1st Steemiversary for @creativetruth: Est. August 28, 2017 [Steemit]
One year ago I joined Steemit, and look at how far I have come. Established on August 28, 2017, let's have a look back at this amazing year.
My First Post: Introducing CreativeTruth...
Date: Sept. 5, 2017
Number of Votes: 11
Comments: 12
Post Payout: $1.52
Tags: #introduceyourself #garden #cooking #bonsai #dance
My highest earning post: Fable of the Fool Hero
Date: October 6, 2017
Number of Votes: 21
Comments: 21
Post Payout: $132.48
Tags: #writing #shortstory #fantasy #sci-fi #pellis
One Year Anniversary Earnings:
Total Earnings (SP / Steem / SBD): 1443.205/ 2.704/ 580.56
Followers: First 500 followers on January 13, 2018. Today I have 1563 followers.
My Outgoing Vote Patterns
https://steemit.com/engagement/@abh12345/re-creativetruth-re-abh12345-what-vote-weights-do-you-use-when-up-voting-content-20180829t161957431z
Chart & Data Provided by @abh12345
"You get 100%, and you get 100%, and you get 100%, and you get..."
Biggest Contributor
Obviously, I am overdue to give @blocktrades a huge thank you for sponsoring me with plenty of upvotes in my early days. I never begged for votes or officially thanked Big Blocky for the show of support, because I did not want to appear like I was sucking up just to get more votes. Even so, I would not have half the SP I have today without all of the big votes I had in my early days, and I remain eternally thankful.
I'll give some other thank you's to a couple of special folks in this post, but first I want to share some other fun things that have changed on my way here to this first year's Steemiversary...
Biggest Game Changers
Blocktrades (Lease Delegations)
At one point in time I was able to lease thousands of SP from Blocktrades. I think I had over 8000 combined SP for about three months, which I paid approximately 300 SBD for. It was worth every penny. My upvotes were worth close to $10 a piece for while.
Next time the price of Steem goes up, I'll be saving up for more delegation leases to regain my previous power levels.
Steemworld
Nearly everybody knows about steemworld.org by now. @steemchiller graciously hosts this amazing site with a clean design and free of errors. It doesn't do everything, but it does the daily stuff perfectly. I can keep an eye on daily mentions, upvotes, downvotes, and pending rewards.
Accusta
Another great site to check out is steemit.accusta.tk. They helped me find all of the historical data I am presenting in this post. They make it a breeze to find my highest paid posts over the past year. I like that they have a downloadable csv to help you describe your Steemit earning at the end of the year when you want to do taxes.
Steemit Basic Income (SBI)
This was a nice lifesaver when Steem slumped to abyssal levels. Other than bid bots, and vote selling, there was really no honest way to guarantee a way to earn some steady payout stream on our posts. SBI made it possible to earn a little bit on every post, and that really helped me out when most of my followers started to become inactive last Spring.
I love any system where you only have to buy it once, and then it continues to generate income from that day forward. Even in small amounts, it helps out to have an extra income stream.
Dustsweeper
Another brilliant idea. Recently I just renewed my @dustsweeper account, and it only cost 1 Steem. @Dustsweeper is my %@#$!. This poor robot has to upvote all of my low-vote comments, even the stupid ones, to make sure they earn approximately 3 cents of vote value every time. A whole lot better than zero!
If I had to choose between zero and a bucket full of pennies for the time I spent working on something, I will always choose the bucket of pennies. Along the way, I'm also benefiting minnows who upvote my comments, and I'm gaining a higher reputation and being rewarded for interacting with others through comments. It's a no-brainer, win-win.
Things I Have and Have Not Done
Have Done
- Saved all my SP.
- Wasted some money on Bid Bots.
- Purchased 5000 SP of 3-month Leased Delegations. Yeah baby!
- Met many fascinating people, and made friends with many of them.
- Rejuvenated my soul to produce art and writing to share.
- Introduced Steemit to real-life friends.
- Spent hours anxiously awaiting to see who would upvote my posts next.
- Made small purchases with Steem.
- Delegated my SP out to others who I felt could make good use of it.
Have Not Done
- Spent a dime of a my own money buying Steem or SBD.
- Sent Steem or SBD externally to an exchange to cash out or trade.
- Joined a Curation Trail.
- Wrapped my head around how Utopian works. I know it's good, I just don't get it.
- Vote traded, sold votes, traded SP for votes, etc.
- Delegated to a Bid Bot. I tried once, but... (facepalm) they did not want my money!
- Opened a Steem Monster account
- Attempted to Witness. I'm way too incompetent for that.
- Purchased EOS. I'm with Steemit 100% keeping it all for the family.
That's all I can think of for now.
Best Lessons Learned
I'm still learning new things every day. There are so many apps being made for Steemit and for other platforms. So many out there that I am not even fully aware that they exist, or I don't understand how I can benefit from them.
Red Flags
One thing I have always kept at the forefront of my mind is to trust my instincts when it comes to spending cryptos, including my hard-earned steem.
Ask question when someone asks you to give anything in exchange for something else. If they want you to be responsible for doing something from now on, find out what the consequences are, or what hoops they expect you to jump through to get the rewards they promise.
Here are some common Red Flags I watch out for:
- Popular communities
- Rich communities
- Extremist/Weird/Religious communities
- Users who attract massive downvotes
- Users who attract massive upvotes
- Popular Apps
- Hateful postings and Drama wars!
These are not always a bad thing.
The are warning signs!
It is good to find out why and what they have done to cause such a strong reaction from the community.
CreativeTruthisms
Just because everybody is doing it, doesn't mean you should to.
Steer clear of activities that you are not accustomed to. If it interests you, it means you need to research it before you trust them with your money.
Ask what your friends know about recent new things that are trending on Steemit. They usually won't lie to you. The guys who don't know you will tell you anything they think you want to hear if it means you'll pay them.
When you talk to someone in charge of a community, take a good measure of how well they communicate and treat others. Are they open and honest, courteous and helpful? Or are they making all decisions behind closed doors with secretive members making decisions to influence everybody's membership levels and rewards? Not good!
If you have a good idea, just say it. Chances are others will agree with you, and support you too.
Don't worry about being ridiculed for you opinions. If you really want people to know how you feel about a subject you are passionate about, just say it. There is a family of friends out there waiting to support you with open arms. The haters won't bother you much, because they'll support people they agree with.
Most Successful Strategy
The buzzword lately is Engagement. This means actively commenting as much as possible to drive interaction with others.
Making this a key strategy I think is a good focus every day, as it really helps you think more deeply about posting useful content, rather than posting content to earn money. I'm not sure how to explain this in a way that doesn't sound sappy... but it is really more valuable to post for the purpose of making a meaningful impression in someone else's life, than it is to post for the primary purpose of making more wealth for your own life. If that is your primary purpose here on Steemit, I think you're doing it all wrong. Some people never get it.
Interacting with others constantly seems to be the best way to improve the value everyone is bringing here to Steemit. The Steemit Engagement League is a lot of fun to follow, but really the message they are pushing is what pushes me. Don't post to earn money. Post to be heard. Post to let people know you heard them. Post to share a joke. Post to correct someone's error. Post just to express why enjoyed someone else's post. This is the single best use of your time here on Steemit! By being a positive force for encouragement, you are improving the lives of others every day.
Just don't be a dork and spend your time posting spam and requests for votes, resteems, etc..
The more authentic and active you are about matters deeper than your steem wallet, the better. It will gain you followers, reputation, and support.
Room For Renovations
Looking back, I wrote a lot of short stories that garnered me a lot of support in my early months. My earliest stories received over $75 on average. Maybe I should re-consider writing more of those to add onto that story series. People really digged the evil Lich Lord saga I was getting ready to hype up.
Final Thanks
Rather than name a bunch of names, you know who you are, I want to simply say YOU ARE THE ROCK STARS who helped get me this far, and I am thankful for all:
- Curators
- Comments
- Delegators
- Smelligators. Kidding!
- Friends
- Followers
- Viewers
- Curation Trail Followers
- Fancy Hatters who Nominated me for Prizes and Awards
- Brainiacs who explained stuff to me
- Critics who sharpened my wit
But most of all, I thank those who went out of their way to make an impression on me.
This is how to make a real difference in someone's life. Be real! Money can't buy authenticity in a true friendship.
This is Not Goodbye, It's See You Real Soon!
Count on me sticking around for another year. I'm here online every day looking for friends and awesome posts to upvote 100%, every time.
Bonsai!
| Account Value: $1,571.63 | Votes Given / Received: 3,523 / 7,621 |
| SP: 1,697.221 | Posts / Comments: 229 / 1,538 |
| STEEM / SBD: 1.615 / $15.499 | Delegated In / Out: 0 / 80 |
| REP: 62.761 | Followers: 1,564 / 187 following |
| Curation Rewards: 0.349 SP | Author Rewards SP / S / SBD: 0.146 / 0 / 0 |
| STEEM In / Ex = 0.916 / 0.97554 | BTC / ETH/ LTC = 7084 / 294 / 61.8 |
| SBD = 1.02827 | Gold/Silver oz. = 1,210.45 / 14.92 |
Be excellent my friends!
Congratulations on one year! Looks like you had a very busy one. Engagement in my eyes is always key. You never know what opportunities are out there if you don’t go out and just be active.
Cheers to year 2!
Congrats for your STEEM anniversary, glad you were upvoted by blcoktrades I use their service but don't know what to do to be voted by them. Maybe it's luck?!
I joined two years ago but actually started working on steemit a year and not more than two months ago. So my anniversary is long gone.
I skimmed through the data and I think you made a huge effort on this post, still I upovted because I couldn't upvote your #archdruidcontest entry.
That was nice of you.
Yes, that was the beauty of getting a big upvote in the past. There wasn't anything you could do to get one of the big whale votes, other than get noticed randomly for posting good content.
I am not sure why they stopped, but I can imagine why. Their wallet and posts were always filled with people asking for upvotes, people getting angry that they stopped getting upvotes, and hundreds of other discouraging comments. It became very hostile to do offer any generosity.
Thanks for your reply, getting a good upvote in your first month is something lovely and I like @Curie who does it for people who actually try to perfect themselves!
That part is sad...
Happy steem-iversary 🎉🎊🎂
Real nice summary and very interesting on what you did, and did not, do!
Happy Anniversary!
Congratulations! It has been a good year. Thank you very much for the advices, I think the most valuable is "Don't post to earn money, post to be heard" I agree with you. Let's enjoy steemit and make good relationships, that will be the strength of the community. =)
nice achievements. a love the dustswerper to. he is the best...bucket full of penny's. have a good next year to.
Great post @creativetruth Very interesting to read your history. Many of us have tried lots of things at different times but you kind of only know what people are doing lately if you know what I mean haha
this touched some cords with me on so many levels bro! so many!!!!! i truly appreciate your testimony here. much to ponder...as i continue my "choose your own adventure" here. so much love bro!
Congrats bruv, how you grew so fast goodness only knows, well done. My one year is next month, Take it easy. Cheer$;)
I'm trying to learn japanese
That was random. :0)