Milestone: I Am Now A Minnow + SBI Giveaway

in #steemit6 years ago

Hey Steemians

Today is a good day, in fact, it's a great day. Why?

Because I'm officially a minnow! It's already been announced in the latest Redfish Power Up League post but I thought I should shout about it myself.

It has been one hell of a grind and I've come pretty far in the last 7 months since I've been active on the platform. This proof of brain, proof of influence kinda mining is not for everyone and took me a while to get the hang of it.

I'm by no means a master of Steemit but hey it's my time to shine baby. Let me celebrate a milestone in peace! In this bear market, we have to scrape the joy out of every little thing!

How you like me now

My journey to minnowhood

Make no mistake this was no easy ride, I had no idea how to use this platform and no help from anyone. I stumbled onto Steemit and continued to stumble I think my first 50 posts had zero payouts and I couldn't understand why. Either the platform sucks or I suck or we both suck.

My turn around

I eventually decided to suck it up and start doing some research talking to my fellow steemians, joining communities and it slowly started to pay off. I played around with bid bots, resteem bots and finding services that help support smaller accounts

I also decided to powered up now during this extreme lows, I mean why not? When I got here Steem was sitting at well over 3 dollars so we're getting it for a steal now

Support from others

  • @littlescribe was the first gem to take the time to help me out and give me a few pointers and invite me into some groups.

  • @paulag and the Redfish power up league have been super helpful and supportive - You can find out more in their intropost

The Grind

This doesn't mean it will be any easier and you still need to be consistent and try to post daily and engage with all your fellow steemians. To give you an idea of how much effort it takes I've personally had to push out

  • 668 posts
  • 3040 comments
  • and over 2000 upvotes to get to minnow status

All this and more was needed to get me to this point and I don't intend on stopping now. This shit is chess not checkers, you gotta have a plan, you have to be willing to learn, do your own research and open yourself up to new ideas.

Chess

What's next for me?

  • Well I'd still like to hit one of my original milestones of a Rep of 60, even thought it doesn't mean much anymore
  • I'd also like to increase my Steem User Authority and break the level 3
  • Then onward and upward to dolphin-hood!

I' planning to join the @make-a-whale program as well as the new minnow power up league that should be coming soon.

Giveaway time

Now let's get to the actual reason you clicked through to this post, the competition. To celebrate my minnow-hood and share the love I've decided to give away 3 SBI subscriptions

SBI

Giveaway rules

  • Upvote this post (should it make any decent gains I'll add additional SBI subscriptions)
  • Resteem this post (Get some of your friends involved)
  • Tell me what your biggest challenge was using Steemit and who the person is that helped you the most and how they helped and encouraged you to keep going
  • This can be done using a comment, create a post, meme, video whatever you like (If you do create a post please add a link to it in the comment section of this post)

Winner announcement

I will announce the winners once this post pays out so you have 7 days just like in the movie the Ring

7 days

I look forward to reviewing all your entries. The more creative the better so have at it!

Let's connect

If you liked this post sprinkle it with an upvote or resteem

Upvote, Resteem, Follow


Follow me

If you don't already, consider following me @chekohler

Follow me


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Hi @chekohler!

Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 2.813 which ranks you at #11946 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has dropped 18 places in the last three days (old rank 11928).

In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 450 contributions, your post is ranked at #55.

Evaluation of your UA score:
  • Only a few people are following you, try to convince more people with good work.
  • The readers like your work!
  • Good user engagement!

Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server

I'll enter your contest but I was going to reply anyway before I read that you were making this a contest. I'm already following you because of @flyingdutchman and his recent post about good commenters, engagers, posters, you get the drift. Congrats on making minnow. I actually achieved the same accomplishment a few weeks ago. I didn't know there was a forum or community that would want to hear about that.

With that, you're already helping a mini minnow. I will have to check out the Redfish power up league post. Maybe I should've posted there and perhaps met some people sooner.

My biggest challenge in coming on here was trying to understand how to get my account to grow, both in reputation and steem power. I initally learned about this from @clearbluecrypto and I don't know if he even signs in here anymore.

I see automatic upvotes from him so he set himself to make some passive curation on my efforts and perhaps just let this ride as passive income. He was the most helpful initially. Then I had some good help from @brandonfrye and then even my most recent help was from the very person you mentioned, @paulag - so I am finally elevating to getting noticed myself now.

My biggest challenge was learning the bot system and I had to learn that a bit from trial and error. I definitely learned early that you can do some "get in at the final minutes" bidding on steembottracker, but I also learned that you can lose a lot by someone else doing the same thing. I can't say any one person showed me how to get that right. I think I eventually learned to diversify bids over different bots.

The latest advice from @paulag has been huge. Somehow I missed "mentions". I had no idea that I was being mentioned in various postings over the past many months since I've started here. I was keen to the "replies" feature but didn't know about the "mentions". She told me that one of the easiest ways is to use:
https://steemworld.org/@username - (only change the username to your own name). I have been commenting and replying more than ever and people are writing back with me. It's been great. I will look into this make-a-whale program you spoke of and the redfish league. I actually have so many angles so to try right now that I am starved for the time right now to try them all. Upvoted and resteemed. Feel free to follow me if you like, no hard feelings if you don't. I was on the @flyingdutchman list too.

Thanks for the shout out @inspire1, and yes I still do sign in. Im back on a consistent run my man. I have had some bumps in the road but this platform is just flat out enjoyable for me. I see that you have grown considerably and I'm very glad that you believe in the platform as well. I'm grinding out the bear market until we see crypto flying high again.

OK glad to hear it. There is still some room for growth here if they can get a handle on things and get the steem price to normalize.

Ah seems like we had quite a similar start fumbling around and thinking we can make it on our own! But that’s not what this place is about you have to engage and ask for help and after you give yourself over to the process you’ll start seeing results which is great and encourages a good frame of mind!

Mentions are big and I’ve had to use busy.org to keep track of them but they often get missed in the notification panel..now that Partiko has added mention notifications I can really keep on top of it and respond immediately if I feel like it

Thanks for the entry and the great comment!

Posted using Partiko iOS

Any other apps helping to avoid missing NG the mentions? How about checking replies? Does it help?

I personally use Partiko on my mobile phone and eSteem or Busy.org on desktop! You can also use GINabot but I’m not really into that option but that’s a personal choice

Posted using Partiko iOS

Is it user friendly with partiko?

I'm using Partiko on iOS and its great for quickly checking and responding to comments and mentions. Only issue is when these mentions and comments start to become long threads it gets a bit difficult to keep up, otherwise its a great application

Thank you for your great sharing~! So we could not use replies option to check on mention at all?

Mentions only become available recently but it works just fine! Youc an check replies, mentions and repsond all in the app

I may need to switch to using a post management system like "busy" or something. I am having trouble keeping up with replies and mentions. I have been away for almost a week and am just getting caught up now @chekohler - thanks for the tip.

Congrats on minnowhood, @chekohler!!👊👍. I will follow in your footsteps.

Posted using Partiko iOS

Thanks bro! Still a way to go but I’m sure you can get there just stick with us! You’re in at the right time with these low prices you can build up stake pretty fast! You should enter the SBI giveaway competition I have running if you get one you can get some regular upvote on your content

Posted using Partiko iOS

Either the platform sucks or I suck or we both suck.

Ha ha ha!!! Yeah, that about sums it up for everyone starting out! And even later on! It's been low lately, which doesn't help.

You are doing so awesome. I love your energy. And you seem to be getting well connected. I love your footer btw.

Lol I have to tell it like it is! I was really on the point of giving up before you selected my post for one of your web shows and I was like dang someone paid attention to me! Yeah!

Thanks so much and yeah I’m learning tons and meeting cool peeps it’s great! I hope to pay t forward and be the littlescibe for the next person!

Lol I tried to jazz my footer up I see all the cool kids do it

Posted using Partiko iOS

Yeah, the footer looks great. Mine's pretty much nonexistent. I had one for awhile, then didn't, then...well, whatevs.

Well, I know it's tough sometimes. Here's the thing. You will hit this critical mass where it's like do or die. And you'll wanna just give up, and I promise you, that's when the gears start turning. You will want to quit, and you'll even maybe give it a break. But your gears will start turning. You'll be like, hmmmm, there's something here for me. What is it...? And you find it. You just do. That's how it works. It's not a matter of luck or leverage. It's a matter of time. It's a networking game. But not like you think. It's a networking game of figuring out who you are and what you want on here. And the closer you get to that, the faster you line up with people who are doing what you want to do.

It's about presentation, marketing techniques, putting the information together, connecting, and consistency.

Here's my story -

I spent about 20 months just dabbling in this and that, trying new things, off and on. Loved most of what I posted and talked about. Tried to keep it real. Enjoyed making friends and leaving comments, voting up. that sort of thing. Was fairly consistent most of the time, had to take a break for part of it, then came back with a vengeance....but still couldn't figure out quite what it was I was about. I had so many interests, and wasn't sure what I would be best at. And when I tried things, they were fun, but they took too much work, and didn't really stick, or didn't make money, or didn't keep my interest after a few weeks.

And then I found something that I jived with. It was tutorial videos. So I tried that. And I did really well at that. And got a good response. And then I started something that branched off of that. And I met some people. And that was cool. Then they elevated what I was doing and helped me move onto something else, and I tried that for a few months, and that was a good experience, and I made some really important relationships and learned a LOT, but didn't earn much at ALL. And that was frustrating. All that work, and nothing to show for it...until now, when I realize that the most important thing I got out of that was not what I set out to do, but something far better. Soon after that I ran into Steem Monsters, and @courscate then @o07 @jarvie @aggroed @carrieallen @chrisroberts @sircork...the list goes on. But each of these people blessed me in so many ways.

And they continue to do so. Right now, Steem Monsters is where my heart is. It brings me joy. I love covering this stuff. I love the people I work with. I love doing what I do. I am not attached to the votes much anymore. They come, or they don't. I'm doing what I want to do. I think it will make a splash at some point, and I'm doing a lot to make that happen. Until then, I gotta have a day job, I gotta do other things. I have to try and generate more interest, but it feels like home now. I belong here. I'm here to stay.

So keep doing the cool stuff you're doing. Just make sure you keep maybe like one or two staple things you do every day or every week, then you can toy around with other ideas and see how they fly.

But it's a process. Some people hit it big sooner. Most of us don't. And that's OK. It comes. I think you'll hit it sooner than most. You've got the right stuff.

Aw thanks <3 You have been a fantastically awesome friend to me too.

pro tip, a space after a username is needed to tag em for future fyi, i only noticed because I also watch for the keyword of my name plus the tagged ones...

You mean, take out the commas? -- OK. Done and done.

p.s. I LOVE your wit Cork. I crave it some days. Probably more than anyone else around.

nah, just space after em, see how mine isnt tagged because no gap before periods?

word, @hurrrrrrr1 <space>, <space> @durrrrrr2 <space>, etc

And I think we have the best chuckle club going. Hands down.

No I mean that, you can put your hands down. This is a help tip, not hold up.

HA HA HA!!! You always crack me up.

Now that is what I call a valuable and insightful comment! You really went at it and I'm glad to finally hear the origin story of @littlescribe and the similarities we shared.

Right now I'm still finding my feet in this chaotic world of steemit, there's just so much to see and do so I still have not found my niche yet but like I guess it will come to me with time like SteemMonsters did for you. I have registered on SM site I just haven't had the time to check it out and learn more about it, seems like there's quite a bit to get into.

Im surely having loads of fun on the site so i'll be sticking around regardless of the price. I can't see myself going back to posting for likes and lol and emoji comments and not being able to have real discussion because someone got triggered by my comments like traditional social media has become

Yeah, there's no going back.

And you WILL find your thing. I promise. Everyone has their thing. Everyone is genius at something, and usually the thing you're genius at is what makes your heart sing. And brings the best of you together in one place.

What are you genius at? What makes your heart sing? Regardless of what people think, how much money it makes, how it "looks" or what external value is placed on it?

Honestly If i think about it at the moment, the content I find most enjoyable is business, marketing and tech related which I put out on my external blog. I used to feel it was a chore, it was just something I was good at and interested in and it was a place to put down my thoughts and techniques. Then I got into steemit where I could just ramble on about any old thing and its helped me improve my overall blogging.

Since i'm an SEO i've had to produce tons of content for clients from travel, to finance, to retail and its made me a bit of a jack of all trades too! Which has also made me hate those topics, gosh travel posts kill my soul

If I had to chose a niche it would be questioning what we know. I wrote a post a while back about questioning the way the current education system works and It was probably the most fun I had writing a post and I got some great feedback! I'd like to do it more but it takes so much time to put together my thoughts and all the research and im lazy at times lol

Wow! You have finally become a MINNOW!! Congratulations! Its a big leap from red fishes.. and you just gotten it in 7 months! Its a major milestone!!

I for one is aiming to be one someday.. yes im still far from the finish line but ill keep running the race.

I feel you on 50 posts with no upvotes!! Hahahaha i think we all have been there

Yes!! Do let it shine, this is your moment!! Hurray!!

Posted using Partiko Android

Thanks so much! Yes it’s really a good feeling to meet your target I set it to be a minnow before my first year on steemit so it’s been a good run! You’re half way there now that’s great it starts to get easier as you reach the finish line so don’t stop! Stay the course! I have you a follow so I can keep up with your progress and feel free to enter the SBI giveaway! Every bit helps especially when you’re a redfish

Posted using Partiko iOS

Oh no! Im far from halfway hehe.. i have tried the SP Lease of minnowbooster for 4 weeks and it will be gone in 2 or 1 week from now.. my SP is only at 83 i think..

Yes right! That is one thing to do getting to the target joining challenges/contest to keep us all active..

I'll submit my entry in a bit.. 😊😁

Posted using Partiko Android

Oh lol my bad yeah Partiko just shows you overall SP so I thought hey you’re getting there! 83 is not bad and yes competitions are the way to go if you have the time! I’ve won quite a few on my way to minnowhood most I’ve won was 20 SBD and they all build up over time

Awesome I look forward to your entry 😬

Posted using Partiko iOS

Really?! 20sbd is huge already.. yeah that will get you long way.. in time i will get there too.. we all do with constant perseverence and dedication.. and laugthers alongside.. lols..

I'll try me best.. thanks!

Posted using Partiko Android

Congratulations! Huge Milestone! Celebrate success!

Thanks! It’s been a wild ride so far and now that im over the first hump I feel ready for more! I want to swim with the dolphins

Posted using Partiko iOS

yepeee yeaaaaa congratulation, what an awesome mark you are leaving on the block and a major milestone to achieve,

my biggest challenge was getting noticed. When I started I was blogging about excel and the stuff I blog about off steemit. No one took any notice. Then I flipped it, instead of sharing my skills I decided to use them to analyse the steem blockchain. That seemed to work for me :-)

who helped me most, well I have been very lucky to get long time support from @nanzo-scoop and @fulltimegeek and i owe both of these dudes a massive humongous thank you. Having this type of support really gives me encouragement and also makes me conscious of 'over posting' and abusing their generosity.

I checked out your blog now, very cool and I was wondering if you would like to contribute a guest post to my website. It's called www.nichemarket.co.za/blog/ We blog about digital marketing, analytics, and tools to help build your website and run an online business. If you're keen let me know.

I first started blogging only about cryptocurrency but it was such a saturated section of the site at the time during the better prices I was hardly seen so I switched to posting about my other interests like movies, music, gaming, sports and technology and then just about anything I thought was interesting and people started to take to it. Now I just use it to air my thoughts and look for like-minded people to discuss them with, its made my posting more natural and a lot more fun and even improved my marketing blogging I do on my other site.

That's awesome, everyone needs a steemit mentor and you have two so you're very lucky! Lets keep growing together, and keep in touch! Also let me know about that guest post :)

Nice congrats. It’s difficult for sure to get popularity here on this platform. I like to do it the most via comments. I would like to post more but the comments are easier; I can digest the post and give my opinion and generate conversation amongst the other commenters. Slowly I’ll get some more actual posts in here. The rewards are a lot less but that’s ok I like the engagement I have with my fellow Steemit friends.

Good luck to any other contestants! Thanks for having a contest it’s always a plus when people host them.

Well you’re going about it the right way and you always provide valuable insights on peoples posts! I’m sure it’s built you up a following slowly, posting I. The beginning isn’t really worth it like I mentioned I did like 50 with no payout! My first big payout was actually a comment and I got 20 dollars which blew my mind! My biggest every payout was also a comment of 30 dollars so stick to the game plan

Posted using Partiko iOS

Nice my biggest pay out has been .25¢ I think lol I’m keeping at it. I am hoping my next crypto review will garner decent rewards.

Congratulation fornthe achievement ✋

Posted using Partiko Android

Thank you so much! Appreciate you stopping by :) Onwards and upwards!

Congratulations for reaching "minnowhood"! I like your long-term perspective! :)

Thanks @gadrian it’s all about playing the game, as long as you’re having fun it’s all good! There could be worse things I could be doing with my time

Posted using Partiko iOS

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