I remember my first week on Steemit.  Trying to figure it all out, trying to get noticed and looking back now I wish someone shared some do’s and don’ts with me. So this is section of this course is dedicated to your first week on Steemit and is aimed at getting you started on the right footage.

Don’t worry if you are well past your first week. We can always go back and make changes.

But before we get stuck in this post is an extract from the draft of an upcoming video course that will be available free of charge on multiple course hosting platforms.  I will be publishing this course on Udemy, Skillshare where I am an established instructor but I will also be trying a few other platforms too.

Publishing Courses on Sites like Udemy is not as simple as one might think.  They have strict quality controls in place and for a course to remain available FREE on their website must keep above a student review and rating of 4.1 Stars.  My personal reach on Udemy and Skillshare is 30K people, however Udemy boasts over 15m students.  Once I do a good launch, Udemy will take it from there.

I am hoping to have this course published and live by the end of February.  Some of you might have already noticed I have not been as active on Steemit or Discord the last few weeks and have been asking questions.   Well I am just busy with work but behind the scenes I am also work on this course. A considerable amount of time will be invested into writing, recording, editing and publishing this course and I hope once I have got on top of work and this course published to become as active again in discord and on Steemit. 

The aim of the course is to 

1) Grow brand awareness of Steemit

2) On-board new users to Steemit

3) Increase the retention of Steemit users

4) Provide a valuable resource for Steemit users

At the end of this post you will find more details on the course outline

WEEK 1 on STEEMIT

What not to do

1) Don’t try and establish yourself or your brand 

Before you can really establish yourself or your brand on Steemit, you should really spend a little time getting to know the platform.  See what works and what does not work.  Read a lot of posts in the topic you also wish to write about.  See what works and does not work for other authors.  Establishing yourself and your brand can wait just a little.

2) Don’t follow for follow

A pet peeve of mine is to follow for follow.  I suppose this comes from traditional social media, where you follow your friends and your friend’s friends.  But on Steemit if you do this, you will find it almost impossible to find good content.  You see when you follow someone, their content and any content they resteem will fill up your feed.  If the content is, well let’s just say ‘not up your ally’ they you will be scrolling though shit to find the good stuff.

3) Don’t Vote for Vote

Just because someone votes for you does not mean that you have to vote for them.  The aim of Steemit is to reward good content

4) Don’t vote more than 10 times a day

I see many people coming to steemit and voting like crazy to get curation rewards or let’s say ‘be seen’.  But you have a certain voting power and every time you vote this goes down.  You can vote 10 times a day at 100% power and in your first week, well you will only have the option to vote at 100%.  As your voting power reduces, so does the value of your vote, and so does the value of your curation rewards.  It is a little more complex than this, but for the moment that’s what you need to know.

5) Don’t ask for votes

When you are in chat or a community, asking people to vote for your content is a put off and can be seen as spam.  Sure ping people when you are trying to rally support when you have an exceptional post.  But continuously asking people for votes is a no no.  Most communities have a channel set up for post promotions.  Use this, Don’t Spam.

6) Don’t copy content that has already been published on the web, even if it is your own content.

Taking from a mistake that I made, I took content already published to my own site and republished it on Steemit.  I was quickly sent a comment by @cheetah letting me know this content was found elsewhere.  Now this content was my own content, so it was not plagiarism, but seeing this comment on my post was uncomfortable.  On saying that, I have had many discussion with authors and writers on Steemit about this, and some people do feel it is okay to post your own content even if you published it before.

7) Don’t do your introduction post

Again taking from a mistake I made.  When I joined Steemit I wrote an Intro post, detailing who I am and what I was going to be posting about.  But then as I got to know the platform more and figured out what worked and didn’t work, my focus changed.  What I said I was going to do in my intro post is not happening….not really a good start if you ask me.  Leave the intro post till your second week and I will go through it with you in a different lesson.

8) Don’t worry about your wallets or your earnings

When you see rewards on your posts at the start it can be rather exciting. But if your concerns are purely your earnings then you have to change your mind-set.  Steemit is not a get rich quick platform and your earnings in the first week are not of importance.  Understanding all the stuff around STEEM and SBD is also not too much of a concern at this time.  We will cover this in a lot more detail in a different section.

Undoing what you have done

I know many of you here have already spent a week on steemit and did much of the stuff I have told you not to do.  But look, it’s not the end of the world.  So if you have or are trying to establish yourself or your brand on Steemit.  Stop.  Take a step back and complete the rest of this lesson.

If you have followed for follows or are following a heap of people you’re not really interested in, then go and unfollow or mute these users.  You can do this by selecting followers from your profile

 If you are voting for people just because they vote for you, then stop.  Vote for good content, use some votes for people that support your posts with awesome and relevant comments, as it will keep them coming back to your content.  But don’t just vote to return a favor.

If you are or have been voting more than 10 times a day then stop.  Stop voting completely till your voting power increases to 100% and then use your vote’s wisely.

If you are asking people for votes, stop.  Stop spamming.  Votes will come as reputation grows and your content becomes known.

Introducing Communities

 (This will need revising when update is done on steemit and community features have been enable)

For me, I have found the backbone on Steemit to be the communities.  I think the saying ‘come to steemit for the rewards stay for the community’ holds true.  It’s been the communities that have given me the boost, the advice and the help.  But the communities go even further than that and I can tell you from experience, good friendships are formed and fostered.

At the moment the ‘official’ Steemit communities can be found on Steemit Chat, which I will discuss a little further in a while.

You will also find communities housed on Discord, telegram, Reddit, and all the standard places like Facebook, twitter, google+, Instagram….

There are communities for everything, Writers, Coders, Artists, Data Analysist, and Photography.  There are also geographic communities and sub communities, many of which hold regular meetups.

Finding communities at the start can be hard.  But hopefully I can give you some tips and ideas.

First of all when you are reading posts, you will find many authors reference a community within the post.  You might see a community logo or even a footer on the post with community details.

Geographic communities are relatively easy to find, Do a search on Steemit for your Country or city and have a look through these posts.  If there is a community, chances are you will find it mentioned in a post in this tag or category on steemit.

What I can also tell you is that there will be changes made to Steemit that will allow for communities.  Right now I don’t know too much but I will keep you up to date.  When the communities feature is released, I will produce an update to the course.

One big piece of advice I can give you here is to obey any community rules.  And I can also tell you like anything in life, the more you put into a community and get involved, the more you will get out of it, and I don’t just mean votes and comments on your posts. 

Steemit Chat is also a good place to start and as you get to know people in here you will find yourself being invited to other communities.  You can also ask people you meet in steemit chat, where else they hang out.  Later in what to do in week 1, I will recommend some communities for you to join.

Lets take a look around Steemit Chat now.  You will find many movers and shakers on Steemit  hanging out on Steemit Chat.  The official witness channel is held here, and so are Steemcleaners

https://steemit.chat

 

Down the left of the screen are the different channels within Steemit Chat.  You will also find any users and direct messages here when you scroll down.

If you do not have any channels, don’t panic, that’s because you have not joined any yet.  If you do a search for your topic of interest you will hopefully find a channel.

In the center you will find the chat in the channel you have selected

Down the left you have icons that will let you see channel information, members, mentions, attachments and pinned messages.

 Do keep all post links to the post promotion channel unless links are allowed within the channel.  You might find the help channel of interest

Another very popular community is @Minnowsupport.  Minnowsupport are housed on Discord and you can join with this link https://discordapp.com/invite/SjUdTV

They offer so much.  First of all there is a voting bot, that when called will send a wave of votes towards your post. The value of these votes is not much, but the aim is to give some social proof on your post by way of vote count.  They have a neat radio station, have a number of workshops and a good few interest specific channels.  They run quite a few contests, have an awesome general chat area and go a long way in helping minnows get orientated with Steemit.

The last community I am going to mention here is @SteemitBC.  SteemitBC are also found on discord and you can join with this link. https://discordapp.com/invite/JN7Yv7j

Steemitbc is where many Steemit Community leaders come together.  There are interest specific tags such as Culturevulture, Blockchain Business Intelligence, amidakuji, social-investment, traders-lounge, Japanese & gems-and-minerals.  Each one of these communities has an awesome leader and community.

Together these leaders work for the benefit of all the sub communities though the Steemitbc account.  Steemitbc run regular contests, shows support for quality posts by members with upvotes and resteems, gives advice in the chat channel and supports other leaders set up their own tags and communities on Steemit and does what they can to help you prosper on Steemit.

So that’s 3 communities so far.  We will go back to this at another stage and look at other communities.

Introducing Contests

Anyone can run a contest on Steemit.  It’s as simple as making a post about it, assessing the entries and announcing a winner.  People run contests for different reasons.  I have seen many contests for art work because a community is in need of a logo or something.  I myself have ran contests.  The first contest I ran was a Weekly Data analysis Contest.  The participants had to do a data post based on Steemit data and there was a prize for the winner.  At the time I had just started a new tag on Steemit, which is not Blockchainbi and I wanted to get some activity going in the tag.  Now I have formed a whole community around the subject.

We mentioned communities earlier and contests are one way to find and mingle with others in communities.  As well as meeting others with similar interest’s contests offer a number of benefits

1.  Winnings are often in the form of STEEM or SBD, if you win, it’s a fast way to grow you earning
2.  Contests give you something to post about
3.  Contests give you experience using steemit
4.  Contests give you the opportunity to grow your reputation
5.  Contests gets your name in front of people
6. Contents can give you the opportunity to showcase your skills  

If you are a member of a community keep your eye out for contests they are running.  You should also check the category Contests on Steemit https://steemit.com/trending/contest

There is also an account @contests, where you will find contests for winning Whaleshares.  We haven’t talked about whaleshares yet, but I will get to it later.

People to follow

 Who you follow is up to you and should depend on the type of content that you like.  We spoke earlier about the importance of not following people for follows.

The best way to find people to follow is to read posts.  Do a search for the topics you like to read about and the topics you like to write about.  Spend some time figuring out who the influencers are and follow them.  But also follow new steemains that also share your interests.

The trending and hot pages on Steemit are good, but not great.  Data studies have shown that to get to trending your post must have a high pay out value rather fast.  We will look at this in more detail in a different section but there is significance to mention it now.  It’s not easy to get your post on trending and you will be extremely limited to the number of authors you see if you just look at this page.  Instead I would be more inclined to go to the hot or trending page within a tag.  Again though you might miss many quality authors.

So really what I am saying is that the Trending and Hot pages are not always the best way to find authors to follow.

I have some suggestions on people to follow to get you started. You can find this list in the resources for this course. I would suggest you don’t just go off and follow these people but instead visit their blogs first.  Have a read of a few posts and then decided if they produce the type of content you would like to see on a regular basis.  If so then follow them, they are just a suggestion and this list is subject to regular change. 

{This list will be found in the resource centre for the course and is also not the full and final list}

@inquiringtimes is an awesome author that regularly posts in both LIFE and STEEMIT.  You will find him hanging out on SteemitChat, Steemitbc and @slothicorn on Discord.  Always willing to help and loads of fun.  One to watch as I know he puts a lot of effort into things behind the scenes

@RT395 post about cryptocurrency, gems and minerals, Japan and many other topics. He is an awesome community leader that heads up the Steemitbc account.  He enjoys meetups and can be found hanging out on Steemitbc discord server

@stellabelle and @Slothicorn.  @stellabelle is an awesome steemain that spreads goodwill and generosity.  Her project is @slothicorn, which at the moment is not yet live, but it’s a game to teach creatives how to turn their creative energy into crypto coins using the tools in Steem, and other crypto spaces as well. The game will hopefully turn a semi-confusing experience of entering crypto, into one that is fun as well as magical.

@abh12345 is an awesome author, vlogger and curator.  He often posts in Blockchain BI and about Steemit. 

@eastmael writes data posts and is very active in the Blochchain BI community.  In fact he is very active in a number of communities and is an account to watch in 2018

@mikepm74 is a top curator, always finding great post and engaging with others.  This is another account to watch in 2018

@kubbyelizabeth is another account to watch in 2018.  An active member of Minnowsupport and the radio station they host and also an active curator.

@krazykrista posts in writing & blog and a very active member of the whaleshares community that hosts some awesome chats shows on discord.

Leaving comments 

When you write a post on Steemit and it gets ignored or no one notices it, it can feel a little shitty. But when you write a post that engages people and they comment and add to the discussion the feeling is fantastic.

So when you are reading a post you really should consider leaving a comment.  Not only does it make the author feel good (if it’s a relevant comment) and gives them encouragement but it also gets your name in front of people.

Commenting is part of curation, and we spoke about curation in an earlier section of the course.  Curation is not just about voting, although the cyrtop rewards can make it feel that way sometimes.

The more times someone sees your name the more familiar they will become with you.  The more likely they are to read your posts, or upvote your comments.  Now I know I said don’t worry about getting your brand out there and I am not back tracking on that.  What I am saying is that we can get people familiar with you before you begin to promote yourself as a brand on Steemit.  If people are familiar with you they will listen quicker.

Comments can also get upvotes, so that means that by commenting on other people posts you could earn steem.

There are some things you should avoid when leaving a comment.  Don’t ask for a follow for follow.  Don’t say something like ‘ I love you blog pleases visit mine’  because it really does not add any value and can be seen as spam.

You can however leave a link to a relevant post.  For example let’s say you have read a post on ‘Mars’ and you have previously written a post on the same topic.  If the points you have made in your post back up the points made by the author you are reading, it would be okay to leave a link.  Also if you are disagreeing with points and there is a post of relevance that backs up your points, then it’s okay to leave a link.  But random links, well they are not okay.

What to do week 1 - Tasks

To make your first week on Steemit go nice I smooth I have a few tasks for you to complete

1. Find 5 people to follow.  2 of these people must be influencers in the topics you will be posting on.  The other 3 must be authors on topics you like to read about.
2. Leave 5 comments. But not little comments like nice post.  5 valuable comments where you share your thoughts on the post and give some additional insights.
3. Vote on at least 5 posts a day
4. Join Minnowsupport on Discord, introduce yourself and sign up for their voting bot. there is a little bit of a learning curve here, but the steps involved are things you will end up doing on steemit daily….
5. Join Steemitbc on Discord, introduce yourself and enter their weekly RANT contest
6. Find and Enter 1 other contest.  This contest should be something that shows off your skills and requires you to write a post.

By completing these tasks you are giving yourself the opportunity to find your way around Steemit and gain experience on the platform.  By commenting and entering contests you will be getting your name in front of people while figuring out how to post and vote and comment. You will get to showcase some of your work via the contest and also grow your reputation and following.  By joining the communities you will get to network with other steemains and peers

Bonus Hack

 This week I have two bonus hacks for you.

The first hack is a tool.    Steemworld.org/@steemit

I made this video not long after the site went live, so you many notice now a number of new features that have been added.

The second hack is a tip.  You begin as a very small fish on Steemit.  The fastest way to grow your SP organically is to power up all of your posts.  The default setting is 50%/50% and we will discuss this further in a later section.  You can however change this to 100% Power Up.  You will find this option on the bottom right of your posting screen – directly across from the Post button

Course Syllabus

The table below shows the outline of the course.  As changes are made on steemit this course will be updated. 

Feedback

I would love to hear your feedback on this.  I have not yet gone into production and this is still draft.  I’m really excited about this project and looking forward to seeing it come to life (been talking about it for a while so I’m making the sacrifices to get it done)