Steemit: No Place for a Polymath...
"I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do."
- Leonardo da Vinci -
Steemit is No Place for a Polymath...
I've been on Steemit for more than two years now. Somehow, my "career" here appears to have followed a bell curve... gradually increasing at first, steepening, but then ultimately nosing over, and seemingly now on the decline.
I've struggled to understand why that is. Recently I had an insight that may be closer to the truth than I care to admit.
What shall I contemplate today...?
Image courtesy of Pixabay
My interests and my writing are extremely eclectic.
Possibly too eclectic to succeed as a blogger.
Looking back at my Steemit career--which I've made quite easy to do by accessing My Library—you'll see that I've written about many very different things. This is because I am pretty much interested in everything.
Now, I realize that not everyone is interested in everything. A lot of folk are more focused than I, and follow and pursue perhaps one or two principal interests.
Consequently, I have a new working theory.
I think what may be happening might be described in the following example:
An anarchist comes along and reads one of my articles about agorism, or liberty. They find it interesting, enjoyable, useful, educational. As a result, they follow me... only to be disappointed, because my next several articles have nothing to do with freedom. 😮
Repeat the above scenario, ad infinitum.
For any subject area of specific interest... theater, theology, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, grumblings, science, philosophy, natural health, biblical studies, surfing, technology, music...
By the time I "circle back around" to the subject any particular follower is interested in, they've lost interest and moved on.
Deep sigh!
But, perhaps I'm just making up excuses. Perhaps I just won't ever quite make the cut as a "successful blogger."
Nevertheless, I consider myself blessed.
I do seem to have a "core group" of followers that come back, time and again, and read my blatherings. They vote for me, they leave encouraging comments, they bless me with robot votes, they forgive me when I slack off and fail to visit them, and some of them even pray for me.
And so, I'll close by saying this, from my heart:
Thank you to all my faithful friends.
You know who you are.
~FIN~
you can still reward it: CLICK HERE.
P.S. If you have an "in" with anybody at Steemit, Inc. - Would you please ask them to get rid of these damn, extremely annoying "off-website" arrow/boxes? The have, overnight, made Steemit ugly. There are much better solutions.
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please check out our Library Stories Shelf - CLICK below:
Introducing: The SILVERengines proton - Image by @creatr
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You are why I'm here on Steemit!
I have very eclectic interests and hope, over time, to write about them all.
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Your title here gave me a chuckle per our previous conversation. Semper fidelis, and always praying, brother. :)
It's a weird evolutionary curve here for a lot of content producers, I think, and it doesn't follow normal expectations, and a lot of it is just counterintuitive.
I think you touched on it with your eclecticness. Since so much on steemit is 'faceless' and 'disconnected' (as opposed to Facebook, for instance, where much of it is personalized and connected, for better or worse) one really has to pick a niche and stick with it so that people know exactly who you are and what they'll get when they read one of your posts. So, people flicking through their feed will see your name and say 'oh, it's the anarchy guy' or 'oh, it's the guy who posts cooking recipes' or 'oh, it's the travelogue guy.'
Readers don't normally want to be 'challenged' with something unexpected, nor do they have the time to explore unexpected content. They'd rather invest their minutes (and upvotes) into stuff that's familiar (especially when they don't read it at all and are just upvoting familiar things).
Of course, there's so much static and noise on steemit that I believe it's just hard to form a loyal following and KEEP those people, regardless of your content.
The rewards/upvotes are a different thing. Unless you can get auto bot votes from automated people, or are willing to buy votes, and are willing to spend a lot of time being highly visible on Discord or attending meetups or commenting on important peoples' posts, etc, it's just hard to get the rewards that one's work deserves (yours included).
In the end (and like I had heard at the very beginning of my steemit 'career'), you just write what you enjoy and post what you want, and any feedback or rewards are just bonuses on top of something you want to do anyway.
Just my 2 cents (literally!)
Thanks, Neg, for your comprehensive and on-point commentary on my article. You have identified one of the dimensions of my problem in that things here are far less personal/family oriented than Facebook... Ha, I can scarcely even get other family members to participate! And, oh yeah, I do have that belligerent, challenging flair to some of my pieces, don't I? LOL!
Your conclusion is spot on... and I expect to just keep on doing what I like. :D
There's something else going on here as well, something I've touched on in other articles and will probably revisit. It's what a preacher I once knew spoke of at the "two ticks, no dog" problem. Pretty much everybody here is clamoring for attention as content creators. Serious content creators are focused on their art, and have limited time for reading and curating. Steemit is seriously unbalanced in that it does not better reward curation. This is something @mattclarke observed long ago at the point of a hardfork that reduced curation rewards, and I have echoed repeatedly since.
And so, how can I expect regular, appreciative readers when almost everyone here is scrambling to write?
Having said that, thank you for being someone who keeps coming back... :)
😄😇😄
The latest hardfork has really caused problems on here for everyone.
It sure has!
Do you seriously want to be a "successful blogger"??? Join the club in having ghost and dead followers🤣😂😃
Sorry to tell you, dear, but I'm already a lifetime member of that club! 😂
P.S. Just reviewing things, I think you've done better than I have overall in that department! ;)
Good for you!
Amazing isn't it? Things in here aren't that surprising anymore😊😊 Thanks @creatr
we do try, don't we?
Yes, try we must.