Steem Community Building : How To Turn Your Pennies Into Dollars
This is a reply to a comment made by arcaneinfo.
Community Building
Making friends in the Steem Community is key. Great writers can get overlooked as well as a great post by a bad writer, like me! Having friends who purposefully come to see what you're up to each day is not only therapeutic for your well being/soul/mind/ego (take your pick), it also helps your wallet.
Each one of us here can contribute to making someone else's day better by upvoting their content and letting them know that we appreciate what they shared with the world. Just like a post, upvoting is immutable ... well after 24 hours it is. The point being that an upvote gives a person confidence to continue sharing with the Community. It lets them know that someone is paying attention to what they have to say and appreciated them sharing it on the blockchain. That upvote will always be there and you can always go back and see who liked what you shared.
Reach Out!
Stop by and read the post of those that have upvoted you. Thank them for the upvote and let them know how they made you feel with what they had to say. Contribute to the conversation in some way and upvote them if you found what they shared to be beneficial to you or others.
The most important thing is to build your own Community within the larger Steem Community. You won't always agree with everyone here, but you will likely find a group of individuals that have some or many things in common with you. These are the people you should begin building a relationship with, a Community within the Community.
Slack - The Friend Maker
The best advice I can give you for building friendships within the Steem Community is to create a Slack account. Spend some time on Slack daily or as often as you can, if for nothing else to just say "Hi!" or drop off a private message for someone. In other words, begin building relationships with others in the Steem Community.
Slack is also where most of the large account holders hang out. They generally don't post on Steemit all that often, because they are not necessarily writers, but investors, programmers or crypto-enthusiast. They are also some of the nicest people you likely never knew existed on Steemit.
They are the ones who helped build Steem from day one by mining, investing and offering up suggestions or code to help improve the platform we all use daily and likely take for granted. These are the people we all should be thanking. They hang out behind the veil of Steemit, and that veil is called Slack.
Kingmakers
Let them know how much you appreciate them, the time they put in to make Steem better, the effort they give daily to improve the platform, and perhaps more importantly, their upvotes. They, the "whales", are the only ones that can assure that any of us get a large payout on a post. In other words, they are the "Kingmakers".
It's great to get a bunch of upvotes, but if you're wanting to make your time financially worthwhile here on Steemit, you need to befriend a Kingmaker whale or two. That said, that's not the only reason to befriend them. As I stated earlier, they are some of the nicest most helpful people you will find in this Community!
If you have a problem, they can likely solve it. If you have a question, they can likely answer it. If you have an idea, they can likely get it implemented. If you have a complaint, they can likely remedy it. And on Slack, you will generally get an answer within a few minutes. But more importantly, what you have done is let these outstanding individuals know that you exist and they will in kind begin to seek you out on Steemit and see what you have to say.
Once you have a Kingmaker following you on Steemit and upvoting your content, you will have created a network effect. Others will begin to wonder what you did to generate that whale's upvote. They will begin to look at your content in a new way, with more appreciation and likely you will notice you are receiving more upvotes.
Transformation
This will likely, in turn, begin to transform your own content. You may find that you become more aware of what you post, how you post, how you format, what topics you choose and when you post. They will transform you into a better writer with nothing more than their attention and upvotes. You will gain a larger audience and begin to get traction in what used to seem like an uphill battle.
Making friends is the key. Good content and good writers can be overlooked with so much content being posted on Steemit. Slack is a little more personal and allows you to quickly build bonds with others within the Steem Community. It also gives you an opportunity to help out by solving others problems quickly. This is how you help not only you, but everyone on Steem, and by doing this the entire Steem Community benefits.
I agree that community is important and the slack can be a great resource.
I do think however that ultimately it's about posting quality content.
I'll still maintain that content providers are "Kingmakers".
Yes, Steemit whales will determining whether people get rewarded on Steemit. However where the quality content providers go will determine whether Steemit wins the impending battle of the Blockchain-based social media sites.
Steemit has first mover advantage. It also has a great core team and extended community. So it can lock down the market before other Projects get started. However I think it's important for Steemit Whales and Influencers to keep their ear to the ground and be aware of what the userbase is saying and doing. Rather than expect users to come to them cap-in-hand.
If a poster is providing good content and getting genuine upvotes, comments and creating interest from new users/ small Steem holders, its worth paying attention and rewarding them. Whether that person makes themselves known on Slack or not. (NB: it would be great if there was a Steem-power Slack alternative that was accessible via Steemit).
The search and recruitment of talent is never-ending. Revolutions happen while the incumbents are busy back-slapping themselves and ignore the 'little guy'. Lets continue to lead the social media revolution lest we fall victims to it...
Good points!
Great post, thanks much. Especially appreciate the explanation on Slack and Kingmakers, didn't quite understand how that worked. Plugging away here trying to get a good clear picture of the lay of the land here. ~ljl~
Great post! The more I tune into steemit, the more I find out about how to really use it and grow myself as a blogger on this platform. I have been editing my posts in accordance with everyones comments and when I read posts like this. I would appreciate it if you threw some upvotes my way to get my blogs out there! Cheers mate!
Great post! I learned lots and that is what is important on this site.
Yes, there are plenty of helpful people in the Steem Community, which is what makes it great! :)
Thank you. I'm still fairly new to Steemit, and could use all the help I can get building an audience.
Such a great rebuttal to my comment 3 up-votes if i could, thanks for this post friendships on this platform is key to support! Happy Steeming!
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.
@tuck-fheman, astute as always.
Thanks!
and don't ask for upvotes like:
Hey, I upvoted your post. /insert link/
Upvote mine too. It defeats the purpose of the site.
This is all very true! I have made good friends here, and that's the best reward. Payouts are just the gravy. Slack is a great resource. I mainly just read there, but I have interacted a little, and when I asked a programming question a few days ago, i got a good answer there. It's been a great month at steemit!
This is so true. Thanks for the post :)