Welcoming - manually curation introduction since 2018!

Thanks to @jubair7074s for designing this picture as well as the avatar!
The "problem" and the vision - How it all started!

When I came to Steemit around nine months ago, the #introduceyourself section, especially the "trending" and "hot" section there, where full of great introductions - And it seemed as if every user tried his best to make a good one as well.
If you visit the #introduceyourself tag nowadays, you will mainly see the introduction of some services boosted to "trending" or "hot" - not actual intros of real people. And if you try to curate the tag yourself, you will find spam, spam and even more spam.

I think that's sad - I liked the real intros back then. But since just complaining doesn't help anybody, I did something about it!

That is why I have founded the account @welcoming in the beginning of last December - here is a link back to the original introductin of it: Welcome @welcoming, an account for manual #introduceyourself curation!

Since the start in December, @welcoming has resteemed the best introduction posts I found via manual curation on a daily basis. In total, @welcoming has resteemed around 870 manually selected introduction posts since it's founding and voted many more!

Here you can see a quick comparision between the "Trending" section for the tag #introduceyourself and @welcoming 's blog.

intros by real people - I guess you all can see where you should look ;)__
Better user retention!
Two months ago I made a little analysis over the first 50 resteems I did with @welcoming - more than 50% of the users still have been active after two months. I think this is a great level of user retention - especially compared to the overall level of user retention on here.
But of course, it was not only my resteeming that helped those users to get a better start into the world of STEEM!
Thank you to all supporters!

Even though I am doing most of the actual curation work, @welcoming would by far not be as effective if there wouldn't be some great guys with steempower supporting my projects. Therefore I am pleased to highlight the following people who make it possible that @welcoming is working the way it is!
What is a great intro?!

Some people have asked me over various channels, what makes an intro good enough to be resteemed via @welcoming. While I can't give you a general rule for that (it just depends on to many factors), I can give you some hints on what could be included in a great introduction post.
Information about yourself: This one is obvious - but still many don't: Tell the people who you are, where you come from, what you do, what you love, your passions, etc. People can only feel connected to you if you tell them something about yourself what they can connect with.

Good pictures: You know the saying "A picture can say more than a thousand words!" I can only sign that. A verification picture (a picture holding a paper with your steem name + date) + one or more good pictures of you doing what you love will boost any intro. Of course, you can also show an example of your art, photography, etc.

Why are you here?: One of the most interesting things about new users is how they found out about Steem, what they think about steem and why they joined Steemit. If you don't have a vision about yourself you can describe, how shall others know if that sounds interesting to them.

Use the tag #introduceyourself: If people look for intros, they look there (or hopefully @welcoming) - If your post is not there, way less people will find it!

NO'GOs: begging for upvotes, calls follow-for-follow, referal-links, spam, etc.

If you take some time and create a good intro, it really can be your headstart in the world of STEEM. So don't rush it -> Quality > Speed/Quantity!

And please don't waste my time with ID-theft, plagiarism, etc! I check suspicious intros before voting and resteeming. Thanks to @steemcleaners all the ID-theft introductions I have found (dozens!) have been flagged to 0. So please don't even try ;)

Thank you all for reading. If you have additional ideas, critique or anything else you want to tell me, please feel encouraged to comment :)
Greets,
Martin

P.S.: For all german users - You can check the account @neuvorstellungen - A lot of german introduction posts get resteemed there!