What I have Learned about Steemit and Steem Power in 3 Days

I joined Steemit 3 days ago, and it has been a whirlwind ever since. In this post I will discuss what I like and dislike about Steemit, my experience with posts and comments, dtube, what I have learned about Steem Power and bots, followers, and what others have taught me with a few shoutouts.

I was super excited when I learned about Steemit after searching for intetesting Alt Coins to invest in. I was not expecting to come across an entire communty built around crypto currencies! My enthusiasm was curtailed a bit when I had to wait three days to get approved, but at least it wasn't a couple weeks of waiting!

I am a successful blogger with my own site (Investfourmore.com) that has generated over six figures a year the last two years. I have done well on other social media platforms as well (Facebook, Quora, LinkedIn, Twitter), but did not know what to expect here. Some things have gone well, and other things are different than I thought they would be. I will start with my introduction post.

How am I helping Steemit?

I have noticed a big push to expose others to Steemit, which makes sense. The people here, the better off we should all be. I thought I would start off with how I am helping get others to Steem.

1. I have shared multiple posts including this one to my business Facebook page which has 60,000 likes.
2. I have shared multiple posts with Twitter which has 22,000 followers.
3. I have told my team, friends and family all about it.

My introduction post

I love that Steem has a welcome page and tons of information on how to get started. It is also a bit intimidating because there is so much information! I wrote my introduction post a couple of days before I was approved on the platform. I also bought some Steem coins on Poloniex before I was approved as well. I made my introduction post here and it did fairly well, I think...

https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@investfourmore/excited-real-estate-investor-and-blogger-brand-new-to-steemit

It has 19 upvotes, 20 comments and made over $10. That $10 has since decreased to $9.30. I am not sure why that is or how it works. I made sure to include a picture of me holding a Steemit sign with the date. I tried to include as much information about myself as possible. Although I realized I left out some things! I have a wonderful wife, twin 6 year olds and two awesome dogs.

I made sure to respond to every comment and I upvoted everyones comment as well. I was selected by @mikepm74 for his top five introduction posts of the say. Thank you!

Upvoting

It took me a while to understand the upvoting and comments. I was upvoting everything when I first got on, except my own posts. I realized I had that backwards after I had been on the site a couple of days. I hardly every upvote my own stuff on other platforms like Facebook, but I read a couple of posts that said you should upvote your own stuff here. The reason you should upvote your own posts is it will help them get momentum and even earn you money at the same time. Although as a newbie expect to earn 1 penny or less for your own upvote.

I also learned the more I upvote others, the less I earn. I have to be careful about upvoting everything all the time or it will mean less to the posts I am voting on. Here is an excellent article on upvoting (thank you @gmichelbkk):

https://steemit.com/steemit/@gmichelbkk/how-to-monitor-your-steem-power-voting-power-rewards-and-upvotes#@investfourmore/re-gmichelbkk-how-to-monitor-your-steem-power-voting-power-rewards-and-upvotes-20171231t062311739z

I am also learning about being a curator and voting on posts early on, that may end up being very popular. Basically you want to follow people who usually do really well with their posts, and hope you can get in early on the voting and you may be rewarded with curating points. I am just learning about the curator side of things.

Comments

I have commented on every comment I have received on my posts. That is always how I have done things whether it is YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram. I have had a couple of great conversations with people including @jorlauski, who is also in the real estate business. I also saw a couple of my comments get upvoted with some nice payouts next to them.

The disappointing thing with comments, was the response to comments I made on other posts. I took my time making relevant, interesting comments on a lot of other posts, and the response was super low. I know some of the bigger fish get a lot of comments, but I was expecting a little better response. This makes me think money is more of the driving factor here than community. I am sure that is not true for everyone. Or maybe I am just commenting all wrong and do not know what I am doing.

How successful have my other posts been?

I was excited with the success of my first introduction post. I made a second post the next day:
https://steemit.com/realestate/@investfourmore/how-many-real-estate-investors-are-on-steemit

This post got absolutely nothing! No votes and no comments. I was a little disappointed as I thought it was engaging and geared towards Steemit. I guess with only 10 followers I should not have expected too much! I did some more research and found that many people use bots to get their posts seen when they are new. Some people even pay other users to upvote them. I have never paid anyone to upvote my stuff and that seems kind of wrong, but I am still learning as I have said.

A few interesting bots that were mention to me are:
@originalworks, which checks to see if your work is original to Steemit. Then it upvotes it and leaves a comment. All you have to do is type @originalworks in a comment. I used it and it worked.

@resteemable, which came to one of my posts as well. Apparently you:

1. Take Any Steemit URL
2. Erase https://
3. Type re
   Your post is commented on and they vote on the best posts as well. I don't think either of these give you any money for voting, just a little boost.

I am sure there are hundreds of other bots out there who can help as well. Or not help depending on what they are doing and how others view them. Did I am mention I am new here?

I wrote another post that did well today here:

https://steemit.com/classof2017/@investfourmore/honored-to-be-a-2017-steemian-encouraging-my-fellow-classmates-to-connect

I have to give credit to @davemccoy for the post and the help getting it to do well. What I learned from this post was it is really nice to have help from other successful Steemers. I am trying to make friends and remember those friends in the future!

What is dtube and how did I use it?

I kept hearing about dtube and how it is taking over YouTube. I learned how to use dtube with:

https://steemit.com/dtube/@derekhowe/bcvhybw7#@investfourmore/re-derekhowe-bcvhybw7-20171230t011857541z

@derekhowe has had a couple of great videos and resources on dtube. It took me a while, but I was able to upload a video, get the snap uploaded, and write the description. It actually took me three tries because the snap picture would not upload right. I suggest saving your description for your video and Steemit post if it is a long one as I had to re-write mine. That video did okay and you can see it here (it is a house I am flipping):

https://steemit.com/dtube/@investfourmore/35d8wstp

I am not sure about dtube yet. It takes a lot of time recording my videos and I feel like I need to do one for YouTube and one for dtube now.

Why did I buy Steem Power?

I mentioned that I had already bought some Steem before I was approved. I read up on Steem Power and realized that is how people get noticed and get some momentum. I transfered my Steem to Steemit and powered up 50 Steem into Steem Power. This gives me a little more clout.

https://steemit.com/steem/@cryptos/how-to-transfer-steem-from-poloniex-to-steemit-com#@investfourmore/re-cryptos-how-to-transfer-steem-from-poloniex-to-steemit-com-20171231t000440476z

I do have more voting power now, but I think I need to build up my followers, reputation and post more and more to really get ahead. I can't wait until my built up Steem dollars are in my wallet after being here long enough.

My future with Steem

I like Steem. I have seen some wars going on with downvoting and there is spam, but there are also millions of people here. It is a new technology and I think it will only get better. I would love to have more than 21 followers by now, but I know success takes time.

I plan to write more, do more videos and test out what content does the best. Hopefully I can find a following that will help me succeed. There is not much going on here with real estate, which is my specialty. Hopefully that is not a drag on my momentum. I can also talk about exotic cars as well! Don't see a whole lot of that going on either.....

Thank you everyone who read this! I hope it helps others who are just starting out. If anyone has tips for me, please let me know! Or if I am really screwing things up, let me know that too!

I would appreciate follows, votes, and comments!