Followers and view count
For the longest time I've been telling newcomers that the best way to get started within the community and platform is to get involved. One of the best ways to directly dive into it is to get onto steemit.chat and/or the different discord servers (MSP is a great one) and grab some attention from others there through the chats, there are many people just waiting to welcome newcomers and guide them or reply to the questions they might have. Of course this doesn't mean that they will be spending all their free time getting you up to speed on the Steem platform, some due diligence by the newcomers to take towards reading the FAQ or googling some stuff that won't require a lot of someone else's time is of course preferred.
There are a few curators of @ocd who spend a lot of time on chats and check out the newcomers that get there, make sure they are "real" and have a steem account and then take time out of their day to welcome them and support their first posts and introduce them to other groups in chats, etc. I witness this daily and it feels really awesome to be able to kickstart their Steem experience.
In this post I wanted to talk a little bit about how things work on Steem with followers and how I believe they should be working instead.
It's not a mystery that if you post pretty actively you will get a lot of followers - this is due to many users following people in the Hot & Trending list. This means that the longer and more often you end up in those lists the more followers you will receive. This of course also depends on the amount of new accounts being created that day.
I am not sure if minnows do this because they want to curate on these "popular" authors in time for curation rewards, which with their stake they shouldn't really focus on, or if they just do it randomly in hopes to get a follow back.
What they should be doing instead though and something that I've stressed a lot about in the past is that they should follow authors that share the same interests and write posts that interest the newcomers. If you want to be proactive here and comment to gain more followers and over time hopefully some bigger users that will follow your posts and support you, you have to follow your skills and knowledge.
Authors are not going to care about your comment if you are replying to a post about Space when you have no knowledge about it and have nothing of value to add to that post in a comment. This doesn't mean that you can't comment on those posts, nothing stops you from reading them and writing your thoughts or questions down hoping the author will have time to reply - but what I mean is that if it's stuff you are interested in yourself it will give you a massive advantage to add something of your own to the post in a comment and connect with the author and drive discussion. This is of way more value than the usual "nice post, I liked it" and "keep going, this is great", those get old really, really fast and most people at this point in time will think you are either a bot or someone who doesn't speak english and are just copy-pasting comments for a chance at some votes.
Connecting people - like Nokia's old slogan, this is what the Steem blockchain is also about and in the long run once you find your community and people you enjoy reading and commenting on, the rewards will come on their own - don't worry about that in the beginning.
About views, I've noticed lately that a lot of people care a lot about views and there have also been whales judging posts by views if they are going to flag them or not. I think we have to take the view count with a grain of salt for now as it is very gameable, you only need to hit refresh on your own post to get a viewcount nowadays - until that is fixed I hope curators won't focus too much on it and judge posts more about the content and other things.
If posts have a lot of views though and the author has managed to share them on other platforms which has some sort of proof that they really have gotten a lot of views from there, for instance: this video I posted on my alt account yesterday has more views than some of my other posts just because I shared it on Reddit and even though it only got 3 votes there it received over 250 views because there are a lot of users on that subreddit.
I urge authors to let people know at the end of posts if they have shared it somewhere and if that has increased their views and sharing it in general should be a nice incentive to get users to join Steem, I'm sure many will give you a follow because it was your post that made them aware of your platform anyway. :)
Well crap, I've been going about this all wrong, I'm not an expert in anything but complaining, and I don't see any communities for that yet. So my takeaway is that we should keep abusing the bots but f5 our own post or post it somewhere else in case they check the ip logs?
I do love the picture though, very much like it, so wow, thank you for posting it and I like medium-size Buddha many followers so worshiping peacefully. If Buddha was into kicking the ass of selfish people he'd be kicking so many asses these days... good thing he's not. The middle path is the way.
hehe, there's a lot of those around lately too, it's good criticism sometimes though. :D
I'm sure someone can check the IP logs, but who knows if they will ever make them public, would be interesting to see who has a lot of self-views. ;) :D
Thanks, somehow I have not been routed out of the community yet, so I took that as a sign that I am either inoffensive enough or so trivial that I am not worth the lost income to flag, lol.
Rofl, it's sad that I've only been here a few weeks yet I can still think of at least a few names on the big poster list...
Also, one last thing to annoy you with, I notice that sometimes, actually quite often, okay this will sound like a complaint, which it's not, considering you just voted on my comment for a hefty sum tbh, but I get this mental picture that you are straining your back as you carry this "pharesim" character around in either a pouch or a backpack, and they choose to randomly reach into the bag to throw an additional sum at whichever downtrodden fellow you happened to vote for in the first place. Is this assumption correct, or am I misinterpreting the nature of the correlation?
Edit: I actually wrote this before this very event I was referencing happened to have occurred yet again, and I noticed there was a lag between your vote and his, so I am assuming that this is a very large bag, and that they have to shift a lot of stuff around to find the good stuff, hence the delay.
Final edit: It seems that maybe the delay was because pharesim was actually retrieving the bag in which captainvapoor was residing, it's bags within bags at this point, very interesting.
Rofl, the one with the heavy bag likes to follow a lot of curators around and spread votes where they do. It's a bot. :P
I usually have a few more voters that follow my comment votes around too through streemian.com, but it seems that it's been down lately. Sometimes it's quite annoying as newcomers like you can get quite confused and especially if you want to flag comments it feels like people are ganging up on them. Wish they would let us choose if we want trailers to vote on comments and not only ask them (which they forget to uncheck and leave it like that for a long time on the site).
I guess that makes sense on a technical level, but emotionally I am unprepared for that reality.
rofl, ouch. Yeah there's some big users who don't take criticism kindly and the trending page is known for a long time to not be something you spend time on.
I personally can't wait for communities to add more filters to hot and trending.
Oh man I had a thing there but I removed it because I wanted it to be more greentext-feeling, but without having to say the scenario with the multi-downvote you talked about made me think of a sad pepe brand new on steemit.
I think a whole new column would be nice, democratic, person-only voted articles can go there.
I agree that it is very hard for newcomers to understand steemit!Many people want to earn a lot but it does not happen like that.Beginners need to read a lot and communicate on steemit.I do not use bots, but many who earn big money do it through bots... Great post!Good luck to you @acidyo !
I have been playing in steemit for quite some time, and my followers are pretty much but my postinfan is always upvote, what should I do?
completely.
joining, being active in (commenting on other's posts, taking part in challenges and contests, creating contests, resteeming, etc), posting in the #homesteading and #ecotrain tags primarily has made my experience on steemit. it is imperative to find your niche, connect with people of like interests and grow from there!
we aren't individual islands floating around in a big sea. get relating! people follow people who are relatable. and they like a story that tugs on their emotions and in which you show emotion.
anyone not having a great time on steemit yet, start sharing your self, not worrying about votes or views and find people you genuinely are interested in. that's the only way to make a real comment! the rest is just ships passing in the night...
xo @mountainjewel
Learning how to comment correctly and engage your audience is one of the most important parts of learning how to be a good Steemian.
Having said that, replying to comments and spending time on Discord is very time consuming.
It seems at times that being a successful Steemian literally means spending hours upon hours both posting and also replying and commenting and chatting on Discord and on all sorts of other types of platforms....... not just Steemit.
Give your life to Steemit, and SBD's breathe life into you. It's a nice ecosystem. Meanwhile someone out there in Korea is realizing they cannot eat Steem Buckdoodles, as they are not as tasty as delicious noodles.
Yeah, it sure is an all around thing which many are often not aware of.
I'm new to Steemit but an old time blogger - hell, I was one of the first 1000 podcasters in the country but I quit before it became big. The big issue seems to be that all this social stuff quit being social when it became so much dagblammed work. I recently self-destructed my two decade old wordpress blogs and I've let most of my social media go too - I thought maybe this was a place (ecosystem) where thoughts could fly and communities might develop - but if there is already a 'formula' then it just might be too late already.
Communities haven't even arrived yet (being able to follow tags, etc). I am sure that many of those that follow people just because they are often in hot/trending list are either bots or people that don't really understand the platform yet. This means that they won't be earning much curation rewards for a long time chasing those posts and instead it let's other curators who vote on less popular posts have a chance at earning.
Well, it's good to hear that the neighborhood hasn't gone to hell in a handbasket - yet.
The Steemit.chat and Discord servers are great, but they are a time suck. And honestly no one is on there all the time, so the lag in response is similar to the response lag in post comments. I think maybe, just maybe they are actually taking away from Steemit. Right now the average post gets something like 2.4 comments right? What if everyone was conversing via comments here on Steemit rather than on Discord or Steemit.chat? How many comments would be average? And wouldn't it make the site look more vibrant? Comments?
That is a very, very, very good point. They'd start to wonder what the real value of steemit is if everyone prefers to communicate primarily elsewhere. And because discord doesn't exactly use steem coins...
Fuck yes so true you guys! Comments above all, keep the traffic on steemit. Just make use of the “reply” function that most newbies seem to miss here @moneyinfant @charitybot
Sub-tags are vital here. First place I hit up when I joined was Music and Gaming. It was just too much volume. Eventually, I started populating electronicmusic with my writing and it knitted together a little community. Now I’ve got a bunch of people I follow and talk to where I share interests, and it really works for me.
Looking forward to communities if that provides a more formal structure for doing this sort of thing.
That's what we advice our little Ohana at @steemitfamilyph to be active in the community and connect with people.
We provide guidance and some little support but we encourage them to swim out, join different groups and join contests and activities that they like to gain exposure and have authentic human interaction with people they share interests.
True it is far easier to connect with someone if they share the same interests. It doesn't come out as fake or just trying to get a follow and possible patronage.
Unfortunately a lot of planktons and Minnows in a bid to get patronage tries to force a relationship especially with dolphins and whales.
They vote beg, they ask to be followed as if it is an obligation. Fastest way to alienate someone haha.
It will take time. It will take commitment and authentic human connection before it can be established.
A lot of new ones are in a hurry to get rich and payout. It is a marathon not a quick sprint, sure some will cheat and take short cuts and it's their choice. We what we want is for people to be here for the long haul, to practice creating good content, forging relationships and be a good part of the community.
Yep and even if they are doing alright it often seems like some people just can't get enough and continue to spam in dm's their post links. It's like they are doing themselves more harm that way.
Totally agree with authentic human connection (that’s why I am answering your comment cause I feel it from you) and to that I would add: authentic content created with care not just one photo challenge after another ! Thanks @maverickinvictus. Following you 😊
Lol if you want to credit someone for that tagline thank @ashleykalila for that wonderful notion.
Indeed authentic quality content not another of the endless challenges.
Hehe :)
Hello Ashley :) Thanks Maverick!
Definitely best way to go about it. I do like meeting as many people as I can on here, despite what they may write about, but I definitely spend the MOST of my time on here talking and looking at gaming or music content, since that is what interests me.
After going through my feed, I spend a decent amount of time in the new section just trying to meet new members too. Almost anyone can appreciate great photography shots, but if you are commenting it is important to actually try to make meaningful comments about their photo or the write up that went along with it.
I agree that just going around saying "Nice, keep it up" people will think you are a robot... people gotta be GENUINE.
I always follow authors that post stuff that interest me and also stuff that i want to learn.In this case i follow you because am a crypto newbie and learn a lot from your ctypto posts.
People should always desist from comenting for the sake of commenting,but should give thoughtful comments to show they understand the topic.
I have stressed this point of thoughtful commenting in my three posts where i show people why and how to comment!
It is really annoying to see those "nice post, informative post...." comments.
yes I agree, for example I am very interested in traveling and landscape photography and like to interact with people with similar interests :) your post was not too long and nice to read for me :)