Earning Money vs. Making an Impact on Steemit, or, Why Your Best Posts Aren’t Earning The Big Bucks
Do you ever feel like you aren’t being rewarded for creating great content on steemit? We all experience disappointing payouts on this platform. Even the best and most successful authors among us have posts that flop.
There are two facts about Steemit that I don’t see many people talk about, which I’d like to briefly address:
- Content that gets a lot of attention is different from content that gets a lot of money
- Steemit’s design amplifies your feelings of FOMO and Frustration, so you gotta adapt.
This post will talk about fact #1. Tomorrow I’ll talk about fact #2. Cool? Cool. Let’s do it:
Views vs. Money
The content that gets the most views is DIFFERENT from the content that gets the most money.
This is a fact for me. My highest earning post has 26 (!) views: https://steemit.com/technology/@heymattsokol/art-and-anxiety-on-the-information-superhighway-why-social-media-can-be-bad-for-artists
There are a some nice comments and I’m super thankful for the money and the attention - but, in all honesty, this is a very low amount of views.
In contrast, one of my most popular posts has 300+ views: https://steemit.com/money/@heymattsokol/my-quest-for-creative-financial-freedom-pt-1-intro-explanation - but only earned around $15.
Why Don’t Money and Attention Work Together?
The way to make money is to get whales to vote on your stuff. However - whales are super busy and most of them don’t have time to read your content.
On the flip side - the people with the least value in their accounts tend to have the most time. They’re newer to the site and still exploring, searching for content, reading and engaging with their favorite authors. These users will give you attention, but their votes are worth very little.
What to do? Make content to bait whale votes, or appeal to the masses? I’ve tried to strike a delicate balance - creating legitimately valuable content that also has an immediate “whale appeal” to show whales that I’m worth voting on.
You might choose a different route. I’d suggest that getting attention is more important in the long run. He or she who has the most attention can leverage that attention into big money down the road.
The Real Home Run
We’ve all seen the truly successful posts: Sometimes, an author manages to get thousands of views AND thousands of dollars on a wildly successful post. Does this disprove my theory?
The truth is, very few posts can get a ton of attention and money all at once. This usually happens after an author creates a huge amount of great work over a long period of time, earning many whale and minnow fans alike.
If you create some content that caters to minnows (attention), and some content that caters to whales (money), these two audiences will gradually connect to each other. After about a year of hard work, it seems possible to have a steady and powerful audience who reward you well for your content.
The question is simple… will you put in your year of hard work?
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. If you think I’m wrong as hell, I wanna know why.
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:-) hey @heymattsokol thoughtful post
to me, when i enter a community, i never look out for cash in beginning
its all about fun, meet new interesting people and see how we match up
sure you need to check all possibilities and use them
there is no other way to understand the whole story here :-)
so steem on :-) we'll see us around
That's awesome to hear Chris, I hope lots of new steemians approach this place with your healthy attitude. Cheers!
me 2 :-)
would be a perfect match for me hehe
Interesting fact! By looking at this phenomenon in Steemit, I hope everyone here would understand that money is not our main purpose. We should focus on creating good content and just take the rewards as bonus.
Glad you enjoyed it @deccode - it's lucky that creating good content tends to lead to big rewards anyway
I think that the same rules that apply on all other platforms also apply here. There is no difference in terms of what is good/bad and what will attract views and engagement.
The only difference here is that voting power is grossly unbalanced. I believe that will get better in time. It's obvious that Steemit is still in a very early stage of development. To me it's more like an experiment or social study, as it is now.
Surely if we talk about profit and what we need to do to get more of it we already lost the battle. Steemit will become just like all the other platforms. What steemit needs is more balance and "limits". But that can only come with experience.
I like the pics. :)
Thanks, I was feeling inspired by all the vaporwave around here lately to do some original art :-)
You're so spot on - the social dynamics of Steemit really seem to mirror the stuff that's happened on other social media networks. And the unbalance of power will be getting WAY better soon - Hard Fork 19 happens in five days, and will "flatten" the vote power curve such that less powerful users' votes will get stronger and whale votes will get weaker. As a minnow myself, I cannot wait.
Yeah I'm so excited about the fork man! Where do you get the info about 5 days? I'm really interested in the development, but I can't really find a place with current and updated news. Anyhow, good times and let the vapors "in". :)
I've been seeing posts around steemit about it... I'm not sure what the best source of info is TBH
We'll get there. ;)
Great post man... I always say attention is everything in marketing. :)
Yup! I learned that lesson too, thanks to THE MAN, Gary Vee.
I been following him for almost a decade lol
It's all about direct and sincere interaction
100%
I think that's a start - but it goes a lot deeper IMO.
I think just posting great content isn't going to cut it, and it's only going to get worse the more that join... That interaction though, it can last as long as the platform and beyond.
My formula in my head would say: Great content is the FOUNDATION, then it gets multiplied by promotional effort and community engagement (such as commenting on other peoples' posts). What do you think people can do, beyond great content?
I mean, the idea that it gets "worse" as people join - IDK. So far, the value of steem has kept up with population growth, and I hope/think that will continue to happen for months or maybe years to come.
Worse as in the more that join, the harder it's going to be for people to find the 'great' content. Building the right relationships now can help that immensely down the road.
agreed ...
Thanks for the post. Even though I only recently joined Steemit, I fully expect it to take at least a year to get some good traction. I think in the end, most of it will be a combination of trial and error, finding a niche, and expanding on a base of followers. Great content is certainly the foundation. After that it is a combination of selling yourself and persistence.
That's the right attitude! Keep it up
This is very insightful and good information that you've shared with us! Thanks @heymattsokol
Just followed and upvoted
Much appreciated, @breakingtonight.
Very interesting post very useful content 👍
Thank you very much for your time and informations - I really like your images too !! 😎
I follow you ...
#upvoted and #resteemed
Have a good night from Cologne Germany my name is Lars @laloelectrix
Thanks a lot Lars, I appreciate the support
Great post @heymattsokol
you got a resteem here! ill look forward to tomorrow as well
Thanks a lot @cryptoindestment :-)
Interesting guide! I'm new to steemit and this is a great summary of how the infrastructure works. Thanks :)
You're a fast reader... thanks.