My Steemit Journey So Far - 500 Followers Milestone!
It took me some time, but I've finally reached 500 followers. It's been 4 months since I've written my first article on Steemit and I'm overall very happy with my progress on this great platform. With this personal blog post, I'd like to share some of the methods I've used to grow on Steemit. It goes without saying that I'm extremely grateful to anyone that has enjoyed my content so far.
500 Followers!
This number should be taken with a grain of salt, since I've noticed a lot of these followers seem to be bots that have been running rampant these past couple of days. Nevertheless, I imagine that the real number is pretty close to that. It took me 4 months (since my first blog post), to reach this milestone. Not particularly fast, I assume, but I think it's pretty good, considering I haven't been posting every day.
The number of followers seems to be a better indicator of growth than reputation, at least in my case. I tend to make limited use of vote-buying to get my posts a little bit more noticed, so my reputation would be affected by that.
Curation Groups, Friends & Post Promotion
I've been proactively looking for ways to get some more interaction on my content. These past months, I've joined a number of curation groups and have devised a strategy on how to use bots effectively. By doing this, I've met some great people along the way, whom I try to give some support myself.
@thesteemengine was the first curation group I've joined. Doing so immediately made a lot of difference and helped me get some exposure for my articles. I've also read some amazing content written by their members. I can absolutely recommend joining this fantastic group!
@qurator caught my eye after joining The Steem Engine, since a lot of people were member of both groups. This group was quite a lot bigger compared to The Steem Engine, they also required a small membership fee. I can safely say that it was worth joining them. This group is particularly interesting for people who focus on creating quality content.
@alldutch is a Belgian/Dutch Steemit community of which I've been a member for some time. Sometimes it's just fun to be able to talk in my own language for a bit. They also have some great initiatives to help new members get established on the platform.
@steemrepair is a group that I've only joined recently after @bozz recommended it. While it's still fairly small, they do offer some amazing services. I especially like the fact that you can get your posts rated by an exceptional curator.
@steemthat helped me out a lot during my first weeks on Steemit. They're building an excellent little community outside of Steemit, on their own website. I especially like their idea of building a crowdfunded whale account which upvotes members. I know that @binkley is extremely passionate about this project, he's constantly improving it.
@buildawhale is pretty much the only bid-bot I use, because they also do some manual curation. I've been featured in their Curation Digest at least once and I've received additional upvotes after placing a bid. The maximum amount of SBD I use is 6 SBD per post. I only use their service on posts that I've put enough effort in. I definitely understand that some people might be against this, but I don't have any moral objections against this.
It's pretty hard to come up with a list of all the people who have supported me so far. I've had tons of interesting discussions in the comment section under my or their posts. I'd like to offer a big THANK YOU to all those people!
My First Steemit Meetup
This Wednesday, I'll be attending my first small Steemit meetup! I found out there was another Steemian living in my hometown, @joythewanderer. We'll be having a beer in Leuven, at a bar that has over 2000 beers! I might look into streaming a little bit, if that possible with my phone. Looking forward to it!
Giving Back
Recently, I've leased 5000 SP through Minnowbooster, which I'm using to give out some support to other people. I tend to go through some of the Discord promotion channels and pick out content that I personally like. It is not my goal to try and make a profit from this, though I am using some votes on my own articles (never comments).
It gives me such a good feeling when I can upvote people who haven't earned much on Steemit. There's definitely a need for people who do manual curation, so I'm more than happy to do my part. The next couple of days, I'll be looking into also using steemlookup.com to find some content that I can upvote.
Conclusion
I'm pretty amazed to see how much progress I've made in the last couple of months. Once you start exploring all the different communities that exist within Steemit, you'll understand the potential that Steemit has. It took me some time to figure out that networking might be the most important aspect to make it here.
If you're just living in your own bubble and not take the time to read other people's posts, you're missing out on a big part of the experience. This is something I'll always try to keep in mind, even if I grow to become a whale some day. I can dream, right...
Let me know what you think in the comments and consider upvoting or resteeming if you like this type of content!
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Awesome job. You absolutely deserve every follower you have gained. It has been really great getting to know you on Steemit and Discord!
That's really nice to hear :) Same here, it's always very interesting talking on Discord!
You one of the best @daan, its been a pleasure to get to know you, long live the content!
You too Slobberchops! Indeed, long live the good content ;-)
Congrats! There used to be a way to count your existing followers- Dead Followers, a tool created by a user. Unfortunately it is under maintenance at time of this comment. It may also be gone permanently, I am not sure, but it would be a way to get a little more of an accurate count- minus bots of course.
I agree that we need more manual curation here on Steemit. And it should never be a popularity contest as I've seen on other platforms (who incidentally started off with good intentions)
Luckily we still have quite a few community-funded curation initiatives. It's sad to see that some posts do not get the attention they deserve, while the author might have spent hours writing it.
I think there's a new tool for checking dead followers, but I can't find it anymore :-/ Was so sure that it wasn't http://steemit.deadfollowers.info/
Cool story bro!
I really like the part about meeting up with another steemian in your region.
I totally understand the feeling of reaching milestones and finding that the people on the following list are bots. I used @sircork 's steem.agency to dump a stack of dead followers.
I found your post because you are a member of the steem engine. After reading your post I feel like I really need to look into being more active in curation groups on discord. Building an "organic following" as it's said is the best route, even if you have stacks of cash to dump into your wallet.
Congratulation on your progress, and thanks for sharing your story.
Congratulations on reaching your milestone!! It has been an awesome you being in the platform for 4 months now and 500 followers :)
if you get some very meaningful relationships and communities like what you listed there are awesome.
I'm here for a couple of days now and I'm really reading a lot to learn about this platform and voting and all that. I don't really understand and so .... I just started reading, reacting and posting and voting (but my vote isn't worth nothing yet, but it's the intention) just to have fun. That's where I'm here for and that it might pay some in the future is a + 😊
So thank you for this post. Nice to read your journey here. I also have a lot of followers (more than 100) who mean nothing actually. Why does all these account exists I wonder...... What's the purpose of it?
Well I will resteem this post, for I think it's valuable for the newbies ....
Congratulations on the 500 followers (501, I just followed. I thought I already was a follower...). And good work for leasing the SP and giving back to the community! We all grow stronger together as communities!
Great job!
Congratulation on your milestone.
It is nice having you here.
Thanks and likewise :) I hope Steemrepair can grow even further
congratz on the milestone ! interacting in the communities really pays of after a while :)
It really does, but takes a lot of time :) Luckily it's fun as well
that helps a lot :) too bad of all those bot followers lately :( I passed the 2000 milestone when that already started.. too bad..
WooooooHooooo! That's a milestone all right. Good for you!
Two things I look for when trying to asses whether I have improved relative to followers 1: Where I get picked in the playground kickball game. Never first, of course, but not last either. Improvement. 2: How many comments on a post. Looks like I've had it handed to me again, you seem pretty healthy there.
Thanks for letting me share your milestone. It's a dandy!