Like It Or Not, You Need To Invest

Little Late, Aren't You?

It's been a while back now, but for a week or so, there were several posts debating whether or not Steemit was mostly a media platform or if it was actually nothing more than an investment platform. At one point, someone said it was both.

At the time, I came away with the conclusion that Steemit is what you make of it. If you want it to be social, than it can be, and if you want it to be purely money making, it can be that, too.

That said, though, after reading quite a few posts over the last day or so mentioning moments of disillusionment before essentially doing what Simon Sinek counsels—finding their why—I've been feeling the need to readdress this, "What is Steemit?" issue, at least with regards to this:

Like it or not, if you're going to stick on Steemit and achieve anything here, you simply need to invest.

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Remember, no one ever said that trees don't grow on money.

Now, clarification time. Investing on Steemit has, in my opinion, several different options, most of which are not the obvious—a monetary investment. But before we get into that, I want to loop back and talk about two things Steemit is not so as to set the stage for the investment part.

Steemit Is Not A Job

That might be what you want it to be, with regular, consistent earnings so you can live off them and at least pay your bills, if not be comfortable, live like a modern day royal and do whatever it is you've ever wanted to do. Unfortunately, that right there doesn't describe most jobs, anyway.

In fact, it might actually be closer to a business, but even that is iffy. A job has a company or an individual, perhaps, that you're working for. They tell you what your job is, what you need to do in it, and then they tell you how they will compensate you. You normally have a set amount of hours a day to do your work in, a set number of days per week, and if you're fortunate, you might have some benefits like insurance, paid time off, paid holidays, etc. All of those set by your employer.

That's not what Steemit is. There is no company providing a wage, benefits, or anything else other than an account and some web pages to work on or peruse.

Steemit Is Not Exactly A Business, Either

Sure, you have a product or maybe even a service you're offering. You have content, you have yourself, you might even offer to do some thing for someone in exchange for something else, but that's about as far as it goes. A business generally sets the price of their wares. Sure, there's some market knowledge involved, but still, the $ amount you will see for goods and services is set by the business.

On Steemit, the value of your content is set by the customer(s). It might have something to do with how good your content is, but it might as easily be for another reason. The only constant on Steemit is what the user values.

And then, instead of you getting all of what they pledge to you, they have a chance to get some of what they gave you back.

So, What Is Steemit then?

It's an investment platform that you can use however you like. But you have to invest at least one of five things in order to make it worth your while. Otherwise, you will feel like you're not accomplishing anything here and your account will drift into that dreaded dead fish state like the vast majority of the now 1 million-plus accounts.

What are the five things? Let's just say they should be obvious to you by now, if you've been on Steemit longer than a few weeks, just because that's usually the time things start to click.

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Time

It's going to take time to do anything on Steemit worth your while. Especially, if you're starting with nothing or very little, you will need to invest time in what you're doing here. Writing a post, commenting, reading and curating, even researching how things work, or best practices. You need time. Things just don't happen in an instant. The more you can invest your time on a daily basis here, the faster things can grow. Notice I said can. There are no guarantees. But if you only have half an hour a day to invest on Steemit, don't be surprised if your earnings don't skyrocket. Mine aren't skyrocketing, and I spend hours and hours a day.

Work

For however long you're here, you need to invest it doing something. Something that will help your account grow. Just sitting around looking at posts and comment isn't enough. You need to comment or reply, post your own content, and you need to throw some SP at other people's posts and comments. As much as you can. If that's $0.01, make sure it's combining with someone else's $0.02 so it doesn't just get returned to the reward pool. There's more nuances to it than that, but suffice it to say if you want to earn rewards, you need to allocate rewards.

When you post, make sure you're proofreading it before you send it out into the world. Figure out what people like to read about that lines up with your own knowledge or tastes, and write about that. If you go totally obscure and niche, don't be surprised if few follow you there. There's 60,000 users on Steemit each day at any given time, but only a fraction of them are going to be into healthy homemade recipes and exercise regimens for marmots, so keep that in mind.

When you comment, do so meaningfully. "Good post," or "Thanks for sharing," or "This is extremely useful information," does not count as an engaging comment. Also, comment a lot. Remember the time you're investing. Commenting is one of the fastest, easiest and far reaching ways to spend your time.

Which leads to the next investment:

People

Networking works just as well here as it does anywhere else, and you can do it through posts, comments, replies, and curating. Yes, some people will like you for your upvote and will reciprocate. However, most are interested in knowing who you are and what you say, think and do before they'll take the next steps: commenting on your posts, replying to your comments, or upvoting any of what you've done.

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You also have the option of joining in on any of a number of communities or initiatives that have sprung up on Steemit. The more you can interact, the better. This can happen on and off Steemit, in places like Discord, where many Steemit users hang out and scheme their schemes for world domination. Or cat sweaters. Or the perfect crepe recipe.

If you want to be successful here, you will need to invest in people. Pure and simple. They will be the reason why you keep coming back when the rewards aren't coming in, or you have a spat with some other user over whatever, or you think things are stacked against you, or you otherwise conclude that none of this is worth it. It's the human interaction that is most likely to keep you tethered here and doing what you can.

You

Me? Yes, you. You need to invest in you. Only you know what that means. Find your why. Know what you need to keep going, to be the most productive, to get the most out of your time, work and people investments. Most of it will happen off of Steemit, in your every day life. It can be anything from eating well, so you have sustained energy, sleeping enough, your work schedule if you need to work (hint: most do), your family time (making sure you actually have it and that it's fulfilling and meaningful), taking time off once in a while from Steemit and work (sabbaticals are great for rejuvenation and perspective).

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You are the most important investment for you on this platform. And, there are others that are hoping and maybe even counting on you to be around, too. Whose post are they going to read? Whose comment are they going to reply to? How are they going to best allocate their control of the reward pool. If not to you, someone else will surely end up with it. You need to invest in you so you can invest in others.

Money

I know that not everyone has it to invest. Many of us are here because we don't have money and we need it. But like any investment platform, the more invested, the more opportunity for growth.

You might not have fiat or crypto to add to your Steemit wallet, but you do have the other investments I've mentioned which can eventually convert to some amount of SBD that you can then power up. When you do that, you increase your control of the reward pool, and so you can invest more in everything else going on here.

So, don't just let the STEEM or SBD accumulate without at least powering some of it up. Invest in your ability to earn more.

And if you manage to save up some of your fiat to buy STEEM, do that, and power up.

Tying It All Together

At the top of this post I mentioned you needed to at least invest in one of the five things I mentioned. Well, one isn't going to get you very far. Time is pretty much a given, so there needs to be at least one other, and frankly, the more you can invest in, the better. In doing so, you will create a balance that will make it easier to get through the tougher times (yeah, they still come) and appreciate even the smallest of victories (those come to).

The sooner you wrap your mind around the investing idea, though, the better. You can be social. You can be creative. You can do any of a number of things to help the platform be better and for you to find your place and earn here. But you've got invest in Steemit somehow.

So do it.