Some more Newbie Tips for well… Newbies!
Following on from my recent ‘Some Newbie Tips for well… Newbies!’, that got LOTS of comments, I thought I would do a follow-up.
During these dire STEEM price days, there are still new REAL people joining the blogging platform via probably Steemit, and though blogging is now only one aspect of STEEM, it is still popular at least for the moment.
Let me share my one years’ worth of experience with you to eradicate some bad habits before they start and earn you more by doing the ‘correct’ things.
When I say ’correct’, everyone’s perception of that word can be very different.
There are some general things that most of the veteran STEEM blogger community frown on, and it's better explaining these than you falling prey due to ignorance and inadvertently alienating some from you.
Self-Voting
This has been talked about until the cows come home, but if you’re new and don’t know a thing then read on! You can self-vote your own posts and even your own comments, but should you?
You can also pull your golf trolley on to the green when playing golf, but should you do that too?
The comparison is not quite the same. Etiquette tells us that you don't pull the trolley on to the green unless you want some middle-aged chubby red-faced bloke screaming from 200 yards to ‘get it off'.
I personally vote up most of my posts but voting up your own comments is generally frowned upon. It’s your choice about the posts, but I would recommend you don’t vote your own comments.
Meet other Steemians if you get the chance!
Gaining that personal connection is important, especially if you are new. Watch for meetups in your local area, or if there is a big meetup like SteemFest (which generally happens once a year), try to attend.
SteemCamp 2018, not many attended but it was worth the trip and yes I'm in this picture... somewhere!
In the UK, there are frequent ones in London, usually attended by @redrica and @adetorrent amongst others, but the next biggish one is on May 11th, 2019 in Leicester.
I'm seeing that SteemCamp tickets are now all gone, but as the event was re-scheduled, this may no longer be the case, perhaps @shanibeer can let us know?
EDIT: Tickets are still available for SteemCamp UK here, thanks @shanibeer.
If you are outside of the UK, look and find them. The connections you gain will make it all worthwhile.
Install the Discord client
There is a huge community of Steemians that use Discord and many servers that are out there. Join Peace, Abundance, Liberty and you can get a free vote every 30 hours.
Helpie helps talented new people with support but you need to have proven yourself with your writing to some extent. They tend to check out your blog before admitting you, which is another reason to write well, but not too well just yet.
@paintingangels is or was my way into @helpie long ago. I'm not sure if it's the same now. @helpie did only take new people on recommendation. Just keep this in mind for later.
@heyhaveyamet (HHYM) scans the #introduceyourself tag on a daily basis and looks for newbies with promise. @thekittygirl and @brittandjosie are part of the same group.
Follow them and join their server, ‘The STEEM Terminal’ which can be found here.
..and then there's The Steem Engine, my first taste in writer's guilds. The say you never forget your first and I got temporarily rejected when I first applied, but don't let that put you off.
@thesteemengine is quite an elite group but if you can write and don't produce crap it is well worth applying except...
At this time we are not accepting new members, nor are we reinstating former ones.
The Steem Engine are NOT currently accepting new members, but I'm sure @enchantedspirit will chirp up something in the comments about this. The rules are not harsh but fair and good content is liable for an up-vote if you are accepted
EDIT: @enchantedspirit has indeed commented, see below.
There are many other servers for other topics such as @drugswars and @steemmonsters, it really depends on what your interests are.
Gaming
DrugWars is free to play and the team are trying to introduce new content to improve the gaming experience. It's not the best in the world but can earn you a little STEEM every day for doing very little.
SteemMonsters is a better game but will cost you $10 for a StarterPack.
This game is evolving, and you can play in tournaments for free and gain more cards everyday (for free) once you have the initial pack.
There are also seasons which are 15 days in length in which you can gain even more free cards. These can be sold on the marketplace for STEEM.
Leave meaningful comments.
Like self-voting, this has been stated a million times before. If you leave a comment on anothers' post, ensure it adds something to the topic. ‘Nice post', ‘thanks', ‘that was interesting' will likely be ignored or even get you flagged.
Some authors don’t take kindly to this behaviour as see it as ‘fishing for votes'. If you do this on my posts, you will be ignored.
@katharsisdrill is a talented STEEM artists and what he produced (above) sums this up well.
I hope he doesn't mind me using his image, or referring to his post from the dark ages which is still very relevant.
Resteems
Use them sparingly. I have un-followed other Steemians in the past because they are serial resteemers!
I want to see my followers’ content and while a few resteems are always good, I don’t want 20 of them being stuck on my feed every day.
Bid-Bots
This is another very touchy subject, especially as I have started to use @ocdb recently. Most bid-bot owners are businesses. They offer advertising to promote your content at a price. This is what new people see when they first start.
Trending shows posts with incredible rewards. Most are paid votes, not organic ones. You send the bot owner 100 STEEM and you get a vote that is worth approximately the same value that is a potential reward. Most of the time, your reward will be LESS than what you paid for the vote.
This is because when you factor in the curation rewards, you are only gaining 75% of that potential reward plus a percentage of the curation if you self-voted.
While bid-bots have a place, I strongly advise you to avoid them as a newbie. I do use @ocdb as it gives a return of MORE than the price you pay for the vote.
@ocdb is not like the others as it is a non-profit bot designed to reward established authors.
You can read more about this here as it is a topic in itself.
The worst thing you can do is produce content of little substance and pay $50-$100 to a bid bot.
While it may look impressive that your article is topping ‘Trending’, it will soon be noticed, and you WILL get flagged for abuse (if what you are producing is deemed to be spam, junk, single photographs etc..)
While I may seem to be a hypocrite, I am not against bid-bots (though I truly wish NONE of them existed), but don’t be tempted by them as a new blogger.
@ocdb may recognise you in time and then you will have the option to profit using one, and not gamble.
Ensure what you write adds value
If it doesn’t it could be considered as SPAM. Not all I write is deadly serious stuff, and it can be about daily activities such as what happened at work, why my dog is at the vet, or why a huge pimple has appeared on my arse.
All this can be considered Non-SPAM and is standard blogger material. SPAM can be many things.
A picture with no words or a slogan that is 10 words long that means nothing to anyone are two examples.
If you are aware of this, you can avoid it. You don’t need to write huge long rambling things like what you read now but be aware of the differences.
That’s it for now. I hope all this helps as much as the last one. Happy blogging!
If you found this article so invigorating that you are now a positively googly-eyed, drooling lunatic with dripping saliva or even if you liked it just a bit, then please upvote, comment, resteem, engage me or all of these things.
My Prime Directive while the price of Steem has been so ... shall we say, disappointing ... has been to maintain the voting value to our present members -- the ones who've been loyal and stayed with us ... the ones who put their heads down and kept moving forward, into the teeth of the storm. That means something. And I've looked for every way I could find to let them know that when they go the extra mile -- so will I.
My priority -- for better or worse -- has been to take care of our own as much as I could possibly manage, to keep morale up and distribute as many rewards as I control as fairly as possible.
Letting in a bunch of johnny-come-lately's and saying, "Ok, we've got a bunch of new people. Now you guys can take less." ... didn't make much headway on my agenda.
Also, not everyone who shows up at the door is ... shall we say suitable. I do have my eye on some new ones, and I'll be approaching some of them -- possibly later this week. But you really can't "apply" to The STEEM Engine. You have to be invited in ... and understand (and agree with) our mission ... which is to promote both engagement and excellent content.
To be considered for an invitation requires the recommendation of an existing member. Then I'll review that person's blog and see if they're apt to be a good candidate for membership here. (Things like "perceived temperament" also count. TBH, I get all the drama I want elsewhere. )
We have a terrific group. I enjoy each and every one of them. But also ... again, TBH, there has been a decline in "quality" on Steemit in general in a whole lot of cases. Even some of the accounts I know are able to hold their own on quality and engagement have fallen off recently ... back to doing things that barely "keep a toe in the water" while they wait to see what happens on Steemit.
I can't say that I blame them for that one bit, but I also resist the idea of saying, "Hey, we've got a brand new member, folks" ... and they find that what he has to show for himself doesn't say much.
(It's a challenge!!)
I know this comment makes me sound cranky and unpleasant -- more than usual anyway. Life has handed me a lot of "stuff" lately -- and I'm still plowing through it. But I look forward to expanding our horizons again. There are still some wonderful people out there who deserve a lot more than they're getting. I know that, too.
Srsly.
Thank you for this series, @slobberchops. It's a valuable contribution.
Understand where you're coming from. To get in TSE for me was a challenge and I'm sure you remember the story and what I had to do to attain my goal. Can others do such things, and would that work in today's world?
I'm sure it would help, and any reader who takes all this bumf in that I write above will be able to figure that out. Just do me a favour and stick around, will you?
Well, if you want to know the real story-behind-the-story, I had noticed you in my travels before you showed up at the door. I thought you showed real promise (especially compared to what we were dealing with at the time) but you were still getting your feet under you. I wondered whether you had to tenacity to make it happen -- and in that you've been a terrific surprise. I've used your name and the word "irony" in our server lately. This is part of it. (Look back at some of your early work and you'll see what I mean, I'm sure.) You've turned out to be one of our best. (That "temperament" thing also works in your favor.) We're happy to have you. And fortunate, too. (In case I haven't said so specifically ... there you go.)
As to whether or not your experience would work in today's world -- probably not in the same way. For one thing, when one of our members mentions someone to consider, keep in mind ... s/he's recommending your work and going to bat for you. That kind of judgment counts! It should also help with the "quality" issue. (At least that's the theory I'm working on.)
Did you know someone (besides me) who was impressed enough to put your name and content up for consideration back in the day? Hmmm. Makes you think, doesn't it?
I didn't know that. I saw.. 'this is my standard rejection reply'.. from the 'cat', but then he seemed to have second thoughts... haha.. its so long ago now and the memory kind of makes me smile.
I had similar issues with @qurator, but for different reasons. I don't really follow them anymore, but still give them a vote for a vote.
I did see, though I don't interact much on discord now.
I will keep an eye out, due to the crap price of STEEM many are unwilling to put in the effort, so finding the potential is harder. It could be there, but at 40c per.. compared to $2.80 per.. when I started, that $ holds some sway.
I knew nobody when I started, and did it the hard way. Glad I did TBH, boot camp hardens you and makes you learn.
very informative post!!
I think @enchantedspirit opened @thesteemengineup for a few but again, not sure like you said...but never hurts to ask
Always, always be yourself and you will go far on Steem(it) is my personal advice to new Steemians.
I'm sure she will see this sooner or later, there was mumblings of TSE being opened again, but it would be good to hear it from the horse's mouth.. don't take that literally ES :)
I saw this literally within minutes after you posted it, but I knew it would take some time to write a decent answer -- and time is in real short supply for me. Always. So I put off responding until I could at least think straight. (And had a nap in the meantime -- that lasted 7 1/2 hours as it turned out.) I've learned that's always an advantage. (Thinking straight, I mean. Naps help, too.)
(l-Þ ~~~
That is pretty funny, I don't feel like I use resteems enough. I just totally forget to do it quite honestly. Every once in while I remember and I like to resteem something just to give the author a little more than my small upvote. It's just my way of saying hey, this was great, thanks for sharing!
I don't either, I forget.. but did 2 today. It makes a difference to a newbie post for sure.
That's a whole lot of valuable information @slobberchops, thank you! I still don't vote my own posts and don't like bidbots but am tempted to try ocdb as it's different to the others!
Thank you for the shout out, we need to get the word out ! So this is highly appreciated!
@niallon11 this might help you too with your list.
Thanks @brittandjosie. There is some great stuff in here to check out.
I Will keep my eyes open for blogs that help 👍
My only real pet-peeve is when people come to my post and write something stupid like "Great Review!", (It was probably a post about some place that I visited) then up-voting their own comment to like $1 or more, but not so much as a penny to my blog.
That is probably the only newbie (or non-noob) thing that just drives me nuts. The bid-bots thing to me is a bit difficult. I feel like they really help you get a lot of exposure. The thing I don't like, is the abuse from shit posts who pay their way to trending, as you mention.
I am ashamed to say that I up-voted your post about OCDB without reading it. I think I'll go back and check it out - looks interesting. I've never used them. Not sure if you remember, but I made the same pledge that you made a while back. I'll have to see how I feel now!
It's been a while since I saw that, any self-voting comments don't go down very well with me.. there's less of it recently.
It happens, we are all busy people.. I tend to scan articles and if I see anything of interest... stop and then read them.
It still doesn't feel quite right, but when I see all these established writers using it, it makes me think.
At the end of the day... people like you and me who have invested a lot of FIAT here, want to make something.. and that's a way of doing so.
Yeah, it has been a bit troubling for me watching steem continue to drop in value while BTC moves upward. I am getting a bit fatigued, but trying to remain positive.
I went ahead and sent a few sbd over to ocdb for a post. Let's see if I hate myself later! Hehe
Bookmarked as i'm exhausted right now, but hello from a Steem newbie. :)
Hello, @faithroswell and welcome to the madness that is STEEM.
Such a great post very helpful for new arrivals thanks for taking the time to put this together
Thanks Jay, I probably have enough in my head to do a last one.
These are great tips for those still starting as they often learn the hard way and quickly get turned off after a flag or two. These are key learnings that are imperative of a user is seriours to growing and building an account here.
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Nice piece @slobberchops , you have written so many good details for new people to understand. Well done !!
Thanks @verhp11, the experience is there now, though I'm only ONE.. it seems like a long time ago when I joined.