My @Curie Story - Hope Given
My @Curie story isn't as dramatic as some I have seen posted on my feed. But I thought I would share it and was encouraged by @carlgnash, one of the Curie curators to do so, as this is a good way to get the word out on how @curie helps a lot of planton and minnows who are posting great content and not getting recognized in most cases.
I joined Steemit at the end of December 2017 at the urging of my son, @jakeybrown. I have a hobby that consists of customizing sports action figures and he thought it was unique and would be a good addition to @steemit. I wasn't so sure but I decided ot give it a shot. He also said I would gain riches on posting through Steemit. That remains to be seen but at least I can pass on this tale of hope and encouragement from the @curie group.
I started out with the standard introduction story which did well, but then I posted a few custom figurine posts and they really didn't get any interest or upvotes. I was a bit discouraged as are many plankton who join steemit. I turned to my second hobby, craft beer drinking and started posting reviews of that. These posts actually gained some interest among the beer drinkers on here, so that was somewhat encouraging. However, the custom figure posts were still not getting any interest. I also posted one or two blogs about music related topics. They did so - so also.
To be honest I was getting pretty discouraged with steemit in general. I had just finished a fairly difficult custom figure set of two female basketball players and had been taking pictures in anticipation of posting on my blog. It was a complicated customization and I felt it should be posted in 3 parts. So I set about posting it in early March, providing links to the other parts of the story (thanks to @randomwanderings for that suggestion).
https://steemit.com/hobby/@bigskycustoms/custom-figurines-female-basketball-player-part-1
Not sure the time it took to happen after I posted, but one day the upvotes just came roaring in, along with the $$ value, way more than anything I had ever seen before or could have imagined. I had been contacted by @carlgnash so I figured he was the curie curator who put my post up but I recently came to find out it was actually @randomwanderings, so much thanks to them. Curie's group had jumped on my Part 1 post with vigor, ended up at 259 votes and $59.50 in value (it was actually higher when it happened but the steem drop happened right about then so it was deflated). So looking at the votes, it was one upvote in particular, the mysterious @hendrikdegrote who was the biggest upvote value. Needless to say, I was thrilled with this activity! I have finally found the magic! Or so I thought.
Time went on, hard times returned. I thought Curie had abandoned me! What had I done wrong? How had I angered the gods? I didn't know and didn't really understand how things worked. At a later date, @carlgnash did tell me, curie works best by selecting exemplary posts and boasts them to provide exposure for the author. Curie often spotlights quality authors in their weekly updates.
But I was back to lackluster results. Or was I. As I mentioned I had posted a couple of music related posts on my blog. I had some video from a trip to Ireland of a song I liked played by a local duo, Whisky in a Jar. I loved that song, as I had heard it by Thin Lizzy years before. so I prepared a blog about that video and other versions of the song.
https://steemit.com/music/@bigskycustoms/whiskey-in-the-jar
This blog post got a small boast from curie, not sure who the curator was but 33 votes and $4.93 in value. Cool! I wasn't abandoned, I just needed to up my game on blog posts.
A week later, it happened again, this time after I posted about a concert I had attended a couple years before by Gov't Mule.
https://steemit.com/music/@bigskycustoms/gov-t-mule
This one garnered 75 votes and $4.43.
Then a week later, another music post about a concert I attended with Tedeschi Trucks band.
https://steemit.com/music/@bigskycustoms/tedschi-trucks-band-august-2017-the-kettlehouse-amphitheater
This time curie curator @illuminati-inc promoted my post which received 66 upvotes for $8.07.
As I stated at the start, no life saving events happened, but these kind of post boasts by @curie group are just what is needed to keep plankton and minnows in the game as frustration is a big part of steemit for most posters. I noticed a down turn in activity when steem values dropped. It didn't keep me from posting but I didn't join for the $$ to be honest.
This is My Curie Story. I hope it helped in some small way to encourage others to continue posting and working to provide quality posts. Thanks for reading it. Take care!!
Thanks for sharing.
I was also helped by @curie for one of my posts and I'm very grateful for that. Might also create a post for my curie experience.
It's very tough to get noticed but to be fair I had some interest for my posts and a slowly growing following base so I can't complain.
yes it sure helps, I looked at your posts, you have some pretty good ones, so you are doing well. I think it wouldn't hurt to do a Curie post. I was encouraged to do so. I think it helps spread the word.
Nice story, consistency is definitely key, it can be a long slow build without a consitent whale or dolphin supporting, but over time as long as steemit keeps growing you will have more followers and those followers will be building their accounts to so it will all build on itself.
thank goodness I have you and @meesterboom, or most of mine would be about $0.20. I would say I only have a few consistent followers, even my beer followers are pretty hit or miss. There really aren't any custom figurine followers or music followers, but persistence is the key I guess.
Thanks for posting this :) I think honestly it is harder to find a footing now than it ever has been for a new author on Steem platform. So much of the total available SP has been delegated to vote sellers that the amount left in the hands of active voters with human eyes is minuscule and the worth of those votes diluted. Curie of course can't be a long term solution for every quality author on this platform (well, maybe if someone wants to delegate millions of SP to Curie we could expand and try to take on that role better LOL), but I think it is a good reminder to hear these stories - even a couple of big upvotes are certainly much better than none. On that we can all agree, right? :)
I hope you stick it out, you take the time to write nice posts on a variety of topics. The truth about earning here on Steem platform is in large part it depends on networking and even moreso on making friends with some people higher up on the totem pole. The way the math works, you basically have to be receiving upvotes from someone higher up to keep gaining REP. Finding some communities to join, whether "real" communities that have a chat home e.g. PAL / MSP chat on Discord, or just blockchain based communities of posters on a posting topic e.g. posting beer reviews, finding like-minded posters and making friends is key.
Cheers - Carl
You paint a bit of a dismal picture Carl, not very encouraging to new authors. I actually like some of the ability I have to write actual blog type poses, as compared to what I do on Facebook (with my custom figurines). And the beer reviews are better here than on Instagram where I used to pose most of my beer pictures. So from that aspect I like Steemit. But it is frustrating with the $$ side of things, the allure is you will make money posting things on here. However, it isn't that simple and really, like you said, there are some big big whales who control things, and having to "buddy up" to a patron as it were is kind of crazy, a popularity contest really.
Yes I have heard all the advice, need to find a like group and build a community, join discord and chat it up with like minded people. I am on discord but I really don't have time to spend on there very much. Posting on Steemit takes a lot of time and effort, plus my hobby is very time consuming, I work full time and have a wife and kids (yes older ones but there is a grandbaby that I love to see), so while great advice not all that easy to accomplish. The amount of fluctuation even in the beer community is astounding. When I first was posting beer reviews for example, I started getting really good upvotes, I was seeing post values in the $s but for some reason that all dried up and I am lucky to get to a $1 now, and that is largely because I do have one fellow who upvotes most of my stuff to get me there. Most of the beer drinking community is a bunch of planton or minnows, so their votes are not worth a lot.
Anyway, sorry about the griping, I don't want to come off like that but it just is the way this site is set up, it is not really newbie friendly, with restrictions on voting power and all that. I have to assume there is a high number of people who join only to leave within a few months, due to lack of any recognition or gaining steem.
Ill for sure stick it out for the foreseeable future . I really do wonder how this site will survive with the way the steem is distributed, I have always said this, and I feel it is so true on this site, the rich get richer and the poor just muddle around until they leave.
All that said, it is great there are groups like Curie and ocd (who boosted one of my posts recently), so that provides the hope I spoke about in my title to this post.
:) long reply, sorry.
No need to be sorry, everything you are saying is true. But the thing you slipped in the middle RE you used to post your beer pics to Instragram and of course didn't receive any $ there is good to keep in mind as well. Adjusting expectations, particularly when new(ish), can help. For the vast majority of new users this is not going to be a get rich quick platform, nor even a make a decent amount for posting platform. But on the other hand, we all have used other platforms for free, right? LOL
yes true on your assessment.
I have a question, someone called hugewhale sent me 0.001 steem with this message: Promote your post. Your post will be resteemed with over 10.500+ followers , Min 45+ Upvote , Hugewhale Upvote ( 3100SP ) . Your post will be more popular and you will find new friends. Send 0.700 SBD or 1.0 STEEM to hugewhale ( URL as memo ) Service Active
is this basically spam?
Well yeah by any definition of spam that would be spam. I have no idea if the particular service being advertised in that spam is a real service or not, but in any case, resteem services in general are pretty worthless.
yeah seems like it is, just not sure when I get these types of messages who donate a pittance to me.