A giant sucking sound where cannabis category payouts used to be
Welcome to the 16th weekly installment of my series on Steemit income and growth!
Income on Steemit is generated by "investment" (the more Steem you have, the more you earn) and by "work" (earning Steem by contributing content that adds value). Already having invested my savings in Steem, I'm now "working" by uploading unique valuable content to the blockchain. My goal is to increase my average weekly income to 15 Steem.
Calculating weekly income
Considering income from all accounts that I own, and that my wife owns, and accounts started as group projects with my funds (currently @drutter, @medikatie, @greatesteem, @hempy, @girlsofgreen, and @sativazeee), here's the running tally:
Week 01 - 0840 (+ ? ) Steem (+?%)
Week 02 - 0848 (+ 8 ) Steem (+0.95%)
Week 03 - 0862 (+14) Steem (+1.65%)
Week 04 - 0868 (+ 6 ) Steem (+0.70%)
Week 05 - 0876 (+ 8 ) Steem (+0.92%)
Week 06 - 0888 (+12) Steem (+1.37%)
Week 07 - 0914 (+26) Steem (+2.93%)
Week 08 - 0929 (+15) Steem (+1.64%)
Week 09 - 0936 (+ 7 ) Steem (+0.75%)
Week 10 - 0953 (+17) Steem (+1.82%)
Week 11 - 0960 (+ 7 ) Steem (+0.73%)
Week 12 - 0966 (+ 6 ) Steem (+0.63%)
Week 13 - 0973 (+ 7 ) Steem (+0.72%)
Week 14 - 0980 (+ 7 ) Steem (+0.72%)
Week 15 - 0986 (+ 6 ) Steem (+0.61%)
Week 16 - 0991 (+ 5 ) Steem (+0.51%)
Average weekly income (last 10 weeks): +10.3 Steem (+1.11%)
It was the worst week ever for our team, which is putting out top-notch posts every day of the week. Upvotes and payouts are the worst since we joined Steemit almost a year ago. At current rate (which isn't even sustainable) it's going to take another 8 months of hard work to hit our goal.
Cannabis category payouts plummeting?
After a number of great articles and videos I produced over the past couple weeks have flopped completely, most earning me a dime (and most of that comes from my wife). Even our @GirlsofGreen account's proceeds are down, even though we've added new models and increased our production quality. A model can put an hour or two into a photoshoot, and we'll get the photos formatted and uploaded and captioned, and the post will generate less than a quarter dollar. We realize we're doing this mostly for fun and for the cause, but if there's no cryptos in it for us, why are we on Steemit and not some other site, perhaps one that DOES pay, or at least has better support and development. We generate high-quality original content that people enjoy and want - we're in demand. But even working at it full time, we can't generate enough cryptos to buy ourselves a camera to replace the one we're wearing out?
Over the past few weeks, payouts in the cannabis category seem to have been declining steadily. My team's income has dropped steadily and this week it hit an all-time low despite the fact that we're at an all-time high for fans and followers. Where are all the payouts going? Where are the upvotes going? The past 3 weeks have been brutal for payouts and it's making Steemit really depressing. How can I motivate my team to put out even more content, of even higher-quality, if we haven't even got a camera that works properly anymore, and we're making 15 cents a day?
Steemit doesn't owe us anything. It's just disappointing that we moved all our savings here, and have put in several months of full-time effort, only to have lost most of our investment and made nothing for our work. Maybe this can serve as a warning to others who have heard they'll succeed on Steemit if they've got talent, ambition, creativity, or skills to share. Apparently to make it here, it takes more than just high-quality unique content that people want to see. That's puzzling and distressing to me, and probably to others thinking of investing in STEEM.
I'll continue to keep a close eye on this. We already have to pay money to do all the activism and modeling and photography and production we do. We have no income sources except Steemit. If Steemit isn't even going to be an income source, and we aren't gaining new followers, then it's going to be hard to justify expending any effort here. If we aren't reaching many here with our message, and we aren't helping many, and we aren't getting paid, then it's not our Purpose.
Have an excellent week,
DRutter
There's just so many bots and curation trails and not enough content and real commenting. :( A lot of good content goes unrewarded but spam posts make consistently good rewards.
More data (and better analysis) will reveal if that's the case. Maybe a supercomputer will analyze the blockchain and spit out the answers :)
I appreciate your posts!
Back at you bro!
I just lurk here, but seems to me that your post here is the reason for the sucking sound. You're a smart guy, learn from your mistakes and drive on.
I may not know what's up on steemit but I have been an entrepreneur my whole life and do have some knowledge when it comes to running a business - successful and otherwise.
It seems to me you are attempting to build a business out of your blog so the following advice may be valuable to you in some way;
Some things I have noticed about profitable steemit blogs;
I hope any and all of these help you achieve your goals. It can be very tough to maintain your moral but if it is something you are passionate about don't give up, look at it from a different angle. Sometimes (this has happened to me many times) you realize in running your business that it is something you may not enjoy spending your time on, then it is time to move on.
I like the diagram at the end of the post, I feel the money circle should be omitted from it. If you were to wholeheartedly embrace the rest of the diagram, would passionately fulfilling our purpose create added value and inevitably generate a means for our survival? Just a thought.
Hey jayanarchon. Those look like good tips for someone trying to start a business! However, I'm not trying to start a business on Steemit. I'm trying to generate STEEM (as is everyone else here), but that's not the same as starting a business. Those tips would also be good for, say, a beginning investor. But I'm neither a beginner nor an investor. :)
I'll try and re-summarize what I've been saying in my posts for months/years.
I'm a content-creator. Text, images, video, audio, ideas, books, groups, projects, teams, I create content to further my activism. It helps me get my message out, helps me feel like I have a voice, it furthers my cause. You could think of my content-creation skill as a tool I use, much like a rapper might use his skill with lyricism and flow to further his cause.
I've wielded this tool all over social media for a long time. It has always been separate from my businesses, which tend to focus on things like collectibles. I don't invest. I see that as wasteful and harmful competition between the people, not as something which adds any value to the world. I stack silver as savings, not as an investment. The same goes for cryptos, which I see as currencies, and potentially as savings, but not as investments. When I say "investment" I tend to mean capital. I sunk all my crypto savings into STEEM several months ago, and I'm glad I did. That's my investment. I'm not a trader - I don't attempt to accumulate more of something by moving in and out of it. To me, that's corrupt. I see most typical investors as leeches living off the rest of us who actually produce something. (I've gone over this a million times, but you're new, so I'm catching you up :)
So yes I'm trying to generate STEEM (my goal is 15 per week) but I'm not investing and I'm not running a business.
As for your 4 steps to a profitable page, here's my take:
Yeah, most accounts over 2 years old here are doing well. In other words, most of them are doing well because they got here first. From what I've heard, it used to take a few weeks of clicking and playing around here in order to generate thousands upon thousands of STEEM. New accounts got hundreds of free STEEM. After a while, it got a bit harder to get rich here, and you had to "grind" for several months in order to make it into the club. Now, as far as I can tell, anybody just starting fresh at zero is going to have to wait a LOT longer than 2 years to get rich here.
Do they? I haven't noticed that. But anyway we have that covered.
We're doing 4-5 so got that covered.
I disagree with buying and selling votes here. I find it to be corrupt and unsustainable. Hopefully it isn't truly necessary! Like I said, if Steemit can't find and reward quality content, it will die. That's one of the core Steemit functions (supposedly). If buying and selling votes, ie: rigging the system in one's favour, becomes the only way to succeed, the site is already dead. I sure hope it's still possible without resorting to that.
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I think this is a great spot for my meme:
Just trying to helpful bud, not trying to get into a debate... and BTW any activity with a goal of generating revenue is a business.
"So yes I'm trying to generate STEEM (my goal is 15 per week) but I'm not investing and I'm not running a business."
I guess your definition of investing and business are different from the actual definition of these words, that can explain my confusion - thanks for clarifying.
I also disagree with many of the ways Steem is bought and sold on this platform and I also refuse to participate. I feel the main principles of the platform have been heavily corrupted. I also recognize that the majority of people do not value truth and honesty, so I really don't expect to earn much on this site. I produce quality content because that's what I came here to do. I chose this platform mainly because of the potential to boycott the others, as well as to protect my work from censorship.
What he said. Good advise. Worth a vote.
"I like the diagram at the end of the post, I feel the money circle should be omitted from it. If you were to wholeheartedly embrace the rest of the diagram, would passionately fulfilling our purpose create added value and inevitably generate a means for our survival?"
Sure, you could replace the word 'money' with 'the things money can get us in today's world'. But that wouldn't fit on the pretty pic :)