Entering contests on STEEM is one of the best strategies for new bloggers. Most contests are daily or weekly and provide a way to create a standard post you can count on to be seen and maybe voted on. If you win any of the prizes, this is a wonderful bonus.

It’s not easy to start blogging on STEEM. Posting your niche topic to nowhere is not a good plan in the beginning. No one will see, vote, or interact with your post no matter how good it is.

In my minnow tips I tell new bloggers to find contests they can enter and fit their message into the theme. This is not always possible, so those who take my advice and seek contests, end up blossoming into areas they never thought they would even try when they got here.

Writers become photographers. Photographers learn to write. Many people end up learning to create videos who never even thought of that idea before.

I normally enter many contests per week, and win often. I started entering contests in late 2017, and so have the track record and knowledge to know how many people enter and what my chances are to win. I have been winning more often all throughout the 2019, and now with the fork and NewSTEEM I am even winning more.

Most contests are run by little people. Most contests are entered by little people. Few blogs over 10000 sp enter or support them. Many of those little people are inactive or gone now. This post is an effort to save the rest.

After the fork we have:

• Contest “Call for Entry” posts getting much lower payouts
• Contest comment entries no longer getting upvotes due to the lower dust threshold
• Contest post entries getting much lower payouts
• Contest winner announcement posts getting much lower payouts

So lets break that down:

• Contest Call for Entry posts

Call for Entry Posts are not sexy. They are repetitive and often change only for theme and date. But without them, there is no contest and so they are worthy of support.

• Contest comment entries

Most contests ask for a comment on the call for entry post. This is so the entry can be found. Those comments used to get upvotes. Now they do not. But those comments might lead to good posts as you will see below.

• Contest post entries

Some contests ask only for comments, but often a post is required. Going to those posts and voting those you like would be a great boost for any small blogger.

• Contest winner announcement posts

Many contests have separate posts highlighting the winners. This is an easy place to find worthy posts to vote on. And do not forget the announcement post itself. This is a good place to throw some support.

Here are some contests that might interest you in your search to support small fish:

@contestkings daily post

This post features many contests in a variety of categories. Contests that qualify here require:

• no upvote
• no resteem
• no follow

These contests are easy for new people to enter. Contest Kings gives good upvotes to some of the contests on their list each day. Making Contest Kings stronger will help the other contests grow too.

CCC contests

CCC is a program initiated over a year ago by @freedomshift, and unrelated to Creative Coin. These contests are easy to enter for new STEEMers and give great rewards in upvotes, SBI shares and STEEM. The contest runners are all small bloggers and pay these rewards out of their own funds.

Four contests are offered each week:

What Does CCC Mean to Me by @wakeupkitty
What Does Today Mean to Me by @freedomshift
Looking Back Looking Forward by @wakeupkitty
Thursday Favorites by @marblely

Restaurant Review Contests @tasteem

Tasteem.io is a STEEM dApp that offers a new themed contest each day. From that, in come international restaurant reviews of excellent quality. Tasteem has tough guidelines and lot of support to help people when they start.

This is one of the highest paying contests. Most reviews already get $2.50 to $3.50 rewards on them, thanks to tasteem’s high sp and widespread support.

@qurator activity

@qurator is a place with many active users. They have daily posts with author spotlights and contests three times each week:

• tastytuesday
• tossupthursday
• photofriday

@freewritehouse by @mariannewest

This event is held daily. A prompt is given on @mariannewest’s blog. People write for 5 minutes, make a post, and add a comment to her call for entry.

On Tuesdays people recommend their favorite freewrite on a @freewritehouse contest. On Friday, these favorites are spotlighted in another @freewritehouse post.

All of the posts, bloggers, and contests on freewrite can use more support now. This is one of the most helpful places for new people getting started and also one of those hardest hit by NewSTEEM. Almost all of the many votes for these posts are from tiny blogs and so the posts payouts are meager now.

Find Southern California Contests with @socalsteemit

This is great place for people with a Southern California connection. The weekly Show Us Your California” contest is for people to post what they see from this state.

More contests:

Here are many more contests I know of that you might like to support. Go to the blog indicated if you want to see more. I will be going through these in the next weeks to post about them in more detail. Some of these are dead now for lack of participation or because the contest runner is no longer active on STEEM.

fff by @foodfightfriday – really great team here, and excellent entry posts about food.

wednesdaywalk by @tattoodjay not a contest, but randomly awards sbi for the walk you took and documented.

marketfriday by @dswigle Shopping from around the world is featured here.

zapfic by @felt.buzz – write a very short story and win.
micro-fiction contest by @jayna this is tied in with the Monday freewrite prompt. - I think this one is not active now

fruitsandveggiesmonday by @vegansofsteemit. Your vegan post can be a winner here.

@steemexplorers – runs several daily contests.

@rentmoney is always running very interesting contests.

The Engagement League of @abh12345 is a good place to learn how to curate and engage and meet other great steemers. Lots of winners each week. Drop a comment that you want in, and you are in! Good place to learn how others curate too. Excellent place to add some sponsorship as well.

@self-track is the contest blog for @revisesociology with many good contests each week.

@coingecko runs occasional contests for sp delegation. I love these guys, use their awesome site for coin research, and enter their contests when I can. This is a leading coin reporting service in SE Asia, became a witness, and is finding little support on their STEEM posts, so they are doing fewer of them now.

@pifc runs the Pay it Forward contest and Pimp Your Post. Both are great places to find good posts.

@improv runs Punday Monday

@whatisnew - Thursday Butterfly Day

@deemarshall - Many Artstorm contests for the artists among us.

dpoll.xyz is a STEEM dApp for polling. Polling is hot on the internet now. Many contests are offered on dpolls daily. They manually curate and have a trail you can follow.

@steembasicincome posts a roundup post for current contests offering SBI shares as prizes a couple of times a week. SBI offers some of the best and most reliable votes little people get on STEEM, and so these contests are a big help.

@derangedcontests is running daily photos contests on various themes.

In Conclusion

I am writing this post due to the very hard time I have been having watching our middle and lowers classes flee STEEM recently. As I mentioned above, I am winning all kinds of contests I would not ever have a chance in before. This is because few others are entering. Here are two recent example of my wins.

I won a power up of 530 SP in a Twitter Meme contest by @theycallmedan with this effort:

I believe in the changes of NewSTEEM and I am working as hard as I can to help other small bloggers see the potential instead of running out the door.

And his poster won me 50 STEEM from @whatsup in his contest to highlight STEEM without talking about the chance to make money here:

I can’t see this poster without thinking our STEEM patient needs some help.

That those two posters won contests, tells you our graphic artists are gone. I would have had no chance in either one of these contests a year ago.

You are tagged in this post because you are a @curangel curator. I hope you can find good posts in these places.

@zekepickleman
@the01crow
@galenkp
@anggreklestari
@minismallholding
@nikv
@manishmike10
@aaronleang
@samic
@m31
@ritch
@milosm
@tarazkp
@themanualbot
@ritxi
@celestal
@isarmoewe
@jasonrussell

You are tagged because you recently upvoted one of my comments of a similar nature on a post by @ura-soul. I hope you might be interested in some of these places to cast your votes now.

@oracle-d
@majes.tytyty
@threespeak
@dapplovers
@top-exchanges
@mydogzeus
@starkerz
@steevc
@ayjoe

This post is one of a series. Please let me know and I will remove your tag for future. Or let me know, and I will add your tag to the next posts I make for this topic.

NOTE:

I am struggling to post on STEEM at all right now. Something sucked my metered wifi dry and I will not have new gigs to post much or engage with until Friday midnight. Everything I do on the internet is severely curtailed right now. I will be checking notifications on the weekend.