Like It Or Not, You Need To Invest

in #steem6 years ago

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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Image source—Pixabay

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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Image source—Pixabay

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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Image source—Pixabay

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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Image source—Pixabay

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.

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What a great post Glen! It's a message that I wish every newcomer could hear. It's interesting because the guy who introduced us to steemit was all about becoming a millionaire on it, and of course, he's gone and Brian and I are still here because we have invested our time and energies and the payout has been much grander than I ever anticipated. We have also had to withdrawal some for all the reasons you already know about, but each time, I must admit, I hate it. Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful we are able to, but I also fully believe in this platform and want to leave it here too.

Thanks again!

The friend who told me about Steemit is still here (@bbrewer), and he's building his own hunting and fishing community here. So, I've been fortunate that way to still have the person who introduced me to STEEM to continue to toil away at when he can.

Then, I've ran into you and No Name and Gillian and Dave and Mav and quite a few others who I've invested time and bits and pieces of my life to. Kind of odd, seeing how none of us really knows each other in real life (who knows, one day), but yet somehow normal at the same time.

I suppose in this day and age of social media, decentralized blockchains and crypto without boundaries, that holding conversations with literal strangers from all over the world will become the norm, because why should relationships be contained to just one locale? We'd miss out on a lot, I think.

I think Steemit and therefore STEEM should be used as we all see fit. If that means needing to take some out, that's what it's there for. Of course you would rather not. I'm sure there's plenty you'd rather not. We do what we gotta do and we keep going.

I find it so interesting; I've never been big on any social media, and quite suddenly I'm attached to a whole lot of people from all over the world. It is very strange.

I'm sure there's plenty you'd rather not.

So true, but yes, "we do what we gotta do". There's not much choice really.

What a wonderfully written article! I hate to leave a spammy comment, but just wanted to stop by and let you know I enjoyed reading this one. Well, many of your articles are great. As you know, finding time is challenging. Sometimes I can read and comment, sometimes just read. 🙂

Well, thank you for the comment (not spammy) and for reading. It seems like you were one of the ones writing the posts I referred to, right, coming down on the side of Steemit as a social site, or maybe better said, that it was more than an investment platform. I think everyone's ideas of what this place is has shifted somewhat since that time, and hopefully more toward the middle ground.

I know your time is precious. Thanks for spending some of it on this post. We do what we can and we keep on keeping on, right?

Excellent article @glenalbrethsen. Not what many people want to hear but true nonetheless.

I've found the time and effort required to get anywhere is way more than anticipated. But the rewards are also much more diverse than I imagined they would be.

The unexpected ones for me have been getting out of the house more which means more exercise which is really good news for me having been very sedentary for the last decades.

And, an interest in photography which has led to my noticing much more about my environment than I was seeing previously.

Also, although I expected to make new relationships these have been more enjoyable and more far reaching that I expected. 😊

Thank you. I hope people are at least willing to hear the message, even if they don't want to, because, as you say, it's the truth.

Just like anything else in life, Steemit is what you make out of it. You're finding your way through balance between here and real life, making sure not to be so caught up in what's happening here that you miss out on what's most important, or stress out about it.

Things can happen in unexpected ways, but you've been taking the initiative, too. You've definitely been investing in yourself, and I think it shows up through what you do here. So, good job, to you, too :)

Well thank you kind sir.

I'm definitely noticing the loss of the 200 SP delegation from Asher. I'm finding I don't have enough power now to vote all I want to and I've not and I've not had any left over for new accounts. It's an interesting way to learn though. 😊

Well, hopefully it won't take too long to make up the 200 SP, or some other opportunity will come along. Who knows. There may be someone watching all of us (in a very non-creepy way, of course—riiiiiight :), monitoring our progress, waiting for all the right things to fall into place before they send SP our way. Happened with krnel. I suppose it could happen again. Another contest or challenge, and bam, the SP's back. Or something else happens. We just keep moving forward until either they turn off the lights and lock the door, or some other opportunity comes along.

Yep. I'm just keeping on keeping on @glenalbrethsen. Not too bothered about the loss of SP. I just have to manage it more closely and, as I mentioned, I'm finding it a good way to learn.

It would be nice to have something exciting come out of the blue though. I always like a good surprise! 😁

I wish this could be one of many basic posts that all non-Steemians could get to see. And new Steemians. And older ones. ;) It balances out the 'everything perfect now' desire many have sometimes, including me.

I suppose that's what keeps so many searching. New shiny object - person, opportunity, job/business, possessions (car/coffee maker/tv/shoes/whatever), hobby, leader, pet... list is endless - and we wish and hope that we've 'found' the perfect solution.

Thanks for listing investing in self, preferably off of Steemit, as one of the top 5 ways to invest in Steemit, Glen. That's so important, because it's who we are that we bring to the table here and everywhere we choose to spend some slice of our lives.

Upped and esteemed but also feel like FB/tweeting this.

Wow. Well, thank you for all of that.

I agree with everything you just said. We all need to know what's going on here, preferably before we get here, but definitely within a very short period of time afterward. If there were a way to make any post available for anyone and everyone to read, that would be great. That would solve the visibility issue right there!

We to tend to like our shining objects—the thing that gets us where we want to be. I've been searching for something like that my whole life, and it's always been one more step to take. This is as about as close as i've come, and if I were living in some parts of the world, maybe it would be the solution—but then I probably wouldn't have the resources I had to actually do some monetary investing, so who knows. Everything is interconnected in one way or another.

I had to throw in the invest in me, just because we tend be the ones neglected in all of this. I've felt the burn out plenty of times and it's just not conducive to getting much done.

You are awesome Glenn for coming up with this post and not a lot of people realize that we need to invest on this platform as well.

A lot of people treat it as a cash cow and just take and take and take and they complain why they are not improving their influence on the platform.

They are not investing time, SBD to Steempower, networking and working to connect with people.

Instead they are continue cashing out. It is okay if they really need it but they need to circulate and invest some here.

We will be dolphins someday Glenn.

Some day, and sooner than later would be nice. :)

I figured I should lay it out as I saw it. This place wasn't intended for us to get rich quick. Not the actual users of the platform. Those who are already there didn't do it through posting, commenting and curating. They brought it in from other crypto, got in the initial mining/disbursement and or through compensation as developers. This whole idea of becoming a whale through the social media part is not even feasible, at least not without a major jump in STEEM price.

At any rate, I hope we both, and some form of Steemit is around long enough to find out. :)

That was extremely well written, and I think hit several things directly on the head of the nail. Time is important, Money is important, and networking is important, and POWERING UP is one of the most important, the more SP, the stronger your vote, the more curation reward. The more kick back votes from others just because you have some SP. I really like your post.

Well, thank you kindly. I do appreciate that.

I'm finding it truly needs to be a combination of things, rather than just one or two things. For me, that's meant getting out of my comfort zone (socializing/networking) and applying some risk/skin in the game (which for me meant monetary investing, but it could mean something else for others, like more time or more effort).

I agree that you have to have the clients to sell your posts to and the best way to build such a network by interacting. The fun part about it is that you can make some friends also from your clients portfolio.
About the "great post", "thanks for sharing" type of comments I believe will not have a long life. The lack of rewards of these wide spread comments will ultimately make the users give up or put some effort to create something meaningful. Even if it's just a one sentence comment.
Sometimes you don't need pages to express your appreciation or an accurate opinion.

I agree about comments. You don't need to have a book. You need whatever's enough to finish the thought. With statements like, "Great post," or something similar, there's something lacking. Why was it a great post?

The other side of a comment is, some people seem to be in a hurry. They shut down the conversation, if they answer back at all. There needs to be some open ended commenting going on, opportunities for more interaction.

Let me be the first to say this. It looks like you do it all, so you do a great job!

Do you also have thoughts about how fair things are? And what is fair?
My opinion is that people like you should be higher rewarded in financial terms. But that is just an opinion.

Well, I've been trying to do as much of all of it as I can. If things don't work out, they don't work out, but I like to give it my best shot first. Then, I can't say it was from a lack of effort. I might have lacked something else, but it wasn't because the time and effort wasn't there.

As far as fair goes, I'm not even sure what that is as it pertains to Steemit. The place was messed up long before I got here. In some ways, it's better than it started out as, in other ways, it's worse. How that all mixes and shakes out, I don't know.

I don't believe that the vast majority of us are coming across any good post and thinking, "Nah, I'm not going to vote on that just because." I think the vast majority of us just plain don't see it. We're following a bunch of people, we have limited time to read it all, and we're on Steemit at different times, so we see what we see and we move on.

Should more people follow me and upvote myself? I'm of course going to say yes, they should, but at the same time, I'm also hoping it's because they find value in it—it's meaningful to them in some way. I don't want it handed to me. I'm trying to earn it, and so that's what I'm hoping is happening.

I appreciate your nice words. I'm only four and a half months into this, I started out with nothing and only one person who knew me, and now I'm where I am. Who knows what things will look like in a month, or three or six. I won't know until I get there.

I don't know man, that sounds like a lot of work.
Can't I just kinda lurk and be sarcastic from time to time?

Yes, you can!

And you can probably find a lurker community and/or a sarcastic community to get into, too, where you can lurk and be sarcastic to your heart's content. :) Or not.

A much needed reality check for many who come here under misguided sales pitches. The one that stood out the most was the idea of actually investing ones money here. I have done that as I can (not much). A week ago I invested another 50.00 to purchase SP so I could make an investment in one area I feel was overlooked. Investing in other people. I am not a huge self voter so my SP was my deciding growth here wil lcome from my investment not only in myself, but others.

We will get what we are willing to put into this, and for those blinded into thinking all they have to do is string a few words and a picture together to get rich needs this reality check. There isn't much in the way of participation trophies for those not willing to put effort and money into this.

It's too bad that people are brought here under false pretenses. Instead of being told they can make money, they should be told they can invest in STEEM through various methods. Something where it's clearer that they're not making money by simply sharing memes.

Since so many people here look at Steemit just as a monetary investment, I was hoping to put the term investment in a different light, too. We get caught up in the immediate financial returns, but are we considering not just a long term investment in STEEM, but a similar look at the platform, the people here and ourselves?

Delegation is one of those ways of investing in people, directly and indirectly. I'm sure those who you help will benefit from your efforts.

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