If I was new to Steem

Without going much into how things used to be in the past, similar to crypto prices this platform has kept on changing constantly at a very fast pace, I wanted to take the time to write down how I would do things today if I was a new user knowing what I know as a curator today.

Not just as a curator, many of you may already be aware that I spend a lot of my time on Steem and try and be everywhere a bit and have a general sense of what is going on everywhere although much like when I attempted to follow the altcoin world which became impossible by the sheer amount of them existing, I find myself facing the same struggle here on Steem. There is too much going on and fast, people like to look at prices and judge how a project is doing based on them but similar to most coins they are all unique and the general crypto market is not going to care if you cure cancer, it still won't instantly reflect on the price.

With this post I want to write down what I would do as a new user who is looking to spend a lot of time on the platform. I am aware that I may not be aware of all projects on Steem but I am hoping the comment section will help fill this post up even more and that maybe it could be useful to newcomers stumbling upon it.

First off, let's assume I'm a user that's already familiar with crypto and interested in investing and becoming active in Steem, this is what I'd do.

As someone already familiar with Crypto I would think about things like: token supply, daily reward pool, inflation, governance, richlist and what those users do, what Steemit is + what it does and what it holds, discussions on other platforms about the currency, what it is trying to solve, how it has done so far and then I'd start looking at what is going on on the platform.

Then as a user I think I would take a look at trending, then look at authors who get rewards without bid bots, then authors who get rewards without votetrading, then realize it doesn't really matter what I post about as the rewards aren't that important and that there is so much else going on except of blogging, commenting and curating on this platform. I'd probably invest in some Steem considering the bear market we are in and either curate with it or delegate it for ROI.

As a user only looking to invest his time, I suggest they would first start by reading some of the FAQ or the Welcome page. I realize it is quite a lot and I'm sure many will instead just give it a go and see how it goes without reading much, but I hope they will at least consider checking out the FAQ page when they get into words they don't understand or Steemians talking about things that makes no sense to them.

Then I would suggest they start looking around, realize there are other interfaces of the Steem blockchain and get involved with the communities. I'd suggest he'd check the feeds of authors he has followed which could easy lead him to more authors that share the same interests as him, but I realize this is a difficult thing for a newcomer to find out, heck a lot of people barely know nowadays that you can browse other's feeds. I'd tell him to look into dapps on steemdapps.com and see if there is anything in existence that the user would be interested in. If yes, then get into their discords and start connecting with others.

I'd also suggest they'd give it a try by posting whatever they would post on other social media platforms, sooner or later they would get picked up by a curation group for original content. If they aren't much of writers and instead like to engage with comments instead, that would be my next go to suggestion. Comment on your favorite authors posts, most of them will respond to you and maybe even give you your first (valuable) upvote. Some of them may even check out your account just because of your comment and give you a follow and future votes.

Curate users, but not users that get a ton of rewards already. A vote combined with a comment can be worth a lot more than what the vote gives the author, Steem is all about connecting with others. I realize we are in this weird phase right now where we aren't so sure anymore if we just focus our voting on content but move it over to funding or investing and all kinds of things, but there will always be some users just curating content for curation's sake.

Soon you will realize how doors are opening up in front of you, people and communities welcoming you and you will start to see the potential this blockchain brings not just for investors, developers but also for its users. There are not many ecosystems like this one and the mere fact that we survived without one of the main revenue generators in existence for this long portrays how powerful blockchain is and that it will stay alive for a long time. Another cool thing is having something you know will never stop existing and always be your own to hold, and that is your Steem account.

When I first started writing this post I figured it would be a lot shorter but I tend to sidetrack quite a bit as I'm writing, maybe I can instead end it here and engage with you all in the comment section instead and leave you with this question:

What would you suggest a new user on Steem to do which got you started and wanting to stay on the platform?