in Steem but also in everyday life. Stories move people emotionally and help them connect to the facts that you are giving.

➔Relate

Connect your story to your audience's circumstances. What circumstance is your audience in right now and how can your story relate to theirs?

➔Be authentic

Always always always be yourself and let people in on the different sides of you including humor and faults. Learning from others is important, but do not copy them. You have your own unique set of DNA that no one else on the planet possesses. Be the real you and be willing to take risks and be vulnerable at times.

Being unique is what’s cool. Normal? What’s normal? A setting on a
washing machine. No one wants to be that.

-Ashley Purdy

7. Seek Support

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Find others who you can collaborate with to assist you in your Steem journey. We can’t do this on our own.

➔Mentor

Discover a leader who is making big moves and emulate their actions. Many Steemians out there have had accounts for a longer time than you have. Learn from them and use them as a quality resource to look up to. Ask them questions and interact with them on a deeper level.

➔Course

Invest in a course that will allow you to improve a certain skill set such as writing or video creation. (Udemy.com). Courses allow you to get a lot of solid, targeted information taught by experienced people who live that particular skill day in and day out.

➔Community

Attend events (like this one) and get involved in Steem community groups. Local meetups, Steem.chat, Discord chat, ect. Check out Meetup.com and also download the app called Discord to join multiple servers that serve different purposes on Steem. If you are interested in joining groups that I am part of, let me know below in the comments.

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The Vegas Conference was such an incredible event! Now I want to hear your feedback.

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What are your thoughts on Steem authorship? How can we as authors continue to improve our skill sets to become better content creators?

Leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts!

And remember... YOU ARE AWESOME

-Ken
@kenmelendez

Special thanks to the official DLive team @dlive, @teamdlive, @dliveforever, @dlivestarbooster, and @dlivepay for providing a high-quality platform for content creators and viewers to share ideas and collaborate together.

My video is at DLive