***STEEMIT*** Branding, consistency and the value of curation teams - My Curie Story
Working a bit harder
A little while back (already seems ages ago, but it's really just 8 days) I decided to increase my efforts on Steemit and to work on the consistency and branding of my blog. This post will be a bit of a reflection on where that got me, and about the value of the work of great curation teams on this platform, in particular @curie.
I've been active on Steemit for more than half a year now. Looking back, I can see that with almost every post for which I had a more than 5 dollar payout, @curie was involved. And they've been quite a lot - I have really been very lucky with the way the Curie curation team has been noticing me and has rewarded my posts. Getting their vote, and then all the votes that follow their curation trail - is really a great token of appreciation for anyone adding their content to the Steemit platform. It means a lot to me!
How things were going till 8 days ago
I decided to put some effort into consistency and branding 8 days ago. Before that, I would post an article on Steemit two or three times a week. With the support of curators, those posts had quite a lovely response in payout and upvotes. But sometimes, they'd go very unnoticed. Collecting a reward of maybe 10 to 30 cents, and just 4 or 5 upvotes. When that happened, especially if it happened a few times in a row, I'd get discouraged and maybe not post for a week or even 2. I started realising that my success in Steemit was very dependent on being noticed and rewarded by @curie, and however happy I am with their support, I decided I wanted to find some more support from my own followers base too. And for that, was my reasoning, I needed two things: 1) consistency, posting regularly, and 2) being recognisable, better branding.
This last week I've changed the looks of my account, added some colourful details, I'm trying to communicate about what my followers can expect from me and I've worked hard to create a post every day.
Where the extra efforts got me
This is the ninth day in a row of posting continuously. I had a very full week this week, with very few hours for writing a blog per day. So no matter what the results, I'm happy with myself for setting a goal and keeping it. That said, let's have a look at the results.
Of the 9 days I posted in a row, 2 had a pay-out above 5 dollar. Both were the result of being found by a curation team, the first by the @OCD team (Spring in the gardens of Kralingen) (big thank you to them too), and one by the curie team (Visiting Villa Zebra, a museum for kids in Rotterdam). My posts in between received far less response. But maybe I could say that as the 9 days proceeded, I have seen a slight rise in the number of upvotes for those posts. Not necessarily showing in the reward, but that is only a second matter I feel. Writing posts that my followers enjoy and want to upvote is step 1. So since I was looking for more support from my own followers base, I think there might be some success there, but I'd have to continue longer to see if that is really a trend or not.
Popularity
But I noticed something else. That is that with the increased number of posts having less response, the number of followers to my account seemed to stagnate a bit. My guess is that newcomers to your account are less likely to hit that follow button, if the latest posts have received less upvotes and rewards. Which makes a lot of sense - we all like to follow popular people, because we feel we can learn from them.
Yesterday @curie awarded my latest post, and the number of followers to my account (which had been sitting at 691 for two days) jumped to 696. It made me realise that the effect of a curators vote does more than result in upvotes and rewards - it also helps to make your account look more popular and appealing and therefore it helps attract new followers. A small side-note is that, after the Curie curation, the total of upvotes I received for that post (till now) is 460! Which is far more votes than I ever received before. Seems like posting regularly AND being noticed and upvoted by curators might be a very productive combination!
Jumping to conclusions
I know that 9 days try-out is too short to really get to any solid conclusions. But what are my impressions till now?
- Posting every day is a lot of work.
- Posting every day seems to (slowly, but it does look a bit like a trend) increase the number of upvotes I receive from my own follower base, without intervention of a curating team.
- When I post more often, but those posts go less noticed, then the result is that my blog seems to drop a bit in popularity. Less people hit the follow button.
- After an awesome upvote from @curie, not only the number of upvotes and the rewards shoot up, but it also inspires people to follow my account.
What it comes down to, is that the curation efforts of teams like @curie makes an amazing difference for my account. For the number of upvotes, for the rewards, for its popularity and for the number of Steemians who want to follow. At this moment it seems that making quality content and being noticed by curators is more rewarding than posting daily, especially if those other posts don't receive that much response and make the account look less popular. On the other hand, 9 days is very short and I'm still interested to see what happens if I continue to post regularly, whether there will be more response from my regular followers. So I'll continue the try-out for a while longer, and see where it takes me.
Hope this was useful for you, would love your feedback. And would be great to see you again in a next post!
All content is created by me, and Steemit original.
Camera used: Canon G7X
I agree. Almost all of my blog posts that received a significant amount of money was from curie. Nowadays, I make videos for DTube and that has allowed me to get a more consistent payout (and I love it!).
I really do like your new look and I am glad you are realizing the importance of branding. Writing quality posts everyday is tough. For me, I make a video AND write a blog post and if I tried to post everyday, I think I would burn out very quickly.
You have to be persistent to succeed in Steem. You have to carve out your own niche. I know a lot of people that are fed up with Steem but when you look at their blog posts, they mainly consist of ramblings, inconsistent topics, rants, text with no high quality photos. A lot of these people have been on the platform since it's inception yet when you look at their blog posts today, they look the same as their posts from 1 year ago. That tells me that they aren't using this platform to improve.
You need to always be improving. Do something different from last time. For example, you added a new logo and brand. That's great. For me, the way I format my pictures, headers has changed. I don't just drag a drop a photo to my post. I make sure that I edit the photo, add a frame to it and save it in medium resolution so that it loads up easily on people's computers. These little things make a big difference. I don't do it because I have to, I just feel a sense of satisfaction when I see improvement.
Personally, posting videos to DTube has really improved my payouts for the better. You could look into doing that or posting on DLive as well.
Edit: Oh, and you can look into resteem services. Resteem services will help you get more upvotes and exposure (but a lot of these accounts might be bots so yeah...). I got a lot of upvotes from my last resteem service (but these were all low SP accounts) and some comments/followers.
Edit 2: One more thing! There is an account called "yoo1900" that upvotes minnows everyday. Check out his channel. He upvoted this post of mine. That will help as well instead of solely relying on curie!
Thank you so much @kenanqhd! Very useful comment, I'd give you three upvotes if I could ;).
Yes, it looks like the combination of video and blog is really working out for you. Which is awesome! I used to really like making videos for our YouTube channel. I think you one time told me you'd seen some of them? I loved making them, I also felt they were quite a bit of work in themselves. And I did them together with my husband, which made it a bit less awkward for me - just like having a conversation, but then in front of a camera ;). Maybe I could pick up doing videos again. It's definitely worth considering :).
The "yoo1900" tip is great! I looked at his account. Will definitely try and reach out to him!
Resteem services... or any other payment related things... I actually never went there. Or delegated steem or buying steem, none of it. I don't know why, maybe I just feel there is so much I could invest in, I don't know where to get started. Or that I'd rather just build the account the natural way. But that is a lousy reason of course, if it helps, then it helps. And if your account grows a bit because of it, it will make all the next Steemit endeavours more fun. So, I guess that is worth looking into too. Which services did you use?
I also have a question, if you don't mind. I've noticed your upvotes are worth a lot more than mine (yours is around 33 cents at the moment, would that be correct? mine around 5). I know you've started on Steemit a few months earlier than me, that you've posted a lot more and that you've earned a lot more in rewards. Did you take any extra action to increase your voting power, or is it just the result of growing your account?
And another question ;). I've heard people say that a great way to get more involved in Steemit and to find support is to join communities. Maybe like teamaustralia, or bloggers or photography groups. Have you been active with those kind of groups? I've been thinking it could be nice to join in on something, still not sure what kind of group it would have to be.
Thanks for being here on Steemit and for your support, always enjoy exchanging thoughts!
I just used @byresteem and it was ok. I sent 2 SBD and in return got dozens of upvotes but not worth much. I don't think it was worth it but I will keep trying and see if I can find others. There are a whole bunch of different "bots" that will resteem your post if you send them some Steem/SBD. I'd say try a few of them out and see which one works the best for you.
I experimented with upvote bots. I don't think they are worth it so I stopped using them a while ago. The only way they will be worth it is if you have enough to upvote yourself to the Trending page and get upvoted by people that see your post. Other than that, it doesn't really do anything.
I purchased a bunch of SP in the past. I remember I had a bunch of SBD and at the time, 1 SBD was worth like $13 haha. I turned it all into SP. And then I took a lot of my ETH and converted it to SP when the price of Steem was around $6-7.
Discord is the way to go! Visit https://discordapp.com and make an account. Add me as a friend: KenanQHD#8323 and I will invite you to some groups. I mainly just chat in the #OneLoveDTube group but there are a bunch of other groups you can check out.
Wow, wow ! What a great article again ! By the way, sorry I didn't comment before, but I didn't see this one in my feed, I see it now.
You know, since your first comment on my intro post I knew we belong to the same world.
I am very interested in @curie and their wonderful work.
Yes, brand is important but not only. I don't know why some very high quality posts (like yours) don't get enough rewards, and I admire your persistance. Money is not the only purpose but when you take so much time to write that kind of articles, it's frustrating to not receive enough.
I suggest you to go on like you do with your work, quality and analysis of the results.
But in order to make you more money (because you deserve it !! ) I would suggest you to apply to be a curator yourself. It would create a nice balance between creating your own content and be rewarded for helping others.
The ONLY little thing I would suggest you about quality is a visual stupid thing - justify your text. The longer the article, the lower the chance to keep your readers until the end. And justified text is more relaxing for the eyes. That's only my opinion of course, no judgment and respect for all you did until now.
Love, love, and keep going. <3
Thank you so much for your support and feedback! Very valuable to me! It's good to know that you think my posts are high quality and deserve high reward ;). I always try to make my posts the best I can. I've noticed rewards can be huge and tiny, and decided to enjoy the process of making the post and to relax about the results. If I post and feel satisfied that I created something good, then that is a very important part of my reward. And of course, other's feedback is too!
Becoming part of a curating team is actually a great tip. I would really like to become a more active member of Steemit, not just on the content creating part. Maybe I'm not yet sure I'd be very capable at it, and I also think it would require investing a lot of extra time and energy. But you know what - I've been considering it and now your comment really does make a difference for me to go and take some first steps! I've got some ideas already. So thank you!! Will keep you updated definitely :).
So with justifying the text, do you mean lining it out? I think in general putting my ideas into words more succinctly, less text and more images, could help.
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. Let's keep in touch!
Of course, the satisfaction is not all about money. Of course ! Sharing things you are really interested in, with honesty is satisfaction by itself. But on Steemit the money rewards are also important not only for the money itself. I think the number of upvotes can attract more people to read your posts and follow you.
Justify the text is make it look the same visualy on the right side as on the left. As my english is not great, I make this comment with justified text so you can see the difference with my other comment.
You will see the difference. But again, it is more personal feeling and I am not about to tell you what to do on your blog, never :-)
You would be a great curator. I have no doubt ! :-) But for all of us, it's the same thing - to find the right balance between time and quality, so it's very personal how everyone organise himself. I would be very happy to hear about this ! :-)
Thanks again! Could you tell me what the markdown (code) is for justifying the text? I'll definitely give it a try! :)
Hey, here it is :
Have a great Sunday :-)
Thanks!!