I have started this Steem blog exactly two months ago. I write about philosophy, art and other topics and in this post I want to describe my journey on this platform and show you some tricks I have found along the way. First I would like to discuss the way I found out about this platform as it is an example that really proves that the slogan “came for the rewards, stayed for the community” holds a lot of truth. As most of the Steem users I was very interested in cryptocurrencies and I read online about the concept behind Steem. I was very excited about this concept because I thought it was brilliant, there is no more need for annoying ads to monetize valueable content. As I already planned to start some kind of blog in the future but I never had the motivation to go through with it, I thought that this is finally a great opportunity to do so. As I scrolled around after I completed my registration I noticed that Steem is different from other platforms like Facebook or Twitter, most of the very successful content wasn't clickbaity articles with flashy headlines and Buzzfeed type list formats but the articles were well thought out, very in-depth and interesting to read. This motivated me to put as much effort into my articles as I can. And here I am two months into this adventure.

In total I have posted 12 articles and I have earned about 20 Dollars which I have invested back into Steem power. My most profitable post made 7.91 SBD and 5.11 Steem power. On average one post made about 1 Dollar from which I received 0.75 $ after curation. As I have experienced the success of your posts is not very dependent on how many followers you have. Some of my early posts made much more than my newer posts although my followers have only been increasing. This shows that on Steem everyone has the same chance, even if you are a beginner you can achieve great success with a post that many people are interested in and people enjoy reading. In this time span my blog has gained 306 followers and I went from a reputation 25 to 43. From my experience your reputation only goes up from upvotes from users with a higher reputation.

Now I want to go over some things I found out during these 2 months that may help you get your content to more people:

(img source: https://hedefcoin.com/steemit-nedir-nasil-para-steemcoin-kazanilir/4590/steem-steemit)

1. Join a minnow group

There are many people that are just starting their blog on Steem. A new Steemian is called a minnow and there are many communities that have the aim to help minnows reach a bigger audience. If you type minnow in the search bar you will find many such groups, I would suggest joining a group of this kind that fits your needs. You can also look for groups that support your specific field of interest and give them a try, you don’t have anything to lose. The group I am in is called minnowsupportproject, they have their own discord group where members can use a bot to upvote their own content every 24 h. It is completely free and the upvote you get is usually about 0.07$ which isn’t much but it can be a motivation to post more often. I think these groups provide a great opportunity to grow as a minnow.

(img source: https://gruenderfreunde.de/so-aendert-sich-die-kommunikation-der-deutschen/)

2. Use the 50/50 payout option

It is very true that if you are in this game for the long term you should put your money back into Steem power. But if you use the 100% Steem power option you have much less liquidity than if you use the 50/50 option. You can achieve the same effect of the 100% option by pressing the power up button in your wallet. Withdrawing any money from your Steem power takes 3 months which is why I would always use the 50/50 payout option. It just gives you more freedom with your money and you still have the option to put it all in Steem power afterwards.

(img source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pictures-of-money/17121923990)

3. Experiment with different Sites/Interfaces

The great thing about Steem is that because of the way it works there is a pleathora of different sites or interfaces you can chose from to use it. While Steemit is by far the most popular I would recommend trying out different sites and decide for yourself which one fits you best. For example I discovered Steem through Steemit but recently I found out about busy.org and I have almost completely switched to using busy because I prefer the interface, it is less buggy and you get a free upvote from busy based on the combined Steem power of your followers. Because my transition to busy has greatly improved my user experience I would advice everyone to try out different services for using the Steem blockchain.

(img source: http://www.rolereboot.org/culture-and-politics/details/2015-03-for-mothers-your-choice-really-is-no-choice-at-all/)

4. Use all 5 tags

While this may seem obvious to some readers, I think that it’s very important. When you publish an article you want to get as many readers as possible which is why you should always try to use all five tags. That doesn’t mean that you should use tags that are not related to your article but you can always find 5 tags that fit your post. This will increase the visibility of your post.

(img source: https://virtualizationreview.com/Blogs/Everyday-Virtualization/2016/02/Using-vSphere-Tags.aspx)

5. Do an introduction post

You should write an introduction post in which you describe the type of content you want to post on your blog. Write about your intentions and your motivations with your blog. Remember to use the tags introducemyself and introduceyourself because they are both very popular and mean the same.

(img source: https://www.questionpro.com/blog/best-practice-have-an-introduction-to-your-survey/)

I hope you found my story interesting and you found my tips helpful. I wish all of you a lot of success with your steem blog!

Are you interested in philosophy? Check out my latest article on the Hegelian dialectic:
https://steemit.com/philosophy/@apartphilosopher/the-hegelian-dialectic-an-explaination

Crypto related links:

Coinbase: https://www.coinbase.com/join/5a889b233b336a0439b57b8c
( Invest 100$ and get 10$ in Bitcoin for free )

Binance: https://www.binance.com/?ref=26166506

Mannacoin: https://www.mannabase.com/?ref=ac22f0d1c7
( Get Manna coins every week for free! )

Everyone that upvotes and comments on this post will enter a giveaway and have the opportunity to win some SBD. The winner will be chosen randomly will always be announced on the next post.

The winner of the last post is: @abmakko