Hey, welcome to steemit! If you're brand new, you've got a lot to learn! So, I thought I'd try to help you get started, okay? Cool, let's do this thing!

Thing number one, find the hamburger menu!

Inside here, are the keys to the Steemit kingdom!

There are a few things you should do in here, pretty much before you do anything else. I'm sure you've explored a little, but this place is a great place to do that!

• Read the blue paper, in the welcome tab, it explains the steem blockchain in more or less simple English, along with rewards system and the rest of the mechanics of running a blog on steemit.
• Check out the FAQ, in this same list, under FAQ, it will answer a lot of things you've wondered about.
• Last stop in here is the Steemit App Center, lots of great tools for doing awesome on steemit, including finding good followers, estimating your payouts and much more!

Thing number two, understand the transparency of Steemit

This is kind of a big deal. Many users don't realize this up front. One of the amazing things about the blockchain is

There are no secrets here!

Seriously, click on your "wallet" link at the top of the page. In addition to your voting power, SP and other earnings, stuff, there is a category at the bottom called history.

This is where every single transaction you conduct is recorded.

But, here's where it gets interesting!

Click on any other profile, go ahead, use mine if you want.

Now, check my wallet. No, it's okay, go in.

You can see every penny of SP and SBD, plus anywhere I've sent money, or received it from on the platform. Using the "Comments" and "Replies" links at the top, you can also see everything I've ever said to anyone on Steemit. Crazy,right.

So, remember this. Your comments are public, your posts are public, your financial transactions are public, so be careful how you act on steemit!

The good news is, everything is open, so learning to copy another steemer, is as easy as going into their history, blog, comments and replies to find out what they're doing that you're not!

Thing number three, make your first post!

Now, you're going to be tempted to go to "Introduce Yourself" and post something, but I suggest waiting. Figure things out first. The Introduction post can set you up to succeed, or be ignored.

Here's three things to remember about posting. Ready?

1. Headlines matter. Write a great, compelling headline, and choose a good preview image and you'll catch some attention.
2. Location, location, location, in the hamburger menu, there is a link called "Explore" that shows you categories, choose your main category wisely to get best exposure.
3. Create quality, value adding content and engage with commenters and you'll be well on your way.

One more thing

Your posts stats are at the bottom. Just because you didn't get any votes or comments yet, doesn't mean people haven't seen you. There's a "views" stat there that roughly corresponds to the number of people who've seen your post!

Please Check out #dolphinschool and follow me @markrmorrisjr for more tips!

Feel free to ask me anything. I try to respond to every single comment I get! Thanks for reading and good luck on steemit!