11 things no one will tell you about using the steemit platform !
No doubt, steemit is an amazing platform for the talented people, but there are always two sides of a coin. Steemit can do wonders for those who know how to use it and can also turn out into a complete waste of time and unnecessary struggle for those who don't use their brain while using steemit.
There are some things which you need to keep in mind when you are a STEEMIAN, which will not only help you survive on this platform, but will also help you take home some good dollars. So without wasting any more time, let us begin !!
(P.S - Please read the description of each point carefully before leaving your comments, instead of getting a conclusion just by the headings.)
1. Getting more followers is useless :-
People use steemfollower.com, they follow random people to get follow backs, they ask other to follow them but it is completely useless even if your followers increase. SHOCKED? Well because, on steemit, you don't need to build followers, but you need to build fans !!! Followers are the people who followed you when they liked a post of yours. They will follow and forget. You need those people who are crazy to read your posts, waiting for you to publish the next post, remembering to check your profile every now and then, who will resteem your posts, who want YOUR success, as much as you do. Now that sounds AMAZING. Isn't it?
2. Steemit is NOT a Community !
Now this one is really important. People say and believe it too that you need to build a network to grow on steemit. They say that you should talk to as many people as possible, and be friendly with everyone. They say that you need to communicate with people on discord, comment below their posts, vote others to build a relationship so that others vote back as well. But I have experienced that it is a complete noob strategy !! Yes it is possible to receive votes from 10 people after talking to a hundred. That is possible but instead of speaking to those 100 people, it would be much better if you put your time in providing people with what they want to READ !!! Are you getting it? Are you ?? I just told you the biggest secret !
A popular person can't speak to every fan of his and if you think you can become popular by talking to everybody then get ready because new steemians are joining every day. I wonder how will you talk to everyone.
3. The good and bad of VOTE BEGGING :-
So people here would ask you to vote for vote, follow for follow and such other stuff. The good thing about it is that you can win contests which require you to collect votes. The bad thing about it is that you can increase the number of votes through this method, but CAN NOT increase the amount of dollars. Only minnows will support you by this method who don't have much Steem power and thus, they can't help you earn. Remember, if you deserve something, begging won't help you get it, because beggars only get beggary, not huge dollars. No one ever got rich from begging.
4. What you see is not what is true :-
When we join steemit, we get surprised that there are so many nice people here. Complete strangers commenting on your post makes you feel that this platform will truly acknowledge your talent and efforts BUT !!! The reality is that people here comment not because they like your post, but instead they want you to go to their page and like their posts !! Yes that's how things work here. Everyone is so nice here because they want to get more support and pretend to be REALLY NICE. So if you too want to survive here through - GIVE AND TAKE METHOD, you also got to PRETEND to be nice, but inside you should know, what you see in everyone here, is not what is true.
5. Truths about promotional channels :-
Until and unless you aren't promoting your post every half an hour for the next 6 days, don't promote it at all. IMPOSSIBLE, isn't it? Well that's the bitter truth !!! There is 1% probability that a whale will upvote your post if you are promoting it just twice or thrice. I am trying to be positive here, else the probability can go even below 1%. :P
6. Misconceptions of a Qualitative post :-
You must have been told a hundred times to write QUALITY post, but noone told you what it actually is? Quality can have many definitions, but the real definition SPECIALLY FOR STEEMIT is - length. Until and unless you are a whale, no one is going to vote for your 4 paragraph or 4 line post. It should be as lengthy as possible. People won't read it anyway :p. So just write as much as possible and you will be rewarded with huge upvotes, just because people will scroll down and realize that you have put in some effort right there and you deserve it.
Now some people might think I am wrong here. There are some people who believe the opposite is true. For an example, @trafalgar made another account just to post small posts by the name of @traf. It kinda seems like a twitter trend on steemit when we see the posts there. May be @trafalgar change the whole way steemit works by his new strategy of posting short posts. Here is his post in which he informs whether short length of a post holds more worth then a lengthy post. I believe this might be a different experience by every person now as in my case I have always been rewarded more on a lengthy post instead of a short one.
7. This is not youtube !!
It is a writing platform, we all know this. Putting videos here won't do much good, unless it is d-tube's video. Youtube videos won't grow your traffic here. Unlike facebook, videos don't get played here on their own until you open a post and click on the play button !! So if not through youtube videos, then how does things work here?
Here is the ultimate secret - By your TITLE. The title of your post is the most important thing of your article. It is important than your content, your write up's length, your post's quality, the amount of pictures you put in your post, gif's and any other possible thing. TITLE ONLY IS THE ONE AND ONLY PART OF YOUR POST that can either take your post to the highest level, or drop it down to vanish away in the river of posts.
8. You won't get noticed even if you post daily for next 12 months :-
The biggest lie on steemit is that you will get noticed by a whale some day, so just keep on posting. There are 25,000 active minnows right now and there are about 40 whales in total and all of these are NOT waiting to find an amazing post of a minnow to upvote. Only a few of them are truly dedicated to help minnows grow. So drop this hope that someday, some one will see you. Even if they do, they will upvote you just once. What after that?
So if regular posting is not the way, then what is? Well, the way is to constantly keep amending your ways to get noticed. Posting regularly with no dollars, no views, no votes won't take you anywhere. You will have to try something different time to time. Just posting regularly is waiting for the opportunities to see you, whereas, in reality you will have to go out and create opportunities for yourself. So don't wait to get noticed, use your brains and try experimenting new techniques. Trust me, there CAN BE a million ways. All you need to do is think outside the box.
9. No one is actually interested in reading your content :-
Until and unless they want you to read their's, they won't read yours. No matter how good you write, how awesome your writing skills are, how amazing your message is, how much eye opening content you disclose, no one will actually read it. There are some exceptions, of course, they might be learning to write or interested in your field but they are rare. So what to do?
Bind them !! What matters more then a qualitative post is a post that can generate curiosity. That can tie people to read it until the end, that can pull them to at least go and visit your post.
10. Does Spamming work :-
Some people message their links to random unknown people, some even comment their links below other's post. I wonder from where do they get the idea that it can bring traffic to your profile? Spam won't give you anything except a damaged reputation. I am not talking about the number of your reputation but about your image in front of other steemians. So Spamming is the worst idea ever.
11. This is not how you can increase your steempower :/
Voting on whale's post won't give you much SP (curation rewards), neither will vote for vote give it to you. Voting on the trending posts will also not help you get much SP(curation rewards) as a return. How does steempower shares actually work is altogether a different topic. The simple and foremost way to get more curation rewards is - by upvoting posts in the "NEW" section, which are atleast 30 minutes old, ARE REALLY LENGTHY, fall in the most popular tags, are of newbies with low reputation and WHICH HAVE A POSSIBILTY TO GET MANY HEAVY VOTES FROM WHALES OR @CURIE, after you have already upvoted the post.
So, I am pretty sure you weren't aware about all the above secrets of steemit !! Comment below if you already knew any point, or if you know something else except these points which you think is hidden on the steemit platform.
All pictures were taken from Pixabay or pexels.com.
SHARE it with your friends and followers too if you think they too have a totally wrong idea about steemit or if they had told you something opposite of what I told you above.
What a nice useful post. And ..believe me....I read it all 😃
I like it , hence - resteeming
By the way, did you notice - your today's post was resteemed 28 times in the first 7 hours. Not bad, not bad...
Oh that's an honor that someone read my complete post !! Hehe.
I am glad you found it useful.
Thank you so much for upvoting and resteeming it. Followed you :)
I read it too
It got resteemed about 50 times when I saw last. I am jumping since then. Can't express this joy. Thank you. :D :D
WooHoo!!!
@Tpot has arrived to the party. Thanks to @himshweta for being a community member.
Please keep visiting our discord server.
There are actually 40 whales, 222 orcas and 1231 dolphins as of last statistics
https://steemit.com/statistics/@arcange/steemit-statistics-20171122-en
And to get their vote, you have to compete with the rest of steemit, because there are so many good posts to vote for and we are limited in SP per day.
However, nice post!
Me when joining Steemit
Steemit: Welcome to Steemit! Let me show you where you sit on the food chain!
[Pulls out chart]
Steemit: On top there's whales, then there's orcas, there's the regular fish...
Me: And that's me!
Steemit: No. No. Then there's plankton, then there's single-celled amoebas...
Me: And then me!
Steemit: Nope! Nope! I'm getting there, I'm getting there... Then there's coral, there's rocks, there's whale poo... and then there's you.
Me: That's messed up!
Lolx @locks. I hope this is original coz i want to borrow it. Will give you full credits.
Shark Tale (2004) 😉
lol
Hahahahaha. Hilarious and sad at the same time :p
probably the most hilarious thing i have ever read on steemit.
Most of us are Minnows and much smaller creatures.
The game changes the exact moment, when your vote becomes a valuable asset and you start to actually think on how to use it, to get the most out of it.
Very True .... at about 100 Steem Power when your vote is worth 1 penny. https://steemit.com/steemit/@offgridlife/the-importance-of-your-steem-voting-power
I agree with you.
Yes..
i think I'm a krill.
Thanks for the valuable information. It is more sad to see the whales are far less than I mentioned. I took an approximation of orcas and whales altogether. I edited it.
You can imagine how upset I was when I first found out about that. And even more, when I found out that almost all the SP is given to them. I thought that it is unfair. As a red fish I wanted justice! 😂
Yes I feel the same sometimes.
and... there's me at the bottom playing with the minnows and planktons 😄
It's not to be worried about, we win only if are still in the game.............and we are all still playing ;)
thanks for the link!! i find it quite informative!!!
This post is a must read for minnows! Thanks for sharing your wisdom :D
I am glad you liked it. :)
Brilliant Post! Kudos! for listing all of these Points/Facts!!!
Read it all!!! Word by Word !!! Trust me!!! I really know what you mean to say, here !!!
Observed it all in Reality!!!
Experienced it all to the hardest !!!
Experimented with various ways & methods !!!
Still Learning!!!
I am happy that you liked it and found it useful. Thank you so much for your vote and comment :)
This is an excellent quality post sweetie. In my opinion you have stated the hard facts which will lead to success on the Steemit platform. I have also learnt some of them the hard way in my 4 months journey on steemit and can relate to what u are stating. Upvoted, resteemed and following u as always.
Regards Nainaz
#thealliance
Thank you so much for your continuous support nainaz :)
@himshweta you have explained do's and don't very intelligently. The most funny flaw is about followers. I have witnessed people commenting like.... I have followed u , now u follow me back.What's the point? Its even irritating. Very smartly u have answered all the points which could be asked by a newbie... :)
@himshweta This was one of the best postings to help people especially NOOBs that I have seen in my over a Year on STEEMIT. BRAVO and major KUDOs for even showing me some things that I did not know yet on how to be more successful on STEEMIT..........
That is a very qualitative comment to receive. I am glad to be of some help. Thank you for commenting. I and all your friends would be even more grateful if you share this post with them as well. Thanks again :)
One other point, what worked for you in the past may not work for you in the present. Popularity can wane.....constantly renew yourself, explore knew possibilities, learn new things and methods. I post to myself a lot....hahaha excellent points and I agree 100%
Oh. I wasn't aware of that !! Thank you for such information. I upvoted this comment to help others know this point as well. Though my vote is not of such high value. Hehe :) Thanks a lot.
How do you post to yourself?
I too think develcuy is correct here.
Guess she means she writes stuff like talking to herself. Sometimes, we must tell things to ourselves out loud!
If so, it is a good tip for me. Just write, write, write. :) and the formatting skills will come.