My Ahha Moment! - The Top 3 Steemit Mistakes I've Been Making for the Past Week
Since joining Steemit I've been addicted. The thought of being able to change someone's life is amazing. With one click of an upvote, resteem, or follow I can set someone free from the corporate job they're enslaved into, and allow them to pursue the passion they really want to. For the past week or so I've been following everyone who has followed me or asked to be followed, upvoted many introduceyourself for hours on end, and resteemed pretty much anything that one of my followers posted, but what I've learned is that mentallity is all wrong.
This Isn't No Facebook nor Reddit!
Steemit isn't designed to encourage people to follow the masses or to horde hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of friends. What I've learned is that Steemians should focus on creating value and uncovering new talent. Having thousands of followers or spamming non value added content creates little value here on Steemit. So here's the top 3 things I'm focusing on for the next week.
1. The Real Purpose of a Resteem
I didn't truly understand the purpose or the power of a resteem when I first joined Steemit. I just figured, like other social media sites, the more I resteemed new Steemians and followers contents the more I helped them, but after reading this post by @awakealiveaware I realized the importance of responsible resteeming. Not only does it bury the content you create in your blog (your "front page") making it harder to find, but it also buries good content in your followers feed. Resteeming value added content that people work hard to create could change someones life.
2. Steemit is not a Popularity Contest
I know I know, you're first thought is like WHAT!?!?! How do I get all those tastey upvotes to make all that Steem Power. How will I ever make it to the front page withouth my followers blindly upvoting me to the front page. After reading this article by @calamus056 really helped me to see things. Steemit is about creating more than a community. It's about creating your Steemit empire. Joining together with like minded individuals who are part of the community will go longer for your success and enjoyment on Steemit then following people looking to make a quick buck.
3. The True Power of Being a Steemian
The hardest part of being a steemian (especially a new steemian) is truly understanding the value and power of the upvote. On most social media sites upvotes can be given out like candy. No harm in following the masses in upvoting what's popular. Upvotes on Steem carry much more meaning and hold much more power. Now I'm not saying you shouldn't upvote things on top of the hot or trending tabs, because that's not it t all. If you see something on the front page vote it to the moon if you enjoyed it or found value from it. What I'm trying to say is you should also use the power to dig through the new tab and encourage the people that provide just as good content and value on steemit, but are struggling to make it. Those are the people that truly need your vote.
The Goals
I'm going to try and limit my resteems to one resteem per post, unless I might want to refer back to the article at a later date as a rare exception. The next thing I'm going to do is once I hit 100 following I'm going to go through my list and purge at least a quarter of them. I want to give it a couple of weeks before I purge my list to allow some of the new Steemians to get the hang of things, but will do this once every 3 months thereafter. Finally, every 1 vote I give to a post on the front page I want to try and give 3 to the new tab with no more than 20 votes per day.
So fellow steemians what is the biggest lightbult moment for you? What was your biggest discovery the first week of using Steemit?
If you enjoy my content and want to support me please follow, resteem and browse my channel fore more information on building our Steemit empires together!
Tips always appreciated
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love this post! I've been trying my best to "make it" on steem it for about 2 months now. I need to start following your advice here about using my votes more conservatively for those who deserve it. I rarely resteem though because you're right about resteems burring your own content. I wish it was a separate tab on your home page!
Agreed. Awesome post of your pokemon cards. May have to break mine out of the basement and do the same thing. I don't think I have as much of a gen 1 set as you do, but still would be a fun post to share with others the collection I do have.
Yes, people are going to need to become miserly with their upvotes and resteems. It makes no sense to reward rubbish with a precious upvote when there are people out there bleeding their thoughts and ideas into their words.
Agreed. Also saying the popular people don't deserve an upvote. If they're providing content that is providing value to steemit they absolutely deserve all the votes. I just believe there are more people out there undiscovered that is also providing great content as well.