First, What Not To Do - How To Win Followers And Influence People On Steemit - Part 1
![Donts 1.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmdhZYtR64qY5zJMBfBrzBrQhTne82Ekmv2vNBy7uC7yz9/Donts%201.jpg)
It's a question I see asked every day - how do I get more followers?
Now, followers are no guarantee of high post rewards. One large follower could potentially be worth thousands of small ones. However, your followers number is a good general proxy, along with your reputation level, of your overall progress in the Steemit community. They give your posts and blog a greater air of authority that will ensure it gets read by more users than a blog with 7 followers will.
The network acceptance effect is real. The more users that are perceived to read and interact with your blog, the more rewards you will ultimately see:
![Donts 2.png](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmWjgUyb7oAsaHVfqvm7GaYPCzd6Nyj9JmJJcVW4chq6f9/Donts%202.png)
So, how do we get from "complete online nobody" (me 4 months ago) to "reasonable online presence" (hopefully, me now)?
Let's start with what not to do. It's impossible to increase your follower numbers if you are driving people away from your blog, and it is very difficult to recover if you cause your reputation to be flagged into the negative (sub-25, which is the baseline starting point.) We've all made at least one of these mistakes I suspect, so let's take a look with all judgment aside.
I have informally surveyed a wide variety of users, as well as considered my own research on public opinion, and my results mostly agree on the following "things not to do".
They are, roughly in order of importance:
![Donts 3.gif](https://steemitimages.com/DQmV8CoAsgef67GCGf5gCiXzyt6kba8S1nkVMzHZFxZgBvj/Donts%203.gif)
1. Plagiarism/Identity Theft - Plagiarizing on Steemit is the fastest way to the dust-bin and will make you a magnet for flags and ruin your reputation. Bots like @cheetah will catch your cut and pastes, and abuse teams will catch your identity theft very quickly. Don't bother. The last @JerryBanfield imitator didn't even make it to 30 rep before being flagged out.
2. Beg for anything - This includes votes, follow, resteems, editing work, time - anything. Steemit is not your personal, digital panhandling service. You might be able to pull a few strings with some sob stories about how $2 US is the average salary in your country. However, if all you do is extract value from the Steemit platform without producing any worthwhile content, you'll find your welcome soon overstayed.
3. Post generic comments / "spam" - At Steemit, spam is not only the traditional spam we are used to, such as marketing fliers or repetitive nonsense. Comments such as "good post", "upvoted", etc are generally considered borderline spam. The best case scenario if you make them is you will be ignored or pull a token 1% vote. Don't make a comment if you can't provide something that wouldn't cut and paste accurately onto another article.
4. Flag - New users probably should not be flagging much. You are probably not familiar enough with the culture to know when to safely flag, you will be unable to provide any noteworthy reduction in rewards, and you may just poke the wrong bear.
5. Post without pictures - If you post without any pictures, your post will receive no thumbnail in the New/Hot/Trending lists. This is effectively post suicide. Terribly formatted pictures, pictures that do not appear properly, or pictures that produce an awful thumbnail should be immediately edited and replaced.
![Donts 4.gif](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmagS3TLSYeeZn51RURGm66pc77ecygVojU1Wxz9j3Rvfj/Donts%204.gif)
6. Post with bad opening lines - A similar, though less egregious mistake, than using no images. Your first 15-20 words is all that will show up in the New/Hot/Trending lists. Don't waste them.
7. Post "XXXX followers posts" too often - These are a mixed bag. I don't do them, generally, but I've seen users post reliably every 100 followers. I've seen a lot of users complain about not liking these posts, even saying they unfollow people for these posts. Keep your minor personal milestones to yourself, unless you are going to work your followers into the post with a giveaway of some type. Our culture is fatigued of participation trophies.
8. Post too often - A minor failing, but more than perhaps 4-5 posts a day, unless they are all high-quality, will potentially overload your users still attempting to follow their feeds. They may remove you.
9. Resteem too often - A corollary to #8. Don't over do it, make sure your content is prominent in your blog.
10. Asking for info in comments - If you could google it yourself, then do so. Post the results in a comment to help others.
11. Overusing bot boosters / Resteem services - A minor issue, but if the entirety of your comments are notifications from Booster, Randowhale, etc then your whole post takes on an air of non-human discussion. Also note, some users consider vote-buying from these services as equally unethical from whales vote buying/trading, since they are different only in magnitude.
In part two, I will discuss how to actually start gaining followers, and then how to transition that into authoring your own posts instead of comments (which is where you should be at first!)
![Dos 2.gif](https://steemitimages.com/DQmX7hehhVPGFYyPz9q3MBtL1ZnV4vFjWNLoAtJaHxRZjGs/Dos%202.gif)
![PAL Logo.gif](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmRSmRyg4MdRdiKsWTMbfyiAG673K1yP65MoUTbCXGp9Xi/PAL%20Logo.gif)
We also have a Radio Station! (click me)
...and a 4000+ user Discord Chat Server! (click me)
Sources: Effects of Social Influence on Acceptance of Online Social Networks
Copyright: Dale Carnegie, Calvin & Hobbes
Legimate points - I feel like because of the incentives and punishment systems built into the Steemit platform that bad content and users will eventually be cycled out or to the corners of visibility. However, (at least right now as a very new user) the network effect needs to grow for that to happen more rapidly.
In fact, it would seem like the most popular/biggest accounts would be driven to improve the integrity of the network by becoming a vanguard or first point of contact for new users. Because as you say, too many posts from low quality accounts is overwhelming. But a few encouraging posts or engagement...even mentorship from established accounts would serve as a way to strengthen the network relationships keeping new users from leaving if the don't feel drawn into the community.
Just my thoughts. It looks as if Steem has an opportunity to carve out a niche for itself on the social media landscape but it needs to make sure the content can remain better than networks such as Twitter or Snapchat. The reputation system can solve that perhaps.
Thanks for posting, going to read the follow up Part 2 now.
"Because as you say, too many posts from low quality accounts is overwhelming. "
Content organization is a high-priority problem for Steemit, if you ask me. I wouldn't mind just ripping off an organization similar to Reddit, which seems to get the job done and promote quality comment engagement.
I think that has a lot to do with it.
I like your ideas about mentoring. To an extent, that's the idea behind the Minnow Support Project. We have all sorts of writing and review workshops, and tools to help new users get their posts at least viewed, if not highly rewarded.
i know youve already mentored several people.
you do a lot of work
Yeah I'd say you were one of the most dutiful students.
I "mentored" you right into a massive Steem investment!
I was thinking more about the mentorship idea. It seems like there could be a way to help scaffold minnows through early milestones and gain a positive reputation or Steem Power. Meanwhile established members would get bonuses as well. From what I've been reading, it sounds like more steam flow through the system and help with quality retention could be bolstered.
That's not a bad idea. I guess you could allow linking accounts somehow, and reward the mature account for gains on the minnow account. Incidentally, this is usually the only reason I resteem a post - sending a minnow's post out to a larger group to get them rewards/followers.
Aggregation tools or a more robust landing page for display is critical, in my opinion. I'm not a huge fan of the Reddit style of layout but it works.
I'll take a look at the Minnor Support Project and see what I can learn. Thanks again
I read all and we all. Know hes right thats a facr
@lexiconical another outstanding post with valuable tips! I am happy to hear the other jerrybanfield account got flagged! Great tip about posting to much a day. I think 3 a day is a good limit because I limit myself to 3 even though I work full time on Steem. As a reader I think even 3 is a bit challenging to process!
I've noticed you are very careful about over-posting, and you even schedule posts when you can't post them at the best times. Your effective model is one worth aspiring to.
Check out Jerry's blog if you want to know how to do this.
Another thing you do innately, that I should have included in this post, is you vary the topics you post on. I think it might be a bad idea to post 3-4 articles in a row on very specific topics, especially if those topics are downers (abuse, corruption, etc.) I like that I never know what I'll get with your new posts.
Thanks for stopping by, Jerry!
Great job, as usual @lexiconical.
I am currently trying to gain more insight on the offers to pay for an upvote, by whales giving a percentage if any amount is sent. Is that the bot booster you speak of in #11?
Funny thing about comic strips, one never outgrows the joys they bring. I actually bought a book with a collection of Calvin & Hobbes comics. It remains one of my all-time favorites.
Peace.
Is that the bot booster you speak of in #11?
Actually, there are a lot of these vote bots. Randowhale, Booster, Discordia...the list goes on and on.
They each leave a comment when used, and your comments can quickly look like a robot parade if you use too many.
Thank you!...robot parade ;+)
I recently got my posts marked as plagiarism,some hours ago actually.
I lost around 12$. As I am a newbie I was unaware of such things.
Your post will help a lot of people to know about such things.
Thank you
When in doubt, throw a citation at the bottom. I always try to add a section for Sources and Copyright. Even if you end up botching the citation by accident, it makes it clear that you aren't trying to steal anything!
"If it don't feel right, cite!"
You were unaware of the concept of plagiarism?
It's not difficult, just don't copy/paste other people's work.
Yes I was totally unaware of plagiarism
For the record, although I am not claiming you are lying, you will find many who find this difficult to accept.
Most of us never actually had to be told not to copy the work of others and pass it off as our own. We knew it by default.
True..
To be honest I had copied the content from somewhere on which I got marked.
I wrote a post about plagiarism after that.
Steemit is a deep sea, there are still a lot of things to learn.
Thank you for keeping such a positive outlook on your experience! Have a vote.
Thanks 😊
Im getting better and better. and all of these are good things to follow. I must say my worst is probably #6, I'm bad at coming up with titles that are intriguing lol.. But I will just keep trying, and hopefully that will make me less and less bad at it. Thanks for the thoughts, keep up the good work!
I still think my titles could use work too. I think they may be too long sometimes.
I have to admit I'm guilty on number 11 using bots, I usually up vote "my commenters so the bots stay at the bottom and don't clog up the blog. I think it evens out because I use the bots on other people's posts also, this way I can give them more than my 12 or 13 cent up vote
Yeah, there's a good reason that one is near the bottom. It's a more minor distinction, and frankly a matter of opinion for some people.
I have a question for you about reputation, it seemed like it took forever to go from 49 to 50 and then I blinked and it was at 51. Do the achievements on the steemit board give you reputation or is it how many posts and comments you make? If you were planning on adding it to your next post for beginners I can just wait for that to come out.
Oh, no, but now that you mention it, perhaps I should.
Reputation appears to come from only upvotes. Amount of reward you earn determines how much (I hink), as well as the reputation of the upvoter.
So, if you suddenly got a decent sized payout, it's possible to jump. I jumped from around 37 to 51-55ish with a $300+ post early on.
Ok,I see what you mean!
Lovely a great way to help us get started. I apreciated the content and i know what it feels like to over do it. Recently i subscribed for one of those steem follower things and instantly 4000 posts got resteemed in my name. sooo sad. Thanks for your time and work. Cheers
Ah, yes, that can put quite a few followers off you quick! If I see 4-5 things in a row in my feed form the same user, I seriously consider un-following.
At least, I used to, back when my feed was still remotely usable.
Extremely annoying and the worst part is that i cant hide the resteems and such.. Well once again thanks for this amazing content!
-Cheers
I've been requesting a filter for Resteems ever since I joined the platform.
It seems that some people feel that "forcing" your followers to see a Resteem in your feed is part of the point of it.
@lexiconical How do we go about getting the feature added? That would be wonderful. Do we have to get alot of people to request it and they will add it in a future fork or is there some way of sending a support ticket etc?
Yes, that would basically be the correct protocol. I know other users support it as well.
I think that this change is considered small and is "back-burnered" while they are working on Communities for Steemit. That's the big interface game-changer, and it may be hard to get anything small changed until that becomes reality.
The solution for now may be a user-tool of some-type that would allow filtering. As Inquiringtimes' pointed out to me recently, if you view a user through ChainBB, you will see ONLY their posts - no Resteems.
I checked that ChainBB website and amazingly it does not show my resteems which is AMAZING! Thanks for pointing that out to me.
Hi @chuckyfucky and @lexiconical,
Check out steemplus. It was made by @stoodkev to block resteems on any page you visit (except your own I think).
I havent tried it yet, but I was thinking to write about it in my page to give it a bit more support.
Hope this helps :)
Thanks for sharing my friend @lexiconical
Upvot and follow you
Well written and insightful. Fantastic advice for new users.
Thanks bud!
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