Why so many people don't make it to > 1 SBD rewards - Real Talk

Hi Steemians,

My name is Samuel and I am a part of Steemit for 8 months. Nevertheless a lot of my posts get < 1 SBD as a reward and most of them are even under 0.50 SBD. I recognized that a lot of users experience the same.

So why is that?

1) A hard start

Nearly everyone has a hard start here on Steemit. I mean let's look at @themarkymark: He started like anyone else. Even though he had good content, rewards were kind of little.

And if you take a look at his Steemit page today you'll see that he has more than 5,000 followers and his posts get a lot of attention. He makes really good rewards on his posts and I am certain that it will still go up.

So the important question is not: "How do I earn big rewards right from the beginning?", but "How do I become a big player?"

And that may be the problem. A lot of people focus on content that could get a lot of upvotes and help them to grow. That's not bad, but it is better to post things that truly interest you and where you know that you can create premium content. Because what do all these big players have in common? They're all really good in what they are writing/talking/making videos about. So that is more important than anything else:
Concentrate on things you're good at and try your best to make high quality posts.

2) The lucky punch

Some users have experienced a Steemit phenomenon: They had low rewards, nearly no upvotes on their posts and just a few followers. And then: BOOM! A big reward post. "Wow, I must be very luck!" - But is really just luck or good work?!?

Let's look at another example. User @yuriks2000 had a lot of posts with low rewards and out of nowhere: A post with a few houndred SBD and he is at the Trending page.

Seems like a lucky punch. But wait: If you read his post you will notice that he did great work. This post is a masterpiece as it indroduces a new app for Steemit users. So it's not really luck but hard work that made this happen. So again: Do what you're best at and work hard / try your best. And be innovative, do things no other Steemian has done before you and success may find its way to you!

To come back to the topic of point 2): Here's a lucky punch. It happened to me some months ago. Nearly no success till then, no followers or experience. And then a > 100 SBD post. WOW :D

It was a lot of luck. I mean my post was not bad but clearly not good enough for such a huge reward. I even didn't got a lot of upvotes. The secret for this success was: I've got an upvote from an user with a lot of Steem Power.

But how to achieve that? Try to use good and striking photos, especially the first one is really important because it appears in the preview of your post. And try to have a strong statement in your heading. That's no guarantee that you will succeed but it will increase your chances by a lot.

3) Use good #tags

Tagging may seem unimportant but it isn't! Why? Because if you use good tags you can reach a lot more users who will see your post and may give it an upvote. Here are a few tips:

• Use popular tags because if you don't no one will find your post
• Don't use too popular post because in that case your post will fade away in all these other posts
• Use the max. tags, even if you can't find any more good ones.

Sure, it is not easy to find good tags but it is really important and you can push all of your posts by using tags. It is easy and fast and no one should forget to include them. If you need inspiration you can take a look at all the posts on the Trending page and see what kind of tags they use.

4) Have fun!

Sure, you want to make a few extra bucks here on Steemit. But don't forget: It should be fun. Because if it isn't it is not your thing. So always try to have fun when using this awesome site.

I wish all of you best of luck and good rewards. Hope to hear from a lot of you ;)