THE NEWBIES GUIDE

So I decided through the inspiration of Sir@prechi and other amazing steembees in Nigeria to write this post. If you are contemplating whether or not to join this amazing platform, or you are new, or maybe you have been here for a while and still have absolutely no idea what u are doing; then this is for you.

Steemit is a blogging and social networking platform where every member gets paid for creating & curating contents. It’s a website on top of the Steem block chain databases. Steemit pays both the content authors when their work gets upvoted as well as content curators (the people who curate by up voting others work) when they do so.

HOW DOES STEEMIT WORK (THE STEEMIT CURRENCIES)
One thing you should know is that steemit is not a central bank; it’s not a platform where you get paid by the website developers. I know a newbie is reading this right now and is like, “What are you talking about?” let me explain.
The Steemit Currencies are the steem, the steem dollars and the steem power.
THE STEEM is the unit that is bought and sold for actual money on the open markets. But you wouldn’t want to hold on to these for too long because more Steem units are created every day. If you hold on to Steem units for a long time, they will become diluted and lose value

When you make a post, you can either choose to be paid 50:50(Steem dollars and Steem power) or 100% steem power or you can even decline payout which is not very advisable at this early point of your steemit career.

STEEM POWER can also be converted from STEEM through a process known as powering up.
The Steem power is more like a long term kinda thing because it cannot be sold. But steem power is for me more important than any other steem currency because take for example:
I have 2 posts on steemit; the first one has 15 upvotes and has earned $10.05 and the 2nd one has 36 upvotes but earns about $2.05. I know you think it’s not possible but it actually is very possible. This happens because probably majority of the people who upvote my 1st post have a higher steem power compared to those who upvote my 2nd post. It’s even possible for 10 people to upvote your post and u still have $0.00.
All am trying to say is that the higher the steem power the higher the value of the upvote.
When you make a post and you make earnings, this “money” is transferred to your steemit wallet after 7 days, but it’s not 100%. 25% is distributed to those who upvote your post (curators) and then the remaining 75% is for you. Now you decide if you want to divide your payout into Steem dollars and Steem power equally or just steem power.

STEEM DOLLARS are the units used to reward users for posting and curating content. Each steem dollar represents the amount of steem equivalent to one USD. Steem dollars were created so that users won’t be affected by the fluctuating exchange rate of steem

THE REPUTATION
The reputation is the figures in bracket right beside your display name when you open your blog. Writing 4 posts a day actually increases your reputation but I strongly advise against it. As a newbie, the first thing is to make yourself known, if nobody knows you or nobody follows you, your 4 posts a day can end up having $0.00 each which can result in a fatal hypertension. Instead of wasting time with writing 4 posts a day, start up with one or two, share the links to the link room on whatsapp and on post-promotions tabs on the discord app (in case you don’t know what this is, you can get it from the play store). While you wait for upvotes, visit the posts of other steemians like you who have probably been in the scene for a while and make intelligent comments based on the post. If your comment is able to catch attention, the author of the post would love to know you are, visit your blog and if u get lucky, might give an amazing boost. In Steemit, consistency matters.

HOW TO UPDATE YOUR PROFILE AND COVER PHOTO ON STEEMIT
STEP 1: Click the circle icon of your account on the top right corner
STEP 2: Click Settings
STEP 3: Open a new tab and go to www.postimg.org
STEP 4: Click choose image and upload your desired image
STEP 5: Copy the Link titled “Direct Link”
STEP 6: Go back to the tab from Step 2 and paste “Direct Link” into either Cover Image URL or Profile Picture URL. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click update

TAGS
Tags are very important when writing your post. Tags help to reach out to your target audience. If you use the wrong tags, you lose the right audience. If you are writing a poem, your main tag should be poetry; if you are posting a photo that’s taken by you, your main tag should be photography. If you are posting a photo that isn’t yours, your main tag should be the message you are trying to send through the photo. Take for example, you get a picture from Google of a young girl probably hawking, your main tag should be childtrafficking or the first thing that came to your mind when you decided to post the photo.

PLAIGIARISM
I didn’t get to know this part when I joined Steemit initially so one day I went to Google and copied an entire article about rats. Cheetah commented on my post and I thought it was a good thing; it was later on I got to discover that cheetah only commented on posts that were copied without proper citation. This act is called Plagiarism. If this happens more than once, you will get flagged and this will reduce your reputation. Have you ever seen someone with a reputation less than 0, as in negative? You might lose your account in the process. Therefore you have to be original, if you have to copy make sure you give proper referencing.

HOW DO I CASH OUT FROM STEEMIT
If you are a Nigerian Steemian and you are the Steemit General Group Chat, you would have seen that people are willing to sell and buy steem currencies. This is my preferred way of withdrawing from steemit.
Also you can transfer your steem currencies to your bit coin account if you have one.

ALISON’S WORD OF ADVICE TO NEWBIES
However it is you got to know about steemit, I am very sure your main aim here is to make money. I used to be like that at one point. But if you put hard work to it and you don’t see what you expect you can easily give up which could be very bad. I have been privileged to speak with and listen to amazing steemians like@ejemai, @Prechi, @samstickz, @princeso, @evelyniroh, @xpress-ng, @ewuoso @fortune-inyang, @ifioklee(I derive joy disturbing this one) and a host of others too many to mention, and in my course of study, I have grown to see steemit as an investment. I came to Steemit for the money but now it means more than that to me. I’d like to say that I have developed some passion for it and its helping me to talk to people about it. The first post I ever made still has $0.00 till now, but it doesn’t move me. Every day I meet people, I learn new things that I would never have been able to learn outside this platform and I am proud to be a steemian.
So if you are here because you have a steemian friend who withdraws from steemit on a daily and you want to be like him/her, good luck with that. Just so you know, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

WELCOME TO STEEMIT; LOOKING FORWARD TO HEARING YOUR VIEWS ON THIS POST
I REMAIN YOUR HUMBLE ALISON UDEME