So, it looks like I just hit 400 followers while I was sleeping.

How in the world did that happen?

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Building a following can be difficult, and getting noticed in the first place can be hard enough. I've been on steemit about two months now, and just reached 406 followers, so I'll be sharing a little of what I learned.

Though I cannot promise any particular results, here is some advice on how to get noticed and get followed.

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UPVOTES & COMMENTS

I cannot stress enough the importance of combining these two. I will also discuss them together, because I think that they should not be separated. If you like a post and upvote it, your name will quickly be buried if 20 or more people with more power upvote it too. Though it is possible to look up your name with some effort, most authors simply won’t. This is why a comment is important. Also, a comment is more personal and actually conveys some of your personal “flavor” to the author you are upvoting.

However, just commenting on a post, without the upvote, may not have the desired effect. There is a benefit to the interaction, but you will appear to many to just be fishing for followers or upvotes yourself, without being willing to give anything in return.

I would also strongly suggest that you refrain from putting the same comment on every post that you see. We’ve probably all seen this occur multiple times. If you want to get flagged as a spammer, this may be a good method, but it does not really help build the community.

When commenting, I would also strongly suggest that you read the post that you are commenting on. Simply skimming a post and seeing that the author mentioned carrots could lead you to reply, “Awesome post. I like the Carrots too. You Rock, Steemit Rocks, and Carrots Rock too! FULL STEEM AHEAD!” However, if the author mentioned carrots as a potential health hazard and was in the process of suggesting foods that you could substitute for carrots, then you’ll look like and idiot. Not only will the author think that you’re a fool, but everyone who see your comment will too. Be careful.

Comments and Upvotes are very encouraging to many authors, especially when they are combined. They are a great way to show your support to the author, and many authors appreciate that. If they begin to reply to your comments, there is a chance to interact and build a relationship. This is why I almost always respond to every reply I get. It allows me to interact with the person who replied to my post, and we can build a relationship.

I would strongly suggest replying to many, if not all, comments that you get on your posts, especially if someone asks you a question. Please answer it and show that you care. The more interactive you are, the more it encourages others to interact with you.

Upvoting replies is a great way to encourage more interaction too. If someone had a great reply to your post, show them by upvoting it. I have actually seen replies to some posts make more than the original post itself.

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FOLLOWING

Following those who are following you is great way to interact more. Not only does it allow you to see what they are up to, but it allows you to upvote and comment on their material more easily. A lot of the “if you follow me, I’ll follow you” mentality is common among minnows here, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Personally, I plan on following all my followers, but I don’t always make sure to take the time to check my list and click “follow” for all of them. I’m still following more people than are following me, but I am not yet following all of my followers.

Sometimes just mentioning “I’m following you” in a comment can encourage someone to follow you back. I now follow multiple people specifically because of this. However, if I see the same person replying the same way to every new post I look at, I then choose not to. I understand that they may truly have just started following me, but apparently they just started following everyone. I’d still be willing to give them a chance, but the copy-paste comment assault basically becomes spam when they are doing it on every post by every user, which is a turn off.

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CONTESTS

Contests are a great way to interact more and perhaps pick up some followers. Generally, there are three ways to be involved in a contest.

The simplest way to be involved with a contest is as a participant. If you check tags like contest, competition, or challenge, you can often find some great and interesting contests to participate in. Whether you are looking for something like a photo challenge, a food competition, or eating super-hot peppers, you’re sure to be able to find something that might interest you.

As you compete, you’ll often interact with other participants as well as the person (or people) running the contest. Just being entered in a contest can help get your name out there a little more. If you do well in the contest by placing or even winning it, it’s a sure way to at least get some attention, and potentially some followers.

Running a contest is another option, and you are almost guaranteed to get some more followers from doing it. Running contests can be a lot of work, and often there can be expense too. As time goes on, it seems that it gets harder to think of contest ideas that haven’t already been created, which can be another hurdle. If you’ve got a great idea for a contest that you would like to start, why not give it a try? If you pick up some new followers in the process, even better.

In fact, I’m going to be giving away the TATTOO STORY CONTEST in the near future. It’s currently in its 5th week, and has had varying results. It’s been fun and I’ve definitely made some friends and followers, but I wanted to give someone else the chance to reap the benefits of running it for a change. My SCAR STORY CONTEST is one that I’ll keep running for now, so if you’ve got a scar and a story to go along with it, consider entering. You’ll get some exposure anyway, and maybe even some followers or STEEM.

The other option for being involved in a contest is as a donor or sponsor. This one will probably cost you the most, but unless you do it anonymously, you’ll usually at least get a mention for your support. Whether it will gain you any followers or not is questionable, but it can be a great investment in the steemit community.

Every once in a while I also get a little crazy and just put a post out there full of little games with real payouts for getting the correct answers. It’ll cost me a few STEEM Tokens , but it’s a lot of fun and people get to win some STEEM. Random contests like that probably encourage people to follow me too, because they are time sensitive and unless my entry shows up in your “feed”, you may miss your opportunity to win.

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GREETING

Obviously there are new steemians showing up in our community every day as more people continue to sign up. Greeting them into the community is a great way to encourage them, and some may even begin to follow because of your greeting. Of course these fresh minnows are not worth very much most of the time, but steemit isn’t all about the money, is it?

Just like with newcomers, there is an opportunity for us all to grow in this community. If we make friends as minnows and grow up as dolphins together, our upvotes will eventually be worth more on one another’s posts, which is not a bad thing!

In this community, many people do receive extremely warm and encouraging welcomes, but others get missed. As members of this community, we not only represent ourselves, but the whole community. Hopefully someone in a community this large can be able to greet a newcomer.

I found an introduction post from a guy last night that had been there for four hours and only had one vote, his. I'm glad that I happened to check out what was going on with newcomers, because at least I was able to upvote him and comment. With all of the users on steemit, no one had welcomed him yet. I even made a little logo for him just to encourage him a bit. I'll have to check out the new arrivals a little more often...

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LINKS

Links can be a great way to get people to check out some of your material, but there are some general rules about them. First, a HYPERLINK looks the most professional. To hyperlink, place a word or series of words inside some brackets, like [THIS]. Then, copy and paste the web address inside parenthesis immediately following the brackets like this, (https://steemit.com/gardening/@papa-pepper/why-the-best-time-ever-to-be-a-gardener-is-now). When [THIS] is touching (), you’ll have a successful hyperlink that looks like THIS, so the long web address is hidden and only the word THIS shows up.

You may notice those peculiar blue words in other posts. Feel free to click on one and see where it takes you!

When adding a link, it is best to do so in your own posts. Linking or hyperlinking your posts in the replies to other steemians’ posts can be considered a form of spam, so be careful. I prefer to just mention that I made a specific post, and let the author whose post I’m commenting on search it out for themselves if they want. Multiple times, the authors have hyperlinked my post themselves in their comments, just because I pointed them in that direction and they thought it was worthy. That is an interesting thing to see happen, when another person promotes your posts, but I’ll cover more of that in the next section.

Since posts now have two payouts, one in about a day and another about a month later, you may want to link posts that have already passed their first payouts. If I’m doing a new poem, I may link some of my older ones in case anyone wants to check them out. If they like those ones too, they may upvote them. If you create a series, especially a story or “book”, I highly recommend linking previous posts to allow new viewers to catch up. If makes their job of finding them easier, and could earn you some extra steem too. A good example of linking previous posts in a series can be found at the end of THIS POST. (<-- Click BLUE LETTERS to follow hyperlink to example.)

In the chatrooms you can also promote a bit, but the best way is in the “postpromotion-moderated” room. You are allowed to post once per two hour period, and others there are likely to check out your link. Just copy the web link and paste it in the message line prior to pushing “send”. The post image and link will appear in the chatroom, and all will be able to see.

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FREE ADVERTISEMENT

The best way to get free advertisement is to be friendly and be yourself. That’s all that I’ve done, and I’ve received a lot of “free advertisement.”

By “free advertisement” I mean when others mention your name in their posts, or even link your posts. I remember one day after spending about 5 minutes reading some posts in my “feed”, I noticed that four of the articles specifically mentioned my name. One even had my name in the title. Obviously, this exposes a lot more people to my existence than I could accomplish on my own. I’ve even seen people that I hadn’t directly “talked” to mention my name in posts or in chatrooms. What a blessing.

Interestingly, two posts that I saw with my name in the title of the post were because of my involvement with contests. In one post @matthewtiii was trying to follow my recipe from a food challenge entry. In another post, @steemitpatina mentioned me in the title because I was running the Tattoo Story Contest. Did you notice how I just “thanked them” by giving them some “free advertising?”

Gifts can also be a great way to get free advertising. @vlad made my logo for me, and specifically told me that I did not need to give credit for it. However, since I can choose to, @vlad now gets mentioned at the end of almost every post I make. As a quirky parody of “YOUR NAME IN LIGHTS”, I started putting “YOUR NAME IN PEPPERS” for some various steemians, some by request, and some just for fun. I have already seen three different users display my gift at the end of their posts, and some even mentioned my name. Of course, this was not the purpose, I was just having fun and showing appreciation, but getting mentioned is an additional benefit that may happen in cases like this.

Did you know that you can also give free advertising? Once of the best ways shared so far was the YOUR NAME IN LIGHTS idea by @williambanks that I mentioned in the last paragraph. Several steemit authors have already been dedicating a post to spotlight another steemian, usually one with less followers and a lower reputation than they have. I haven't personally done this one yet, but I've been considering some options.

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CHAT

I’m papa-pepper on https://steemit.chat and I talk to quite a few steemians on there. The private chat is a great way to talk more in private and discuss things a little more openly for those who wouldn’t say certain things on the blockchain.

The open chat rooms are a great place to either promote your posts, which increases visibility, or meet new friends. As you interact with “strangers” in a chat room, your personality comes out and those who find you interesting may want to check out your blog. I’ve met some great folks in the chatroom, and some of us now frequently upvote eachothers posts, not to mention that we now follow one another.

Check out the chat and meet some people. Share what you’re up to and see who’s interested.

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GRAMMAR AND SPELLING

I realize that many people have different levels of linguistic skill and grammatical capabilities. Also, many people on steemit do not speak English as their primary language. Since we all can and will make mistakes, let’s cut one another some slack. There is no excuse for not at least spell-checking and attempting to proof-read, so let’s still make sure that we are trying to produce professional posts.

The only other advice that I can offer is summed up in the song “WORD CRIMES” by Weird Al Yankovic.
Here is the Video Link in case you are unfamiliar. I would seriously suggest that you take the time to listen to it, as it is perhaps his best song ever, and contains extremely applicable advice for anyone attempting to write or blog.

Watch and Learn - This is an Incredibly Educational Video

It's less that 4 minutes long and well worth the time.

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As always, I'm @papa-pepper, and here's the proof:

proof-of-followers

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MY NAME IN PEPPERS

(I didn't have any lights....)

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Awesome Handcrafted @papa-pepper logo kindly donated by @vlad - Thank you!!
(see - free advertising for @vlad!)