Why do you have followers if they don't follow you?
This is not a rant, but today's post is a little different than my usual posts. This is a question that has been baffling me for the last few weeks and I have been wondering if it bothers anyone else.
There are plenty of users that has been here from the very beginning when the steemit platform opened. We had great times, and we literally didn't sleep for days, because we were scared to miss something. We communicated with each other and life was good, we made new friends, and the whole atmosphere on the platform was just totally different.
It was not about the money. We literally came for the rewards and we stayed for the community.
We communicated through comments. We didn't have discord, and steemit chat was just a place to promote posts. The main point I'm trying to make is that we got to know each other and it was fun.
Steemit is no fun anymore. Steemit is now just like any other business. Steemit is now about money.
IF I followed someone then it meant that I enjoyed the person's writing, or that person made an impression on me. I made a point of going to my followers posts on a weekly basis, and made sure that I read and voted all their posts.
I still do that weekly. I've even set up an account on steemdunk to make sure that I don't miss out on voting their posts, if I am unable to.
Then resteeming came into the picture. It was even more difficult now. It takes time to work through my feed, because the feed is just too flooded with posts that I could hardly see my friend's posts anymore. But, change is good and we got used to it. I had to unfollow some people because they just resteemed too many posts, but that is just unfortunate.
Then hard-fork 19 happened. For many it was a very joyous occasion, and for older members too. We suddenly started earning more on our posts, and the new users did not have to struggle like we did to build their reputation and to make a few cents. Yes, for nearly a year I did not make money on steemit!
We all jumped in to make the new users or minnows, feel welcome and we supported them. It took time to get used to the fact that we now had less votes per day, and we had to adjust our percentage voting so that we could still support our friends, and the new users.
We all survived that ordeal, and then things changed.
Users came flooding into the platform, and plenty of us just got lost. If you did not have plenty of SP to start some kind of business or to support more minnows, then you just disappeared into this network of people that flooded our feeds.
Don't get me wrong. The point that I'm trying to make is not about money, because to me steemit was more than just the money. It still is. I've made life long friends here on this platform, and I still need the money to support my son on university, but what about the followers?
I recently hit 3500 followers. If I am lucky, I get between 100 and 200 votes per day. What about the rest? Are they just dead followers? Have they left the platform or just disappeared into thin air?
Many of us have been here for more than two years. We did our part. We brought new users to the platform, and Steemit has literally given me the opportunity to have peace of mind about sending my son to university.
I love this platform, and I will stick with it until the end, but my question is:
Why do we have followers if they don't follow us?
Do yourself a favor, and go check your follower list. Unfollow people to make your feed lighter. You will be amazed by your feed, and you might start noticing people again. Don't just follow blindly, there is no use in having so many followers if they don't support you. Put in some effort. Start working through your feed again. You will be surprised by what you find.
A simple and harsh truth - people will only blindly follow those where they hope to have some kind of reward back. Selfless and ideological following in the form of action is rare now.
It is just wrong, but in this world that we live in, money makes the world go round....
I have 2100 followers and I get about 10 upvotes usually. If you want to know how many dead followers you have you can go to steemspectacles.com and click on followers.
I agree that things have not been fun like they used to. Part of it is money, and part of it is the fact that we just don't get that same level of interaction that we used to. There is something joyless in it.
I will be here for 2 years in October and while I've seen this place be a ghost town before, I don't know that I've ever felt as melancholy about it as I do now.
I feel the same. It used to be fun and games, and we laughed and and and...now I write check my feed, then just vote and go. Finished in an hour. It's terrible. It makes me sad sometimes, and honestly it is not so much about the rewards. It's just weird now.
I've been on steemit just for a few months. I have 200 followers, but most of them are strange accounts without photos. I also noticed that you sometimes get a new follower, then "unfollower" :) When I check the account, it appears they offer some bot-services (I'm not good at that), so they just try to advertise themselves in this way.
It's quite difficult to get noticed. And I agree that it's more about relationship and making friends.
It's priceless when you find people with the same values, interesting opinions and great sense of humour😊
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Steemit used to be a lot of fun. You would have enjoyed it in the beginning. We spent hours chatting and got to know each other, and here we are. Followed by thousands and voted by few. Ha ha.... Good luck on your journey here!
Thank you. Perhaps I was a bit more excited in the very beginning, waiting for comments, meeting new people. Once I got up at 5 o'clock just to continue the conversation 😀
Thanks again:)
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Great analysis from a veteran on the platform. For me, I try to post each day, interact with the community, and trying to approach a REP value of 50, which should happen in about two week. Thanks for posting
Just keep on posting. Before you know it you will be there!
Thanks @giantbear
It has been a little depressing around here lately. I think a lot of people are just not as active here as they were in the past. It's sad actually as I miss quite a few that just stopped posting.
Depressing is not the word. I love this platform, but it has changed so much that it is hard to keep up with the changes. Perhaps I am just stuck in a rut, and change is hard for me, although I have adapted to the situation here, it is still hard because we know how well it worked in the beginning.
I have asked myself this many times
Well, we are supposed to be working and here we are...lol!
Hu uh still 10 minutes :)
Spring Clean something I have done on social media platforms @giantbear very time consuming.
Many forget this is a Social Media platform, a place to share, learn, discuss or read a short story.
One thing that did attract me here originally was original content, many friends new and old are here, and do stop in with comments.
Have to agree very few and far between take time out to chat, would appear the Social has had a "falling out" and Media has taken over again.
Perhaps we need to do more posts like this because this is the most comments I've had in a long time.
I have unfollowed about 200 people I used to follow because they were dead wood. Hadn't voted or posted in over 6 months. Now I know a lot of people that are followers are dead wood too, but I still haven't found a way to cull them from my feed. You are right when you talk about resteemed posts. I literally have 100's of those every day as well as bots, and spammers. It takes the fun out of trying to engage meaningfully. I am not sure what the answers are, perhaps someone more tech-savvy than me can come up with a solution.
Dead wood means nothing. Hopefully when SMT's come in the situation will change. I hope so!
There are just so many fly-by-nighters who follow thinking it is what they have to do but they never engage. It's definitely a tricky one. Sometimes it's awful if you think a post is never read
I wish we could talk some common sense into people here, but common sense is not so common anymore these days....
Hello friend @giantbear, in the personal I give to follow users that their Post I have liked, but the power of vote does not give to vote them daily to all and the diversity of publications take us to review and to follow many for when we want to vary we have them to hand to look for them, because we already know that we like their writings, if they do not follow me it is not problem, because I like their writings. It's different when you've built a network of friends who follow each other and vote, but if you repeat it, they forget about you. They are diverse situations but we must adapt ourselves to continue our journey in this interesting community. Congratulations and blessings