It been just over 2 months since I joined Steemit and I have learned a lot about the platform and its purpose.

When I first started in early February, I didn't know what to expect. I had heard or read very little other than you can make money if you get enough followers. That was really all I knew when I signed up. I didn't know how the payout worked, how content was promoted, or the effort it would take to get rewarded. All I knew was I needed to post content to make money.

Now, 2 months later, I have a pretty good grasp on how it all works. As I learned and became more educated on the system, I promised myself I would make a real effort to use Steemit to its fullest. I knew I needed followers so I was determined to get as many followers as I could in as short of time as possible. At the beginning, that was all I thought you needed. Boy was I wrong.

In the Beginning

I used YouTube as my mentor. I found video after video talking about how to build your followers. Videos like these:

1. Get More Upvotes
2. $503 a day Posting on Steemit
3. I Mad $200 On My First Steemit Post
4. My First Steemit Post Made $545.75. Here's Why.

There were many others as well. I learned I needed a lot of followers. I was directed to follow as many people as possible. In fact, several videos suggested to follow thousands of people as quickly as possible. These vloggers suggested that by following other Steemians, some would follow me as well. So, I did. I started following anyone. I didn't care if they posted similar material as I was posting, I just followed everyone. At one point, I was following over 1,000 people. I was so proud. Now, I was ready to make my first post. Out of 1,000 followers, I was sure to make money.

For my first post I decided to write about Cryptocurrency. I had seen others who appeared to be making money writing about the same subject so I knew it was a winner. My first post was called, "Cryptocurrency Exchanges - Jumping in with Sharks." Catchy right? I had learned that as well. Make your post title as clickable as possible. I worked hard on this post. I did my research, I provided links to supplemental information, I went all out. I wanted to make a big splash. I was ready so I posted it.

I got 20 views out of 1,000 people and only 4 upvotes. I made a grand total of $0.00……….

What happened? What did I do wrong? I had the following, I had a trending topic, it was formatting correctly, grammar & spelling were checked and rechecked. Why didn't it get more views and more upvotes. Obviously, I still had a lot to learn. Most of the users who returned my follow were others just like me who wanted followers themselves. These were low level people hoping for the same results.

I was still determined so I kept going. I continued my education on Steemit and tried to find post topics that would succeed.

Since I am an underwater archaeologist, scuba diving instructor, photographer, and traveler, I thought it best to focus new posts on what I knew best, archaeology, scuba, photography, and travel. My following posts were slightly more successful. I started getting consistent rewards between $1-$10 each. Still not the big bucks I was hoping for when I first joined but certainly better than the $0.00 I received on my first post.

Tools

I found a lot of tools that helped track my progress like:

1. Steem World
2. Steem Now
3. Steem Stats
4. Steem Supply
5. Steem Upvoter
6. My Steem Friends

These tools gave me great insight related to the topics that were more successful than others, followers who were more consistently upvoting my content (thank you @choogirl), and upvoters who were my biggest contributors.

What I found was…… Well, it was all over the board. I was still missing something…. There didn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to any of it.

The Big Payout

About 2 weeks in, I received my first big upvote. It came from @hendrikdegrote. This was my 20th post and was on archaeology (Search for the Adventure Galley (or Death of an Archaeologist). Within 45 minutes, and about 10 minutes after @hendrikdegrote upvoted my post it was over $100 and had 188 upvotes. I was thrilled, but didn't understand how it happened so fast. It was a long article and I was confused because I didn't think there was any way so many people could have read the full post so quickly. Then, the big shocker. By the time it paid out, it was down to $79.93. Still, that was ok. $79.93 would be fine, except, I was only getting 75% of that $79.93 = $60.20. OK, that is disappointing but I would take $60.20, except that is not what I received. When it paid out, I got 30.10 SBD, 16.68 SP. So, from over $100 down to $30 SBD and 16.68 SP. I didn't understand what Steem Power (SP) really was so all I knew was I had gone from over $100 down to $30. WTF? I was so confused.

What I did know was I wanted @hendrikdegrote to follow me so I could get more upvotes from that account. I mean, a 100% upvote would be worth $145. When they upvoted my post, it was only a 27.5% vote. This came to $61.25. I wanted more of that. But, how do you get in front of someone with so much power. I needed to find out who they were. That was when I read their introduction post.

"I recently invested a lot of money in the steemit platform because i am a real believer in the future potential and success of it. I can really see this thing taking off.
I think there are a lot of great people involved in this project and that makes this a awesome and vibrant community. And i think the people and thus the community are the fundamental for the future success of it.
So i see it as a piece of art thats not finished yet. We as a community can keep on tweeking the platform till we get the exact outcome that WE want…
I think the world really needs a platform where we can exchange information without censorship, and with a mechanism where good content gets rewarded.
I really wanna wish everybody the best with your steemit endeavors...Lets make this a great success with each other."

What impressed me the most was that this person invested their own money in the platform. I had refused to do that. I was not going to invest my own money in the platform, I was here to make money. @hendrikdegrote has faith and a belief in what the platform and the community has to offer. I was here for the rewards. It was obvious they did not come here to make a lot of money nor to be begged for rewards. Looking at their account, I noticed their curation rewards, which is what they get because they don't post, were going directly to Steem Power. More evidence they truly believed in the ideals of the community and the platform.

OK, I was feeling a little bad about myself as I looked at their account. I was trolling. I was trying to hook a whale, a term which I have come to read on Steemit and one that I don't really like. I had even started using Whale Sonar, thinking it would somehow help me find where the whales were "hanging out". I didn't know what it meant to see them swimming around on my monitor. I mean, the only way to send a message to anyone on Steemit is to transfer .001 SBD to them with a message in the memo. Thankfully I never tried this. I have looked at accounts however where hundreds of people have sent messages to specific people begging to be followed and begging for upvotes. I am glad I have not done that.

I will admit, even after reading @hendrikdegrote's introduction post, I still wanted to make money on this platform at the exclusion of all else. So, I decided that If I could not get that account to follow me, I could at least upvote the same content they were upvoting in hopes of sharing the large curation rewards that were surely to come. But I still didn't understand Steem Power, reputation, or voting weight or what they meant when it came to curation rewards because I had very little of any of that. I didn't know it mattered when you upvoted a post, who upvoted before I did, what my reputation was, or what voting power meant. For a couple of days, I just followed this account around using Whale Sonar and voted on the same posts. Then it hit me, that is why I had 188 upvotes on my biggest post. Most of those upvotes were from people doing the same thing I was currently doing. They were following around a heavy hitter hoping for table scraps. On 99% of the posts where I tagged along, I only ever received .001 SP as a curation reward. I stopped doing that.

After my first big post, and its drop from $100 to $30 in rewards, I started researching the author / curator split which is 75% to the author and 25% to the curators. I then understood a little more about how the payouts translates into SBD and SP once it hits your account. I also started to understand a little more about how the price of STEEM, at the time of payout, affects the conversion into SBD into SP. I didn't like what I was discovering but at least I no longer felt I was being scammed. It just meant I had to work harder. I needed to double my efforts to make money. OK, if that is what I needed to do, that is what I would do.

From time to time I would go back and reread @hendrikdegrote's introduction post. I was still trying to understand exactly what they meant. Once, when I was salivating over the numbers I saw in their wallet, I noticed something I didn't understand. I noticed that the amount of Steem Power they held was broken into 2 rows. One was the main allocation of Steem Power and the other was listed underneath and in parenthesis. The only time I had seen 2 numbers listed like this was on my own account when I first started. I had learned that the platform had "loaned" me some Steem Power to get me started but as I received payouts, I had to pay back this "loan." But, what did this mean for @hendrikdegrote? Was Steemit loaning this account Steem Power? That couldn't be right. In their intro post, they said they had invested their own money. It didn't take long before I figure out they were delegating their Steem Power to another account. When I looked at who they were delegating a considerable amount of Steem Power to, I found it was @sweetsssj, who looked to be a travel writer. @sweetsssj's is a good, engaging writer. I am assuming that @hendrikdegrote thinks so too because they are investing in her, as are a couple of other accounts. @sweetsssj turns around and upvotes her own content for bigger rewards once those posts payout. I am assuming this is the acceptable arrangement between her and her investors which is fine. As @hendrikdegrote pointed out in their intro post, they are here because it provides "a mechanism where good content gets rewarded." It is their money and they can invest it however they want. I just wish I was @sweetsssj.

That is how I found out you can delegate your Steem Power to others. I had not known that. I was not sure why anyone would give their Steem Power but away but I now knew you could.

One day when I was searching for more Steemit videos on YouTube, I came across a vlogger named @brandonfrye. He had a video on Steem Power delegation that told me everything I needed to know about Steem Power delegation. After watching the video, I understood that user's on Steemit delegate to others for a couple of reasons. Some because they want to make passive income and others because they believe in a cause that is run by a person or group and they want to support them. Through my research on delegation, I found various groups that were having Steem Power delegated to them. That is when I found out about @curie and @promo-mentors.

Realization

It was all coming full circle. I started my journey because of a desire to make money. Now, I was coming to the realization that it was about supporting the community not just making money. Giving back as well as accepting. These groups, and others like them, support our community by helping content providers get in front of influencers who can curate them for an even larger audience of investors and promoters for bigger rewards. When certain groups like @curie promote your work, others upvote it. This is how @hendrikdegrote found my work. It was curated by @curie and then @hendrikdegrote upvoted it as well as several other large accounts. Once those large accounts upvoted my posted, lots of smaller accounts followed suit.

Groups and Communities

Groups, that was where it was at. Smaller communities on the Steemit platform. I found @curie on steemit. But again, you can't carry on conversations there. That is when I found out about Discord and the various Steemit community groups that use discord to promote work, chat about the platform, and mentor and support each other. That was also about the same time that @promo-mentors found me. @Dante31 posted a comment on one of my articles giving me the Discord link for the @promo-mentors group telling me a little about who they were and wanted me to join. At first I was not so sure but I am glad I did @futurethinker and the rest of the core team have really been helpful and welcoming. So much so that I have started volunteering with the group to support their community efforts as much as possible with a lot more to come.

Now, as I said, it has been 2 months since I signed up on Steemit and I have given as much as possible to see what I could find? What I found was, I love writing again, I am enjoying the photo contests I have entered, and I am enjoying the dialogue and comradery I am finding within the community.

Don't get me wrong, there is definitely a dark side to Steemit, that is for sure. The flag wars, authors not really contributing but still getting huge payouts, censorship (WTF?), and all the users who drop out when STEEM drops in price. When STEEM is down, nobody is around.

Through it all, I just keep writing, keep posting, and keep entering contests. Now I am ready to slow down a little and put quality over quantity. I have a base and am now ready to relax a little and work with @promo-mentors and help build a better community.

As @hendrikdegrote wrote:

"i see it as a piece of art that's not finished yet. We as a community can keep on tweaking the platform till we get the exact outcome that WE want…
I think the world really needs a platform where we can exchange information without censorship, and with a mechanism where good content gets rewarded..
I really wanna wish everybody the best with your Steemit endeavors...Lets make this a great success with each other."

I could not have said it better.

I know I will get exactly $.45 for this post with about 45 upvotes and 50 views, but that is ok. Probably what it is worth anyway.

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