Daily Discussion No. 9: Is "Organic" Growth on Steemit Enough to Create Visibility?
Welcome to another edition of "Daily Discussion," a community engagement initiative I started some months back, designed to stimulate more interaction and engagement on Steemit!
The brilliance of nature...
Today I am celebrating the fact that I have a rare day off by spending a little time simply "exploring" our community-- much in the same way I did, back when I first started here.
As I move around and look at different tags and what's currently popular, I'm amazed by the seemingly huge number of people who are fairly recent arrivals (last 3-4 months), who are producing what I might call "reasonable" content (but certainly no more), and yet are making quite substantial rewards-- as in $50-$150 on every single post.
IMPORTANT: I'm not talking about "scammers and spammers" here, just "regular folks."
Is "Organic" Growth Enough?
Morning glories
Poking around a little more, it's also quite clear that many of these good folks are using all manners of upvote services and resteem services and "group memberships" to get their results. When I look at "who voted," it often holds quite true that only one or two of the top-10 upvotes on these posts actually came from an active human community member.
Of course, that's not exactly a new thing around here-- and "purchased upvotes" have been discussed a LOT, in recent months.
This post is not really here to re-hash that topic.
Instead, I am posing the question of whether trying to carve out your niche on Steemit through purely "organic" growth-- that is, simply writing, following and commenting on other content as a "Human Being"-- is sufficient to make someone "visible" on Steemit?
Of course, "enough" is a relative term. Enough for what, exactly? Enough, I suppose, to where your efforts feel like they are materially helping you reach your goals and aspirations.
Artificial Popularity?
As you can see from the banner at the bottom of my posts, I am a member of the "Steemit Bloggers" group, which is not an "upvote ring," but a group of Steemians who are active writers and content creators.
White-edged lilac blossoms
I enjoy the people I have met though this group and it has exposed me to a lot of folks who create what is-- in my opinion-- "quality content." But I wouldn't say that my membership in the group has substantially boosted my rewards, just the quality of what I am exposed to. Which, in turn, means I got pretty much what I was hoping for-- objective met!
I do realize people all have different approaches, and I recognize that I may be in the minority here, as primarily a "content creator" rather than an "income seeker."
But again, that distinction isn't my point here. My real question is whether it's becoming "obsolete" or "irrelevant" here to engage in old-fashioned organic networking... and it is being replaced by "paid popularity?"
So Let's DISCUSS! First off, do you see yourself as an "organic" networker, using only posting, interaction and engagement to build your following? Or do you use "whatever means you can" to build your following? Are you a "content creator" first, or an "income seeker" first? Whatever your goal and approach, do you feel that "organic" networking is becoming less important on Steemit, or is it holding its own? What about in the future, going forward? As more and more people join Steemit, the battle for "visibility" will become more intense, no doubt. Leave a comment-- share your opinions and input-- be part of the conversation! I want to hear from you-- and others want to hear from you, as well! Share your thoughts and experiences below!
To learn more about the Daily Discussion initiative, please visit the Introductory Post for a full description and participation guidelines.
created by @zord189(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 180109 10:45 PST
I'm new here so will be interested to hear what those with more experience think.
I've been a little disappointed to discover that most of the wealth appears to be held by a small number of whales who make mind boggling amounts from their own upvotes, not to mention from those who are in their loop.
I came to Steemit to move away from that but greed seems just as rife here a it is outside.
I'm finding that I seem to have developed a game playing attitude so I like to create content whilst seeing how much I can make from it at the same time. So paying attention to tags and posting times etc.
I haven't paid for votes and feel a bit like it's cheating but that's not to say that I wouldn't join in if I got despondent trying to do without. So far I've used posting, interaction and engagement to build my following.
I sincerely hope that Steemit doesn't go the way of all the other social media platforms albeit here, advertisers/owners would be replaced by the powerful whales who are only interested in money.
And I can't help wondering whether since this is pretty radical and the first attempt at it, it is doomed to fail until lessons have been learned and something better built, in the next iteration, that prevents the inequities developing in the first place.
And I don't really understand the economics of it so maybe the rich whales still serve a useful purpose and such a platform couldn't be built without them.
The only thing I can say is I hope so. I'm new, I'm not very visible, I'm not even blogging\posting content yet (aside from a few pictures), just getting to know people. But I'm trying my very best to imagine my path here as organic as possible, and to know the people I might get along with in this platform.
I understand that, by its very nature, Steemit is subject to the creation of all kinds of shortcuts. But I'm also convinced that it's a platform created first and foremost to give voice to people who have something to say, and those shortcuts alone shouldn't be necessary. But of course, these are my 2 cents and I'm a newbie. Every day I gain a little bit of perspective :)
EDIT: As for "income seeker" and "content creator", I would like to think of myself as someone who'd take both. I mean, in order to have success on Steemit one has to pour energies into it, that much is clear to me. The moment I decide to do this rather than a "traditional" job, I should want to come out enriched and satisfied by the experience and the people I get to interact with. We'll see!
Well, welcome to Steemit @ziofeda!
I guess Steemit is pretty much like almost all kinds of social media, in that we have every type of user here. Of course, things are made a little more complex by the presence of "rewards," meaning that we get to look the GREED of a certain segment of human nature directly in the face.
I built this account "organically" in about a year. I only follow people whose content interests me on some level; I only upvote posts I find interesting, NOT posts I simply could earn a curation reward for.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy your time here! It really IS a great platform (no matter the controversies that inevitably come up!) and there's a lot of freedom to find and publish content to your own personal niche.
Thanks for the answer man, every bit of encouragement matters!
Very interesting topic, @denmarkguy! It seems that there a few of us that are curating manually and networking organically, but more and more I am seeing the voting bots. This will mean changes on Steemit. I a not sure I like the direction it is taking...
I have never used a bot!!!
Good for you! I think its better if we don't. If people use bots then they miss out on really good content.
For me, the whole "bot" thing sort of defeats the entire purpose of a "social" site, in the first place. I mean, what's the point of a bunch of automation talking to other automation? Of course "the answer" most people will give to that is "because I make MONEY!" and that's their primary motivation.
I am also not sure I like that direction, although I have seen it many times, on other sites.
Thank you for sharing that amazing pictures very useful information @denmarkguy
I fear over time the quality will just jump off a cliff. If someone gets $80 in upvotes if they spend 10 minutes on something vs$ 110 in upvotes if they spent 10 hours. Well that not a hard choice to make for most in how much effort they want to put into it.
I’ve recently joined a group myself. Not 100% sure if I’ll be a good fit for them or not but only one way to find out. It’s just nice to break out of my own bubble here and interact with people I have not yet.
The sinister side of me enjoys days like today. It shows you kind of what Steemit would be like without the auto votes. Oh man its telling as well when people just go silent! Or when you hear on grape vine someone had an epic meltdown because they spent a whole 20 minutes on something and it did not rake in a weeks’ worth of a normal persons income because the votes are not working…
Some of my more rewarding day to day activities here have been from trying approach things form an organic sense. I’m not talking about the financial reward either. I’ve meet some amazing people!
Do I get lost in the great ocean of Steemit? Yep every single day and I enjoy it. I’m just a little cat having some fun here and there.
People can go out and drop that 50 SBD on each post all they want. A bought and paid for friend is not one to be trusted in the first place.
i think its a great post... i learn many thing from your post... and i waiting for your next post
Nice post beautiful presented and explained. detail oriented with nice picture. thank you for sharing
This is a very interesting question. I am definitely a content creator but I also seek income, and the money I have made has helped me in my real life. That being said, I continued to create content in much the same way I am now, even when Steem was worth basically nothing. I like blogging. I've used upvote services a few times, but they seem to have mushroomed!!! I think organic will have to do it for me. Perhaps building relationships is the best way to long time success. How do I join #steemitbloggers?
thanks for infos
The paid upvote bots are so frustrating. I can see that they are a precursor to a form of advertising here on Steemit. So I understand why they have a purpose in the evolution of the ecosystem. It's a different form of the 'promotion' tag, which never was very effective. But I've never used them and it's frustrating to see others use them so much, especially if they are just cashing out, rather than building steem power. I would rather grow organically, although that seems tougher than ever, looking at the view numbers. It does seem like the number of followers and the number of views are unrelated! So it's hard to know what 'growth' really is.