A thumb rule for steemit minnows - 50:100:200:25

in #steemit7 years ago (edited)

The first few days on Steemit can be both exciting and frustrating. You get excited knowing about platform and its potential. You start blogging hoping to become the next whale. You don't see the response you were expecting on your posts.

You wait, you get restless and then you get frustrated.

Most of the minnows will fall into this category unless they are hugely talented or very lucky. If you are both then you are already a whale and you know what you need to do ;) But to most of the minnows out there or new steemians I would suggest a simple thumb rule that keeps you afloat.

50:100:200:25

rule_of_thumb.jpg

This rule can be explained as follows.

Follow at-least 50 interesting people

Any social network is only as interesting as your feed. As first step head to https://steemit.com/trending and follow 50 interesting people. If you want to speed up this process follow an interesting person and then checkout the people they are following. For example if you find me interesting you can find the people I am following on https://steemit.com/@steemladder/followed Follow people who have common interests as you. Once you do this you will observe that your feed becomes interesting https://steemit.com/@steemladder/feed and you would enjoy spending time on steemit if you are not into writing posts or earning from them.

Comment on at-least 100 posts

Once your feed has become interesting indulge yourself in reading the interesting posts. Even if you are not into writing you can leave a couple of lines as comments on the interesting posts adding your opinion. This will make the author happy that people are engaging on his articles and if your comment is insightful they might follow you as well. I have followed a lot of people based on their comments. Kindly refrain from comments like "I will follow you, you follow me". This is not beneficial to either of you in the long run and will generally put off people.

Upvote at-least 200 posts

Keep visiting https://steemit.com/created and upvote interesting posts. This will make sure that minnows like you don't feel the same as you felt when you were a newbie. I would suggest splitting 100 votes on new posts and 100 by the posts from your feed. If you cross this number early don't let it stop you. Keep upvoting good content in their early stages. It is this curation that will make steemit a better platform.

Write atleast 25 posts

If you think that you are a good writer. Write atleast 25 good posts before giving up on steemit. This is the target I am keeping for myself and I hope I would have had a decent number of followers by the time I finish my 25th post. Remember to write posts because you like to write and help people and not with the sole intention of rewards. If you write with the sole intention of earning rewards there is a chance that you might feel bad when things don't work out, wheras if you write because you love to write you are already content and rewards are only an additional bonus.

Happy steeming. Are you a whale, dolphin or a minnow. Do let me know in comments if these suggestions make sense to you.


Some readers asked if all of the above should be done at once. That is not suggested and you cannot do it if you are a newbie as there are bandwidth limitations as mentioned by @nikv in this comment. You can follow a more moderate approach mentioned by @creativesensei in this comment.


Recommended Reading

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Nice tips. Some more:
Something that you aren't including in your calculation is bandwidth. Your bandwidth is limited and grows as your SP grows. The more you comment, follow or resteem, the more you eat into bandwidth, which is a good thing, as it limits spammy behaviour. I have followed new people who looked interesting but then had to unfollow them as they clogged my feed with endless posts, memes and resteeems. Don't do it. Check your available bandwidth and voting power at steemd.com
Post once or twice a day and limit your resteems. Make it count.
Vote 10 times a day at most.
Don't go and link your post in the comments on other people's posts, it's annoying and guaranteed to get you ignored. You may get away with it if your post is related but you can earn yourself a flag doing shit like that too often.

People with voting power will upvote your comments and it will earn you something, if they consider your comments interesting. Have the manners to upvote a post before you comment: even if it's not worth much, it is appreciated. Minnow votes, views and meaningful comments are every bit as valuable as the $$ votes that the bigger fish can give. Commenting everywhere in the hope of earning a bit but never upvoting the posts that you comment will get you a nuisance tag in many people's minds.
From the incomparable @meesterboom:

@nikv. This is excellent advice to merge into the blog above. Pity I came across it too late vor my vote to be worth anything to you, otherwise it would have been a big upvote. Please consider re-writing this comment as a full blog.

If I wrote it as a full post, it would simply disappear, unless I spent a lot of time linking it as @steemladder has, so this particular comment does the most good here, I think. Thank you for the offer, though. If you still want to upvote this you could always just upvote this comment, it will still pay out

Upvoted $28

Wow! Much appreciated, thank you

thanks for your help too @nikv... At one point, I know I would have accidentally commented and not upvoted on someone's post, not realizing how annoying/detrimental that is. Good looking out. and for the record, I am trying to be a merman lol those exist on steemit right?

Why a merman? One other bit of advice, don't vote on posts that are more than 7 days old. The payout window has closed and you are just wasting your vote

Thanks for the heads up. I've been wasting my vote a lot. Slow learner but I'll get the hang of it. As for the merman just something exotic amongst the crowded sea of minos and whales

wow. So much good advice in here! Ive watched about 10 YouTube videos and read a dozen articles and never got anything like I'm reading in these comments

I still don't get it lol

@nikv Please do enlighten me with your advice. i am new to this community. how can i message you and ask for guidance? Thank you and God bless

I don't always have time to answer messages so I recommend that you join steem.chat, there are many people there who can give good advice

thanks for the tips. Am new here and I believe this will be helpful

I don't understand anything about this shit hahahaha.

Thanks for the inputs @nikv. Those are some great inputs for those who have joined the platform recently. I have updated my post about the bandwidth restrictions.

steemladder, just took your advice and followed you. Thanks for the tips!!!

Good guys, thank you so much @steemladder @nikv

As a newbie thank you. It's taking a moment to understand the protocol.

the only thing I don't understand is why there is no delete account option in this steemit........ Am nor a quitter buh steemit is wasting my energy.........

this deserve to get a higher upvote. thank you for explaining this important piece.

I have been wondering about bandwidth, resteems, how much to upvote etc and this comment has clarified things for me. Thanks you so much. It seems that quality and not quantity is the key. I have limited time to spend on steemit and so I must try to make what I do count.

You are on the right track! One other word of advice, now that this post is old: don't upvote posts that are older than 7 days, they no longer pay out anything and it would be better to save your votes for something you can get curation rewards on. This is most important for you to grow as a minnow.
And, don't vote on the trending page, vote on things that you like and build relationships with the people whose work you like

Ah, great, thanks for the steer)) I am learning all the time.

hhahahahaha.

you are a great resource, @nikv ! never even thought about bandwidth, and I like the limits youve implemented.

Steemit can be tricky to negotiate in the beginning and bandwidth and voting power are more arcane, but important features to know about

This alone made my day
I will kindly follow the rules it'gives me a better understanding about steemit
Thank you

Thank you for this input. I am a fresh minnow and any advice is wonderful. I wish I had done my due diligence and not used up all my voting power my first day. My percentage dropped below 60%. Yikes! Now I have another 29 hours to go before it’s full again. How many resteems should I limit myself to?

Everyone makes that mistake until they read the Steemit FAQ, so don't feel alone.

One or two resteems a day is ok. Consider that if you resteem too much, your followers are not going to be able to notice your posts in among all the resteems so you are shooting yourself in the foot by resteeming a lot.

Alright. That makes sense. Thanks again for taking the time to help out, it is much appreciated!

It's really exciting to be a part of this community at such an early stage! I look forward to helping us grow into a spam-free, awesome community.

Be the change you want to see ;)

Thanks for the etiquette lesson; It's very helpful for this little minnow!

Interesting advice, thank you. I think I have to learn a lot about steemit.

Hey nikv thanks very much for the advice. Luckily I have been upvoting before commenting so I got that part right.
i used to write a lot and normally have a lot to say but have lost my mojo recently, I think stem may rekindle that.
Anyway thanks again.

Good luck with getting your mojo back, I also used to write more and Steemit has been good for me. Most of all, just post something you enjoy creating and don't stress about your audience. Enter some of the many contests here on Steemit. Not for what you may or may not win, but to get exposure and inspiration

Thanks so much. This clarified things even more.

thaks for the advice @nikv

Thank you @nikv and @steemladder. This is my first day on Steemit! It felt like forever waiting to be approved (well only 3 days) but so happy to finally have access now. Posts like this are so helpful to newbies like me, and I will follow you both, as you really seem to know how things work. Cheers.

Nice,I will follow you, can you follow me?

Thanks for the insight @nikv . now I know why I get 'bandwidth' error issue.

Thank you for this. Its a great help for us newbies here in steemit. God bless!!!

Nice info...

Nice,I will follow you, can you follow me?

como pez pequeño les agradezco las sugerencias, y como a mi me encanta escribir ya yo soy una ballena lo que llega es por añadidura solo me encantaría comenzar con el feedback del que tanto hablan que se llegara por que todo los días escribo un post espero que los lean y que sean de su agrado mucho de ellos son experiencias y anécdotas personales pero que encierran un lindo mensaje nos vemos en el camino

Probá usando signos de puntuación, ayudan mucho a la lectura. 75 palabras y una sola coma man.

Excptional complement to the post!
Do you know of any post, person or page where I can keep lerning more of such things? i have serious doubts about how curation works.

Start with the FAQ in your Steemit menu. There are good explanations listed in there

ezgif.com-resize.gif

Tnx for the super rapid answer dude, You rock <2+1

hahaha sry if I make U umconfortable, I just call dude to everyone (also i spanish I call everyone "Guacha" wich is a female adjective) is just my way to express love <2+1
Anyway, you rock lady dude :)

I see ;)

I'll take a look at them, tanks :)

thank you for the help !!! i'm really looking forward to being part of the Steemit community.

Thank you very much

@djxflow (26) Careful..... if you like a post but have nothing useful to add, then an upvote is generally sufficient.

That's why it takes time for the app to load infos..How do we know what's our bandwidth limit?

How much bandwidth you have depends on how busy the site is at the time and is allocated proportionately to your SP. Check on https://steemd.com/@[your username]

thank you, i am new on this, it helped. will do

Now THAT is worth an upvote... as a newbie myself here, I've (inadvertently) almost committed several of the sins you mentioned... in fact I didn't know that I LOST steem power when upvoting, and went way over the 10/day limit within my first few minutes, thinking I was actually just being a good Samaritan.

hahaha... that's what they call "school fees" I guess.

Ok... so I can't upvote your comment???? The little spinny disc timer thing just keeps spinning?!?

... is there anywhere I can see how many upvotes I've used up today, without going to somewhere like steemd and checking manually?

P.S. Sorry for splitting questions up into 3... they came to me after I'd posted each one :p

P.P.S. I see you're from SA... Hi there from Pretoria.

General rule of thumb for newbies is 10 in a 24-hour period. If you have more SP you are able to split your votes. each vote depletes VP by 2%. VP regenerates hourly, I forget by how much but it takes 24hrs to regenerate from 80% to 100% which is 10 votes. Everyone makes that mistake in the beginning

Hello from Jozi :)

Yeah, thanks... learned that lesson already :-)

P.S. Is there anywhere I can see how many upvotes I've already given out in the last 24 hours (other than manually scanning through data on sites like steemd?)

Don't vote on posts older than 7 days, the payout period has passed

... even if it's a really good comment/post, and I'm just feeling generous?
Don't authors (posts and comments) still get $ up until 30 days after?

You can find recent posts by the author and upvote those posts. Or if you find any comments by the author in the post that are recent you can upvote those comments.

No, they don't get paid after 7 days. If you vote, you are just wasting it

this actually made me lol

sorry to bother but I'm fairly new and have been trying to read up on steemit do's and don'ts but would you happen to know a link where I could read about "voting power" I drop in numbers and climb back up a bit. I believe it's from liking people post. Am I wrong? Thanks in adnvance :)

Wow, thanks for taking the time to help. I really appreciate it :)

This is also a nice information.. Thanks

@estherekanem (36) Be careful. Your comments look spammy

I had no idea people would see comments as a nuisance, I personally get so excited when anyone leaves a comment. I sincerely enjoy engaging in conversation and I'm flattered when anyone tries to engage in one with me. It's good to know even though my vote is worthless, my comment is actually considered an annoyance without it. Thank you for the additional tips they're very much appreciated!

When you have been here a while and your vote is worth something, you will quickly see that some people will comment on all of your posts but they only comment in the hope that you will upvote them a few cents. They don't extend the same courtesy to you as poster and if you stop rewarding them, they move on swiftly. These are the nuisance commenters that I'm referring to. I won't even start on the automated spam commenters

Nice,I will follow you, can you follow me?

I'm a newbie to ICO's, newbie to s.m only this year and this is exactly the type of comment you do not want to see posted. It's off putting and spam!

Thanks for your advice,I will follow you, can you follow me?

As a newbie I have tried to increase my posts per day. I hope to become more well known ☺️, but this article is very helpful. It shows me how engaging in comments and the community will equally bring people in the community to you. I will try all the recommendations mentioned in this post.

Bandwidth consideration is a very important point you pointed our. As a minnow one shouldn't get carried away. Be conservative of the resources.

A good addition to what has been said! ^

On my first day of posting and to read advice like this is just brilliant - and the cartoon - thank you so much - my intro video is here https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@queen-maeve-v2/cyr15j55 looking foward to learning more about you and the Steemit Community, Cheers, C :)

thank you for this wise counsel. At first I thought, no need to give upvote if we are a newbie and can only comment. I was wrong. Giving upvote turned out to be a tribute. From now on, I will continue to listen to your advice.

Thank you this helped!

Wow! what an elaborate and excellent reply. As a new person here, I appreciate these tips

i'm a newbie and i really find it hard how to do blogging. thank you for the tips!! :D

very helpful thanks

this has answered so many questions that i had about steemit as a newbie i found this really helpfull, thank you for the post :)

Thanks @nikv for the comment. As I am very new, it will take time for me to understand the jargons and the concepts. I am bookmarking this post for future references. A great post and a great comment. Thanks once again

Just joined this morning, I'm so lucky to have come about this post, really helpful. Thank you

you seem as an experienced guy ,keep it up dear

I will follow your advice as well.
Am new in this platform...so still learning 😊

Thanks for the advice. Am new here and i think am fortunate enough to have read this from start.

Very well said! Ive read every word.. :) Il try my very best to keep up with this

your comment is nice sister.

@nikv
You are right,But tell me that what is the role of SP For makes follower.

Wow,
Now i understand the true meaning of bn a newbie;
Your interjections, your use of words, craftiness and that GIF, mehn!
You deserve a million followership.

It's obvious to know am a learner... lol

I am very thankful for this post. It helped me a lot. thank you.

@nikv did not know about bandwidth. Really helpful.

Hi @nikv! Thank you for your additions to this post. This sort of insight is very helpful for a newbie like me. I'm now following you too!

Muy buen consejo lo tomare en cuenta, ya que soy nueva en esta comunidad y espero aprender cada dia mas.

Hey @nikv. Thank you for the tips. I may not understand 100% yet. But I will follow those rules from the @steemladder and the tips from you @nikv especially the basic things every steemian must do.

Thank you & all the best.
SsJd.gif

Why are every interesting replies written a year or two?

For example, I am eager to reply, but don't trust in this to hear anything about this.
So, thank you very much if someone should read it.

Then I have a problem with the original post.
I'm a newbie, but I am going to let go of my twitter accounts. They send me far too many notifications.
And it's because I thought that I needed to follow a lot of people in there.

The result is that I'm always fed up with the general posts there.
And it really stops me to post anything interesting.

That's why I am extremely careful in keeping my wall interesting to me.

Steemit has the tens of walls with different topics.
That's ingenious to have, and I wish all the social media platforms would adopt it.

To the Steemit whales, witnesses and support team, would you consider a #hashtag option in the topics options wall?

Posted using Partiko Android

Thank you so much for this. I've really been frustrated with no clue what to do. I need to figure out idea's on what posts I could even do. I'm disabled and am in a bed 24/7 so I don't have many interesting stories or information to share. At least I can comment though on others posts like I would Facebook and make friends here :)

Sharing your experiences and how you overcome your challenges can be a great source of inspiration for your readers. I just gave you a 100% upvote. Keep your stories coming.

Nice,I will follow you, can you follow me?

Good tips! I'm using one of them as I write this. To add, just stay positive and persistent and aim high.

Here is an up vote for following the tip right away.

Nice,I will follow you, can you follow me?

I was really frustrated when I first joined this platform. I still don't have much knowledge of it and just heard steemit in our class. I joined steemit last year december. Since, I posted my first blog (not knowing that I should introduce my self first) I am disappointed and was like giving up on steemit. Then this january, I decided to be back and try it again. I also did followed people who are interesting and who shared the same passion as I am and I am glad that my hard work is paying off slowly. I also, did read some interesting blogs just like you said and comment something about it. It really help me to interact a lot of people and it also help me to let other steemit people know that I also have something worth to share and worth to read. 😊
I still have a long way to go but thanks for this. Happy steeming!

Thanks for sharing your experience. Unlike other blogging platforms Steem takes some learning and unlearning. So it is better to spend the first few days on Steemit getting to know the platform better and read the posts by Steem veterans.

The key differentiator for Steem platform is its interaction. For a minnow it is difficult to get interaction on his posts initially as he still doesn't have the visibility. So it is suggested to interact on the posts of other writers first and once you get a decent following and visibility it makes more sense to invest time in writing your own posts if you are thinking from the renumeration perspective.

If you are not worried about the rewards you can always do what you love best :)

hola! I like your post! Thanks for it! lets make stemit togheter to a better place with our content! I would like to read a bit more about you and maybe do you have some more pictures?
I also just wrote a introduceyourself. maybe you upvote me and follow me aswell as I do? https://busy.org/introduceyourself/@mykarma/first-post-or-should-i-talk-about-jail

hi, just a reminder [Kindly refrain from comments like "I will follow you, you follow me". ]

I will follow you, you follow me

Da, da, da... LOL! ;-)

Aha, aha, aha
Aha
Aha
Aha

What you do and what you don't, aha
What you will and what you won't, aha
What you can and what you can't, aha
This is what you got to know
Loved you though it didn't show

Nice,I will follow you, can you follow me?

Nice,I will follow you, can you follow me?

Don't comment too fast the articles ;)

Nice,I will follow you, can you follow me?

yo tampoco me presente despues que publique mi 3 blog fue que me entere que tenia que presentarme jajajaja pero como lo que me gusta es escribir en realidad no me preocupo todo llega

Nice,I will follow you, can you follow me?

Hey thanks so much for commenting on my first post, still going through this information, and still probably not absorbing it all. However, this is a really effective way of getting people involved on a day 1 level. It is much appreciated because like many of these folks, I had no idea about most of this information. All in all, thanks for the support and you literally are a ladder helping the uninitiated climb the steemit heights! Keep it going :)

Great tips. I've been here almost a month. Am I considered a newbie or a minnow?

As a rule of thumb I like rule of thumbs, and this seems like an easy one to follow.

Some good tips there. I also just wrote bout success on steemit. Stick with it, the 25 posts is a great idea.

I've been on STEEMIT 3 weeks now and I think this article really is very helpful. Thanks so much @steemladder

That is really nice advice for the newbies. Upvoting on 100 posts in one day or in how many days? You haven't specified that.

Making a good quality and relevant comment is really necessary. In earlier periods, my earnings from comments were more than that of my post.

Following other authors is required but try to follow them whose posting matches your niches so that you can make good comments.

Last but not the least, making a quality post is a first and foremost prerequisite.

Have a nice time there.

In this context, I think my latest post might be helpful for newbies.
Tips: How to give a fractional upvote when your SP is below 500?

I believe he proposes a target to aim to at your own pace. I am starting to focus on this as follows:
0.- browse a topic of interest and choose 10-20 articles to read. If you like them, you can start upvoting/commenting.
1.- look at the authors profile and see if you like several of their articles. If so, then follow them.
2.- Look at the profiles of authors of interesting comments in the above articles and repeat step 1.
with this alone you will get more than 10 people to follow and a feed of interesting articles to upvote and comment on, and discover more people as @steemladder suggests.
Repeat as needed

hope this helps

thank you for expanding on how to set a pace! I was concerned about getting everything done ASAP :) I like the suggestion of seeking out interesting commenters as well. will definitely be implementing that.

Thanks for clarifying this. Your little algorithm right there was what we follow and we suggest to others. Nice work putting it up in an organized way.

[reminder to self] - keep this post handy and follow the algorithm!

Tips are always appreciated.

Wow! I love this. Thanks, @hafiz34.