Steemit Life: Trying a Little Bit too Hard... at the Wrong Things?

Whereas I can totally appreciate that most of us are here because it's a swell deal that we can "get rewarded" for creating content, there's also a point at which writing for rewards overtakes the creation of content anybody actually wants to read to such a point that everything becomes a monotonous and boring landscape of word soup.

Maybe that's a harsh indictment, but I was reading @jaynie's recent post (poignant and worth a read) and I got to thinking about some of the challenges we have around this community as we go forth into 2024.

For starters, where are the new users going to come from?

The thing about just continuing to do things "the way we've always done them" is that it is not a great way to build a community because everything tends to become a little bit stagnant. And when things are stagnant we might be able to still congratulate ourselves because we get a few Steem tokens every now and then, but we don't look very appealing to the outside world.

And here's the thing, when we don't look very appealing to the outside world it becomes extraordinarily difficult for the community to grow and thrive, no matter what the price of crypto might do.

Consider that the reason most people join a community is because that community seems dynamic and thriving, not because it is stagnant and going sideways.

Trust me on this one! I've been in the blogosphere for 25 years.

Of course it's easy to default to saying "well, this is a decentralized community and everybody gets to do whatever they want."

Well that may be true, but keep in mind that whatever actions you take and whatever you put out there ultimately becomes part of the greater public image of Steemit! As such, what you're putting out there is a bit like a shop... you want your front window to look nice because when your front window looks nice new customers come in!

And when new customers come in, you are not only more likely to "make a sale," but you also have a chance to gain a new "patron" for the long term, and ultimately you end up with more money in your pocket, right?

Consider this: if you were at the newsstand and browsing through magazines would you want to pick up a magazine that basically was the same story about somebody walking their dog along the same street every day? Probably not! You'd want something interesting, informative and varied!

Steemit as a Giant Magazine!

Perhaps it would serve us all well to think of Steemit as a giant magazine, and we're all the journalists who each contribute articles to that magazine.

Whereas our many challenges and contests are certainly a good way for newcomers to get established until they get their feet under them, the same content over and over and over again becomes pretty boring pretty quickly!

Once you've participated the first hundred times, I think it's time to be brave and branch out and create something from your own mind rather than just repeating slight variations of the same thing over and over.

Besides? There are ways to make similar content look different and to keep it fresh looking.

For starters, contest and challenge organizers could modify their participation rules very slightly by removing the requirement of tags from titles. They're meaningless in titles, anyway because putting the tag sign in front of a word in a title doesn't turn it into a link anyway!

Instead, make the format such that there is one short paragraph introducing the post, and then after you've written that introductory paragraph have a short paragraph that states that you are in the contest and add the contest tags there.

That way, the thumbnail image and the first few lines we see would actually be about your content, not about the contest. But you would still be part of the contest, and because the tags used in the second paragraph are now live they would actually help with content discovery!

That's just one simple thing we could do to make Steemit content look more appealing.

Part of the challenge we face here, is that a lot of people are trying a little too hard to follow a set formula in order to maximize their rewards when, in fact, often the best way to maximize your rewards is to be original and entertaining with your content and create something well assembled and colorful!

I realize that many people here are not experienced writers and for quite a few this is their first blogging experience. But part of the blogging experience is also that practice makes perfect! And practicing often involves trying different things until you get it right.

As my seventh year here on Steemit comes to an end, I am hoping that our community will keep going for many many years. But I also believe @jaynie is right: we can do better!

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful remainder of your week!

How about you? Do you feel like we could do better on Steemit, content wise? Would you like to see the community grow and thrive? What do YOU think we can do better? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2024.01.10 23:36 PST
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