My first 2 months on Steemit, and now curating for SteemTrail

Some tips for newcomers, especially if you’re writing on health, nutrition or recipes.

To give some context, I want to start with a bit about my “mission”. I’m a Natural Health Therapist, mostly using nutrition, EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) and kinesiology, but I don’t think of myself as a Healer. I think of myself primarily as a Teacher. My “job” is to help people find their way back to health, or to retain their health, not to fix them.

The things we work on, or talk about, might include:

• For biochemistry – food and supplements
• For the physical / structural side – fitness, exercise and movement, bodywork such as massage, osteopathy or kinesiology
• For the emotions or spiritual healing – EFT, meditation or other energy techniques

As well as seeing clients, I have three websites – one for my practice, one for nutrition and health information and one for recipes.

My banana cashew muffins

I also do group presentations on nutrition, and we have another website that sells natural supplements and foods.

Being into natural health doesn’t mean I’m anti allopathic medicine. There are times when going to the doctor or the emergency room is absolutely what you need to do. But other times, it might be more appropriate to consider what lifestyle factors might be contributing to what’s going on.

How Steemit fits in

Steemit is a way for me to be able to share what I’ve learnt with more people, and to learn new things as well. I also get feedback on what people are interested in, and what not so much. It’s nice to know people are reading what I’ve written, and to be able to chat with people about it. That doesn’t happen much with a website.

In the last two months, I’ve spent quite a bit of time on Steemit. To achieve what I have so far, I have:

• Produced a body of work I’m happy with, and think is good quality – and there’s a lot more where that came from.
• Upvoted and followed other people every day.
• Commented on posts, when I had something of value to add, or sometimes just to let someone know I actually read the post before upvoting.

Financially I’ve made a bit of money, not heaps, but that’s ok. I’m grateful for the support of my followers, Curie and others. For me, Steemit is an investment in the future. I’ve invested here because I believe in the platform, but I know it will take time (patience) and there’s an element of risk. Pretty much like all investments.

Pixabay

What I’ve achieved

• Reputation = 59.6 (rank = #601)
• Post count = 395 (rank = #661)
• Followers = 115 (rank = #849)
• Following = 140 (rank = #494)
• Posting rewards = 977,791 (rank = #1018)
• Curation rewards = 4,181 (rank = #1043)
• Estimated value = $341 (rank = #2163)

Where to from here?

Steemit has been a bit all consuming up till now, but it’s time to put a bit more energy back into my primary businesses. I still want to work steadily and post regularly, but not let it take over. I’m aiming for 3 or 4 posts a week now, rather than 6 or 7.

I was already spending some time each day curating. Not just reading my feed, but looking for other interesting posts in my subjects of interest, and new people to follow. That has now been formalised and I’m curating for SteemTrail in the categories of health, nutrition, diet and recipes.

Pixabay

Briefly, this means that I look for authors in my categories who are not getting attention, verify that what they’re posting is their own material, and upvote them with the power of SteemTrail behind the vote.

Read more about SteemTrail here.

Part of my job will be to help grow the categories, and eventually sub-categories, and help nurture the writers, especially new comers. That might mean pointing out some ways they can improve their writing.

So here are a few tips and guidelines for newcomers

Firstly, you want to attract my attention. So choose your tags carefully. For example:

• Choose “health” rather than “healthy” – it gets a lot more exposure and is a well established tag
• Choose “recipes” rather than “recipe” for the same reason
• “Nutrition” and “diet” are both rather slow categories at present, but we want to grow those. My preference is “nutrition” but I will check both for now.

Make sure you’re posting original material. It will help if you make it easy for us to verify what is your original content, and what is from another source. So cite your sources where applicable.

Judicious editing is usually a good idea. If your post is too long, your readers may lose interest and go elsewhere. But you also don’t want to be too brief. Just a link, photo a video with no commentary doesn’t show us what YOU know or think about the subject.

Pixabay

To make your post more readable, it’s good to vary the font size or boldness, or split the text up a bit. You can do this by selecting Editor when you start to type up your story in “submit a story”, or by manually adding Markdown tags. Read more here: http://www.markdowntutorial.com/

Use relevant pictures to break up the text. If you use your own photos, say so. But if you’ve used other people’s pictures, it’s good protocol to acknowledge your source. The other good thing with having pictures is that you get a thumbnail next to your title. So choose something eye catching for your first image.

A catchy title also helps. Plus the first line of your text shows up on the feed, so make that enticing too.

Here are three useful posts from @thecryptofiend:

• FAQ
• Steemit etiquette, by @thecryptofiend
• Markdown for beginners

For more help, join www.Steemit.chat and join the Steemprentice group. Here’s one of their recent posts that includes a link to their FAQ document.

Thanks for reading and see you on the trail!

Follow me for more health, nutrition, food, lifestyle and recipe posts.

I am now on Peerhub offering one on one nutritional coaching and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) sessions by Skype.

Some of my previous posts:

THOUGHTS ABOUT LIFE: My Intro ~ Are there kiwis in the house? ~ Benefits of joining a community choir ~ My grandmother’s legacy ~ Steemit in downtown Wellington ~ Overcoming my fears ~ Observations from a bus ~ The brandy snap maker ~ Wearable Arts Award Show

RECIPES AND KITCHEN TIPS: Choc Blackcurrant Smoothie ~ Paleo Cottage Pie ~ Feijoa Pear Smoothie ~ Grain free, dairy free Pumpkin & Cashew Bread ~ Tip for storing ginger & tumeric ~ Grain Free Banana Cashew muffins ~ Warming winter soup ~ Healthy Chocolate & Fudge ~ Jerky with vegetables ~ BREAKFAST ideas ~ Choco-mallow protein bars ~ For MORE RECIPES and my 15 step Whole Food cooking course, see my recipe website.

HEALTH AND NUTRITION: The wide variety of healthy diets out and what they have in common ~ The travels of Weston A Price and his discoveries about healthy diets ~ Good fats vs bad fats ~ DNA testing for better health & Fitness ~ DNA testing part 2: How Well Do I Digest Carbs? ~ DNA testing Part 3: I can’t eat Carbs & How to Manage that ~ About the Gut & Psychology syndrome (GAPS) diet Part 1 ~ GAPS diet Part 2: Foods we can’t have ~ GAPS diet Part 3: Foods we CAN have ~ GAPS diet Part 4: What if I can’t eat some animal foods ~ Salicylate intolerances ~ Thoughts about Breast Health ~ I’ve got a cold & how to handle it ~ Sleep like a kitten Part 1 – 3 tips ~ Sleep Well Part 2 – What’s your sleeping style? ~ Sleep Well Part 3 – Resetting your body clock