Don't Spam On Steemit, Seriously, You Are Only Doing Yourself A Disservice
Spam. I get it. You want to get people to see your shit and posting it as much as possible, logically, is a method of getting people to see it. Especially in a world when some times are better to post than others and trying as many different times will not only help get you views but also get different people to see it. However that is the old way of thinking. One that may be a viable strategy on other sites (not a great one, you can really alienate people) but one that can get you views. But on steemit, views are second to upvotes and spam will rarely get you upvotes.
When you are running ads or trying to sell something, it all comes down to views. This leads to people reposting the same message and posting links to the same message. And again, I get it. Sometimes you work really hard on a video or a piece of content and get frustrated when no one sees it. It is a fine line to promote something without 'over selling it'. I personally hate it, promoting sucks but in this climate it is something you have to do. But repeating the same old same old is not the way to go on this site.
Steemit works by dividing out the rewards of the week to the users. The more upvotes you get (by users with mid/high SP) the more your post is worth. And I doubt anybody with a lot of voting power is going to upvote your spam. These are people who are literally invested in this site. Maybe they worked hard and earned steem or took the risk to invest their own money. Maybe they got lucky. But whatever the reason they have their steem they want to see it increase in value. They also want to see the site steemit increase as well. That means it is in their favour and everyone else using the system to have quality content on here. Which means crap and spam and going to get ignored or worse, flagged.
My advice? Learn to write and work on multiple posts. When I started to write and submit work, I learned that a lot of magazines didn't take simultaneous submissions, which means when you send one story you have to wait for a response before you can send it again. So I learned to forget about it and work on another story. This can feel like an uphill battle but when you learn to write and write and write, even during slow progress, you will become a better writer. Working to constantly bring new content to your blog is a lot of work but it is a way to improve in your work.
Any other tips for steemit? Let me know in the comments.
*my upvotes/rep disclaimer: https://steemit.com/steemit/@whatageek/my-steemit-account-where-i-stand-on-bots-self-votes-and-multiple-account
What I don't like is the message "I upvoted and followed you, follow back please". I'm sorry, I'm just not going to follow you for that simple reason. I follow people who post content I find interesting.
I understand wanting to post more to gain more, but you're right. Quality is way more important.
It is frustrating though, to hardly get upvotes for a post you've worked hard on and feel is more valuable than an easier/simpler post you've gained much more on, but that's the game here!
Oh yeah, a classic. I can't see it working too well, but people still try it.
You have to find a balance. You can't spend your day on a post, but you don't want to repost the same thing over and over.
Yeah I feel you on that one. And you have a great attitude, "that's the game here", it is how it works, don't complain about it, work with it and try to change/improve it as you go.
Ha, I feel your pain!
It is kind of a crap shoot... Seeing posts that I've worked on for many hours get trivial payouts... There seems to be no rhyme or reason at times. But I guess I'll just keep Steeming on. :) Overall, it has been a good experience, I have a need to write, and I haven't done too badly here... Much better than being a "lone blogger." :) ;)
😄😇😄
Exactly! We could also not be on Steemit and just not earn anything ;-)
It is frustrating and I guess it's all about timing, which you can't really predict. If you happen to press that 'Post' button, right before 10 other people do aswell, you'll hardly get any first exposure. People following the money will therefor more easily skip over your post when scrolling through their feed and well... that's it for your nice payout!
We'll just keep posting and hope to get noticed. I can't complain too much either! I've done pretty well for the time I've been here (4,5 months). The payouts are just very random!
Maybe we can get a more structured system when we start the gaming community :).
Aye! That would be nice.
I'm trying to figure out why my latest GW2 post is not making as much as my other gaming posts, while it contains much more information. Besides randomness, my theory is that my other gaming posts are in story format. They are enjoyable for non-gamers aswell, so they appeal to the wider, general public. I think in an actual gaming community, it would be better received, because there, people will actually understand what the heck I'm talking about ;-)
It will be an interesting development, those communities. Can't wait to see how they'll work!
I would not try to analyze it, it might make you crazy :p
We can be smart about it, work together to support people and posts, maybe try to support one post for each person a day. Whatever optimizes it.
Yeah! I'm trying to support gaming posts now aswell. I obviously miss enough, but I try to upvote all of those that I see (and atleast contain some quality). The difference with communities is that we wouldn't have to pick out gamer members ourselves, they'll gather in one community :-)
Exactly and we can figure out the best ways to grow and work as a team.
Yep. Persistence! :) :D
Thanks for interacting! :D
Yes I get a lot of those. I do though remember my desperate beginnings! :(
I know, everyone has to start somehow. I wouldn't beg for followers myself though, because I know if the tables would be turned, I would definitely not follow the person asking. I guess my tactic was to specifically not ask ;-)
I kind of liked the 4 post in 24 hours rule, but I also see letting people go without it and seeing how that does. I personally stick with it though, there is no need really for that many posts. At least not in Steemit's current form and userbase, if that is way bigger and the site displays differently with more people sticking in certain categories, even then no one needs to post too much lol.
All bots are spam to me even when they auto vote my posts up, I wish they were all off.
Personally I liked they got rid of the 4 post limit. The less restrictions for users the better. There are days when you do two or three posts the night before and are stuck in the morning. Plus people who spam could still spam, they just get less rewards. Though I do see your point, maybe we can limit posts to once an hour (as long as edits and comments don't effect it and we have on redo a day just in case).
I also see your point with bots. I'm not going to be a hypocrite, I do use them as they are a part of the system. But if we all agreed to get rid of them I can see that, maybe, being better for the system overall.
The rule of four posts per day was great against spam. You knew very well that removing it would have been much more spam!
i am going with the max 4 posts per day... Thought there are days where i have made only 1 post, or none... Definitely spamming is not an option...
Those days happen, you know, real life :p
Thats it! hehe...
Great read. And lots of valid points.
Great Post and i agree in this i wish steemit had something to report spam.
or is there such a thing?
I'm here to read good content and this is good content!
Keep up the good work
There are flags but that is another problem steemit is still figuring out. It is useful, for people with a lot of SP, to take down spam but it can frustrate new users who see they are going to make money for a post and then lose it to a flag.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I agree with your points. I try to make every post unique but on message consistent with my brand. These days I even try to stay within a theme or two. My theory is that this will give me plenty of options to explore while hopefully not annoying people too much.
Good plans, yeah having a niche or two does help with you brand. Though I saw if you want to post about something different go for. I am not a brand! :p There are also a lot of posting you can do for a topic. I like gaming, that can be reviews, personal stories, fanart, esports, streams, retro, making howto videos, it goes on and on.
You've read my thoughts! I've wrote my own post about it and in comments your post was recommended!:)
Thanks for this post @whatageek. It's beginning to ANNOY me a LOT! If you did not have written something about it, I probably would have done it myself. I might even do it anyway!
I upvoted and resteemed!
Write one too if you want :). The problem is we only have new/hot/trending/promoted for filtration at the moment. Maybe they will improve hat in the near future and more quality posts can get views
I think that's what the problem is now. We're gaining a lot of new members, which results in a lot of new posts. It's getting harder and harder to filter out the good from the bad/spammy. We can use the tags to filter, but I'm not sure how many people actively do this. I think I might try to make a routine out of it.
Yeah we really need to improve filtration, especially as we grow.
Thank you for this tip... yes quality is very important to any platform. This is a helpful reminder especially to new users like me in steemit.
Yeah, especially for people on the outside, people do not want to go to a site with spam.
Good post man.
I have seen quite a bit of spam on here but maybe it's because it's a new concept to a lot of people just joining.
I think in time it will calm down but people are just excited that they can earn money from Steemit.
Time will tell I suppose
Following you :)
I think so too. There are so many new people joining now. They need to find what works and what doesn't. However, if they all stay (and we're all hoping so), our feeds will just keep getting more clogged. We need to learn to use tags as filters more if we don't want to miss anything from our fields of interest.
This site is going to need better filtration sooner or later.
Yes, or at the very least make it easier to do. From what information all apps can gather, I think it might mainly be a UI thing, though I'm not completely sure how much can readily be done with tags.
Yeah I think when they see it doesn't work that that might slow it down. Why waste your time? Thank you for the follow.