Experiences and Advice After First Month on Steemit
Hey, fellow Steemaniacs!
I took a brief hiatus to work on my writing skills. I want to step it up a notch. So I’ve been working with a few Discord communities to pump up my skills. I haven’t posted in about two weeks, but rest assured, it was for good reason. Now without further adieu…
I’ve been posting on Steemit for about a month now and I finally feel like I’m starting to settle in here. I’ve learned a lot in that time and I’d like to pass along my knowledge, experiences, and impressions from one newcomer to another. Steemit is a platform unlike any other and adjusting can take time.
I want to assure you that climbing that steep learning curve is absolutely worth it. Being an active participant in the Steemit community not only brings financial benefits, but it sticks you smack dab into a community of like-minded people that will challenge you to improve.
I consider the community here to be the best feature of Steemit. No matter where you look, there’s always a community willing to adopt you and offer support. Don’t worry if you aren’t the best writer/blogger/artist right now, there’s plenty of opportunity to improve your craft here. If you already have a talent or following, then it’ll be that much easier to take off on Steemit.
I’m going to break this article down into three parts: An introduction to Steemit, advice on improving your posts, and advice on joining communities.
Introduction: What exactly is Steemit?
To be honest, I don’t have a complete picture of that yet, but I won’t let that stop me from talking about it anyway! Seriously though, my incomplete view of the platform may be worth more to the total newbie than the view from a vet that’s heard and seen it all before. Let’s start off with the basic elevator pitch: Steemit is a decentralized social media platform that places its financial rewards directly in the hands of the content creators and viewers.
What does that mean?
Unlike current social media platforms that make money by selling ads and offering a small portion to content creators, Steemit gives the money generated from posts directly to the content creators and viewers. That’s right, you get a portion just for upvoting/commenting on posts. I would compare this payment model to Patreon, except your vote is free; you don’t have to take money out of pocket or watch ads to support your favorite content creators here.
How does Steemit pay its users?
There are three types of currency on the Steemit platform: Steem Backed Dollars (SBD), STEEM tokens, and STEEM Power (SP). Money generated from posts is paid out in SBD. The value of your upvote is based on your account’s SP. STEEM is a tradable token and can be used to power-up your SP.
Here are the important takeaway points: SBD=post payout, SP=vote value, and STEEM=power-up points. STEEM tokens are in the top 30 on Coinmarketcap right now, and have been since the beginning of 2018, which is a great sign for the platform. Just to clarify, SBD and STEEM can be traded on exchanges, SP cannot. STEEM used to be the only tradable token, but you can trade SBD too now (Upbit and Bittrex). SP does not fluctuate in value like the other two, it is more a representation of your influence. However, you can power down to slowly convert your SP to STEEM. I think STEEM was intended to be on the open market and SBD the intra community currency, but that changed over the years.
I recommend converting SBD to STEEM to power up your account until your vote is worth something (at least a nickel). Wait until SBD>STEEM for maximum payout. Hodl that SP as long as possible. If you stick with Steemit for the long haul, and it takes off like Bitcoin, you’ll be happy you did.
You can find out more about the difference between the Steemit currencies on their FAQ and from Chelsea88’s post.
Who can succeed on Steemit?
Get ready for a cheesy cliche answer: Anyone can! (Given enough time.)
In my experience here, there are two factors you will need to succeed on Steemit: Passion, Drive, and Networking. The rest is all a matter of time. My most successful posts weren’t the most informative or entertaining. When I throw myself into my posts by describing why I like the topic, how it impacts me personally and emotionally, and offer direct experiences, the post is more successful. Your audience wants to hear why they should be excited about what you have to say. Basic facts are best saved for Wikipedia.
Successful Steemians post about cryptocurrency, food, travel, science, literature, art, gaming, memes--anything, really! If you love it and want to tell people how much you love it, you can find a place here. If you want a quick payout, stick with buying/selling/mining cryptocurrency. Steemit is a place for people who want to share.
Starting off on Steemit
When I first started creating content on Steemit, I felt like I was just hired as a freelance writer for a magazine (not that I’ve ever had such a job). I could get paid for my contributions, I was surrounded by helpful people all in my boat, and I realized sticking to a schedule was the path to success. The best part was I had no boss, no set deadlines, and the freedom to write about anything. I was and am free to write about science, post works of fiction, post artwork, create memes--the sky's the limit at Steemit.
Let me digress, just in case some of you share my first impressions when I found Steemit. I was a little turned off. I had read up on what Steemit could be and got excited. Steemit looked like Reddit, but with much more thoughtful posts and the chance to get paid. When I started looking through the posts on the trending and hot pages, all I could find were posts about cryptocurrency and how to get rich on Steemit. It didn’t seem to have much to offer and had the slight hint of a pyramid scheme. I put it in the back of my mind and moved on with my life.
I came back about a month later, after hearing lots of stories about it from @davidpakman and @pressfortruth on YouTube. This time around, I found the option to explore other categories and moved away from the trending pages entirely. I started exploring the science, art, and technology tabs. I found an article by @suesa about Plants vs Pharmaceuticals and I was sold. I realized there was great content to be found here and set off to find more. I signed up for an account and spent the first two weeks simply exploring my favorite tags and commenting on interesting posts.
"Nothing will work unless you do," Maya Angelou
Find what interests you
I found that by following other Steemians that posted content I liked, my feed was suddenly much more interesting. Funny how that works! When you look past the trending/hot pages, you will find something that will reel you into the site.
My advice to you as a newbie: follow and comment on anything you find interesting. Don’t worry about holding back that vote. If you really liked an article, then write out a comment and ask a question. Everyone wants to see those comments in their posts (except the one-liner comments). Start a conversation. Get to know people. Network before you even start posting; it will help you find your niche and give you an idea of what people want to read or watch.
Join a contest
Contests are a great way to get familiar with the communities that interest you and make a few bucks for your poor account. Many new to Steemit get their feet wet by joining a contest, myself included. Dozens of contests take place each week, some with greater payouts than others. Don’t worry about the payout though, think of this as an opportunity to get involved while having fun. Having fun is the best way to succeed on Steemit. Personally, my first post was a Photoshop art piece I created for a contest hosted by @geekpowered. I created a scene with the character Julia, from his scifi story, “My Vacation on the Exotic Shores of a Black Hole.” It’s a solid read. The main character, John, comes off as a cross between Han Solo and Guybrush Threepwood from “Monkey Island” IMO.
You can keep tabs on current contests from the explore tab link or through the contest channel on PAL, mentioned below.
Find a community
Diving into a community is the best thing you can do for yourself starting off on Steemit. The platform is not hard-coded to hold your hand. Joining Steemit is more akin to starting off fresh in high school after moving across the country. It can be a cold, confusing, even scary place on your own. Fear not! There are tons of people out there that feel the exact same way.
Joining Steemit communities will help you adjust. You can’t take any old Facebook or Reddit post and expect it to succeed here. Steemit friends will help push you in the right direction and challenge you to improve. Discord chat rooms also offer a great way to blow off some steam as you write.
Steemians offer a wide variety of communities where you can participate. These communities were created by groups of like-minded individuals looking to create a home on the Steemit platform. Communities offer a great way to find help as a newbie. Most communities have channels on Discord where you can text chat or live chat with other content creators.
Every Steemit newbie should join the Minnow Support Project. They offer a wealth of support, valuable to any minnow. All types of content creators are welcome. MSP Discord (AKA Peace, Abundance, Liberty or PAL) is a great place to ask questions about Steemit: from simple technical support, to brainstorming post ideas, to finding niche communities. You can tune into MSP Waves from PAL and catch a live radio broadcast from a fellow Steemian. They also offer channels for post promotion, upvoting, and contests. There are even channels specific to many nations around the globe, helping members connect world-wide. I will list my other favorite communities at the end of this post.
Other communities, like The Writer’s Block offer assistance to writers of any type. The Writer’s Block is a group of professional writers and editors willing to help you improve in a variety of topics like fiction, poetry, blogs, and technical non-fiction. TWB helped me out with this very post. Now, TWB (like many groups), looks down on plagiarism. I’ll talk more about plagiarism later.
TLDR:
- Follow creators you like: it’ll fill your feed with cool stuff
- Write meaningful comments: it’ll catch people’s attention and earn curation rewards
- Join a contest; have some fun in the shallow end
4.1. Join a community, make some friends
Growing your account
Find your voice
Once you’ve gotten your feet wet, finding your voice is the best way to attract attention. Starting off, it might be tempting to focus on trends to get those eyes on your posts. If you run around writing about topics you barely care about, readers will be able to sniff it out. You’ll be seen as insincere or worse, boring! Picking topics you understand through experience and get you fired up will result in higher quality posts that will help build a following.
Audiences don’t want to read a boring news or technical report when they go to a social media platform. The Internet is full of information and most of it is really dry. So don’t try to serve up a slice of plain toast. Add some cheese and butter to make that post a tasty grilled cheese. Most people are interested in news, science, or politics of some sort. Most sources are pretty dry, simply reporting the facts. Adding your own comments to a news article will not only make it more entertaining, but it makes it your own. You’re not copy/pasting something you read or heard, you’re giving your own opinion! If it excites you, even better! Let that passion shine.
What if you just want to blog about life? Even better! You’re living life doing what you love, so the passion is already there. Like to travel? Who doesn’t? Let us know what’s so great about everywhere you go. Like to cook? I wish I could cook better. Share those great recipes. You like to fix cars? Everyone needs to work on their car sometime. Show us how it’s done. You like to punk random strangers and generally harass your neighbors? Well cut that shit out, there’s too many Logan Pauls in the world. Seriously.
Practice makes perfect
Don’t hold yourself back just because you don’t have much experience writing. Everyone has to start somewhere. It can take time to get the hang of creating quality posts, finding communities on Discord, and dealing with post promotion/upvoting. Commit to posting for a full year and you will absolutely get your account where you want it to be. The Steemit community is very open and welcoming; someone out there is willing to help you improve. Strive to make those quality posts and you will get there. Patience is the key. It takes time to learn the ropes, get recognized, and show your commitment to the community.
That leads to an important point I want to make. The Steemit platform is run by its communities. Decentralized social media at its finest. Gaming the system isn’t welcome here and people will actively try to stop it. Accounts like cheetah bot weed out plagiarists. Communities like steemSTEM won’t upvote your science posts if you don’t properly cite your sources/images. Curations spammers will get called out too, so don’t spam “great post!” on every post on the trending page. Don’t beg for upvotes/resteems either. It comes off as desperate. We are all looking to make Steemit a great place, but there’s no centralized authority to put those kind of hard-coded rules in place. We watch each other’s backs out here in the Wild West.
If you do stick to creating quality, original, entertaining posts you can get recognized by whales who want to pay it forward to the minnows. Likewise, your posts can be nominated for awards, like the Curie.It is possible to make a living on Steemit with the right dedication. Compared to getting started on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube now, I’d say it’s easier to do it on Steemit.
We all stand on the shoulders of giants. But you got here early, so most of the giants are minnows right now.
Pay it forward
Steemit is still a young platform, waddling around like a toddler that just spoke its first words. Steemit needs support just like you do. You can provide support for the platform by advertising to friends/family/followers through your current social networks. If you’re reading this, you are jumping in at a great time. Steemit is on the launchpad, prepping for the moon. You can get a first class seat, while sipping a drink as you watch others climb aboard. Don’t be afraid of growth on here, it’ll just make your small stake worth more once the ship blasts off. The more people hop aboard, the faster the countdown sequence will begin.
In the meantime, pay it forward to friends and other content creators by upvoting and commenting. You can even send them a tip of 0.1 SBD if you like their posts; it’s worth more than your upvote at this point. As community interaction grows, so will the hype. Steemit will gain credibility and grow in value.
You can also start your own contests once you’ve had a few payouts. Get people involved, especially the minnows that just popped out of the egg, and the community will grow. Steemit isn’t relying on a team of programmers, marketers, and businessmen to succeed. Steemit is relying on its community to succeed.
Speaking of which I decided last minute to host a small contest as part of this post. I would like some ideas for the next post like this one. Just post in the comments another topic that might interest Steemit newbies. Upvoting and resteeming will encourage me to give larger payouts in the future. I will give 2 SBD to my favorite suggestion, once this post has paid out. Aren’t you glad you read the whole post? ;) Pay it forward!
This bulb is getting heavy! Can someone help me, please?!
TLDR:
Pay it forward: treat others how you want to be treated
Find your voice: show your passion, don’t go trend hunting
Stick with it!
Don’t plagiarize, vote beg, or cheat the system!
In Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed my little write-up about my first month here at Steemit. These are just my opinions, so take it with a grain of salt. There’s so much more to Steemit I haven’t mentioned simply because I don’t have the experience to talk about it yet. I will leave you with some links to Discord communities I enjoy and some of the Steemit sideprojects, like Dtube. Take care all you Steemaniacs!
Sideprojects:
Dtube - Decentralized video platform
Dlive - Decentralized live streaming platform
Dmania - Viva la Meme Nation!
Utopian.io - Decentralized Github (correct me if I'm wrong)
eSteem - Steemit mobile app + more
Communities:
Minnow Support Project - Best place to start
The Writer’s Block - Power up your writing skills here
Steemit Ramble - Ramble on and Pimp Your Post Thursdays
Geopolis - Geoscience centric
SteemSTEM - Calling all scientists
The STEEM Engine - When you’re ready to step it up
Steemit Blogger’s Central - Rewarding awesome posts
Keep calm and rock on!
Special thanks go out to @Lenadr and @Yekrats for editing this post. Many thanks to the crew at @thewritersblock for helping me step up my game.
Some good start up advice there. It's also worth noting that you don't have to be a content creator to make steem. Content consumers (or curators) can also make almost as much as creators if they comment and vote. In fact being a creator generates a very tiny income until you have established yourself. Curation is the best way to build SP in my opinion.
You are better at the curation side than I am then, @unclehermit. I comment and upvote lots of posts, but it’s only a trickle compared to authoring in my experience.
I guess it's a balance isn't it. Rightly or wrongly I do self upvote while I'm building steem power but I try to give votes out too. If I'm too busy to read content I won't let my steem power go to waste so I'll do some self voting. I notice that your posts do quite well, much better than mine, so you are clearly doing something right. How do you find all the resteeming works for you? I only resteem occasionally.
Hmmm... well the way I see it my vote isn’t worth much right now so I don’t worry about it. I like to resteem posts that I enjoy and I think others would enjoy. I would reconsider once my vote is worth more tho.
It's maybe the best post I ever seen in steemit, even me being here for more than 9 month I will learn from it, it's just amazing, I will share it in a few pages I have, thanks for the quality ! You can include my service also to the list, it's called Steemit for Resteem, you can find all the links in my posts.
I already shared it in the group with more than 19000 members : Steemit for Resteem Group ↕
And I will share is later in the page : Best Resteemed Steemit Posts
I hope you'll join our group and like the page. ☺
Thanks I appreciate your kind words. I’ll take a look when I get the chance.
@nostone-unturned
Man, this really is a great post and like many on this platform should have more love in terms of reward.
The only suggestion I could give is that this whole post could have been broken down into maybe four different posts.
Every heading you use could be an entire post by itsself.
This would allow you to explore each thing a little more, given the readers less to read in a sitting, and increased your overall rewards because by encouraging people to follow you and keep reading.
Still, overall this is a fantastic post you have a great grasp on steem in a short time.
Your Friendly @asaper ... @shau-hulud.
I agree with you shai, I could have broken it down. I’m still getting used to things here and will keep that in mind for the future. I tried to keep it as interesting as possible to hold readers’ attention, but it could have been broken down. Thanks for the support!
Awesome post! I'm a newbie, and I've been mingling, so to speak. Your post was very informative and can definitely help someone like me. I am loving the relationships that I've been building, getting to know people, and getting into discussions and debates has been my favorite part of steemit. I've gotten my feet wet by nervously posting a few things..and I get extremely excited to see an upvote or a comment...that's kinda just a perk to me. I would love to hear more about SBD, and SP, and STEEM and how to tranfer from one to another. I'm also curious about witnesses and what that means. Thanks again for the advice!
I'm glad you enjoyed the read. I definitely felt excited and nervous when I first started too. Steemit feels so familiar, yet strange at first. Maturity and effort are a must here, especially compared to FB or Reddit. It pays off though and helps you stand out. Just have fun posting and interacting until it clicks.
A quick tip about SBD/SP/STEEM:
To trade SBD for STEEM just go to your wallet and click on the down arrow. Select transfer from the drop down menu. Then you can trade all or some SBD for STEEM.
You can "power up" STEEM to SP by clicking the down arrow next to STEEM and selecting the Power Up option.
I'm still learning about witnesses myself. From what I've gathered they are essentially server nodes run by Steemians. Each of us gets to vote for these witnesses. The more votes each witness gets, the more SBD they get. Good witnesses provide other essential services for the Steemit community too.
Hang in there!
Thank you for the response and your explanations on the SBD and STEEM. I appreciate the help!! I never did the whole reddit thing, I didn't even know what that was until I got on steemit. I have facebook and rarely get on it, and never posted anything like what I've posted here. It seems to be easier for me to put my stuff out there to people I don't know, and everyone has been awesome! I'm grateful to my husband for introducing me to this platform. I would love to write a book and I feel this platform will help me with that! Thanks again for your wisdom!!
If you want some help and practice writing, join the group at TWB. I take part in their writing exercises for fun and practice. We just wrapped up a POV exercise that will be posted soon. It’s a very welcoming group and a great place to grow as a writer.
I followed TWB after reading your post, how do I join the group? I can not express how freaking excited all of this is making me, lol. Thank you so much for taking me under you wing...I may start referring to you as my Obi Wan!!
oh my gosh - i seriously love your name hahahahaha i use to LOVE monchichis!!! hehehe
Lol thank you @dreemsteem!! I acquired that nickname as a young girl because I had the monchhichi cheeks 😁.. I hated it back then but learned to love it. It was a unique nickname
Isn't it funny that sometimes the things we hated as a child becomes something that we embrace when we're older!?? Hahaha
Indeed!! Like vegetables and salad.
😂😂😂 and naps!!!
And the song just popped in my head!! Lol .. Do you remember the song @dreemsteem?
Are you kidding me!?!? Hahahaha as SOON as I saw your name I was like
Monchichi monchichi! Oh so soft and cuddly with their think in their mouth they are really neat... Or something hahahahaha I always messed that part up.
But HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY!!!! MONCHICHIS!!!
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I wasn't expecting a response like that!! That was great... I'm thinking now maybe I should do a post and put a video up. 🤔 A little bit of nostalgia. That was awesome, brought a big smile to my face!! 😁😁
Yessssss!!!! If you do a video... Tag me 😂😂😂 I need to see it hahaha
Consider it done!! I've already started trying to figure out how to include a video within my post... 😁
If it's on YouTube.. I'm pretty sure you just put the link! If it's on dtube, it's a bit different. Just a little bit more complex. They have the code for you in the details and you copy and paste that into markdown :)
Very cool post, have you heard of the @asapers they are a new curation group like you. They are always looking for great content like this to curate. I hope you get picked up by the steem engine too. See you round. They are opening up a Discord channel tonight too, this is the link to register. https://discord.gg/KKzNw2X
Checked it out and liking adapters already
Very nice suggestions for newbies! I have yet to join a contest myself, maybe that's next. But yeah, finding a community really is the key to enjoyment.
Hrmm suggestions... A natural segueway would be to explore the side projects.
One slight tweak to utopian: it uses GitHub so I wouldn't say it's a decentralized GitHub. I would just say it rewards Open source contributions.
Also don't forget zappl and steepshot, and maybe even this one I just stumbled into.
Those are some good suggestions. Zappl looks like blockchain Twitter and Steepshot like Instagram. The Q&A app looks really interesting. I'm going to try it out. Thank you!
Congratulations @nostone-unturned, your post has been selected by the @asapers for a resteem and a feature in our brand new curation post. Issue 6
What does this mean for you? Well first an upvote from some members of the team, we are no @curie but who is going to be unhappy with some extra upvotes. Second each post featured in the article will receive a 10% share of the curation post.
Keep up the great work and please consider supporting the @asapers with a follow and an upvote on the post you feature in. Please wait seven days for payout.
Your friendly @asapers
Giving back A.S.A.P
That has to be just about the best article of its kind (helping people understand Steemit) that I've read, anywhere. And I went through a 10-day #dolphinschool so I've read many! ;P
I've been trying almost everything you suggest with moderate success so far... Joining communities, networking with like-minded people and posting what I have a passion for... And just not giving up!
My entry into your contest is this: Perhaps doing a post on all of Steemit's sister sites and how they work might be very useful to newbies =) (steepshot, dmania, dtube, dsound, busy.org, etc)
Congratulations for being chosen by @asapers by the way =)
Thank you for the nice comment. I'm getting a lot of good suggestions in the comments of this post. Keep it up. I love that there are more comments than views ATM. =]
this was excellent - and totally prepares newbies for what to expect!!! so many of us come here with the same ideas - and then reality hits hahahaha
but I was nodding my head at so much of what you said!!!! community!!!! just so huge!
i think the minnow with a good community is the one that will stay (and succeed!)
great post :)
Thanks for all the encouragement, all these comments have been really reaffirming. I've seen similar posts, so I wasn't sure how well this one would be accepted. Great talking to you earlier @dreemsteem, see you on the @asaper Discord!
This steemit ocean is so big.... people just can't VIEW all the tutorials and help posts out there - we ALWAYS welcome new posts like this from a fresh perspective! and you did that :)
This was a really great post. I have been on Steemit for a little over a month now and I have to admit I have struggled. What do you do if you feel like you have finally found your niche but the upvoted still aren't coming in? It feels like a lot of work for no return, not even a slow upward trend... -@bozz
Hey bozz, here's some great advice from @jrswab for growing your account once you have a niche and are stagnant. He has a lot of great posts about improving your steemit account. https://steemit.com/education/@jrswab/5-proven-steps-to-enormous-growth
You also need to consider your measure of success. At this point, views and votes are more important to me than payout. I would recommend reaching out and trying to connect across Discord communities. You can try upvote bots on steembottracker.com, but I find it's pretty hit or miss.
Thanks for the info. I will for sure check it out. I appreciate it.