Steemit: My First 7-day Experience on Steemit

Early this morning, I grabbed my pen and my writing pad, contemplating on what to share with my friends and mates today on steemit.com, and I thought for some minutes... I couldn't come up with any specific content. That was when a small still voice whispered into my tender ears, "Why not share the experiences you've gathered so far as with your fellow steemians? This was how I got spurred into writing this post. In it, I shall be sharing with you some of my first 7-day experience here on steemit.

Honestly, I do hope you enjoy this post, even as you read it with an open heart.

On the 12th of March 2018, I received a good news from the steemit open community via email. And the content of this particular mail reads:

Hi again,
Good news! Your account information has been verified.
Click on this link to finish setting up your account.

At the sight of this mail, I said to myself, "Finally, I can now do the 'steeming thing' ". I mean, after apparently waiting for almost 4 days following my registration. In a nutshell, I did as I was instructed, and then got started.

Ever since I'm glad to be part of this lovely community. I appreciate my friends @okojiebenjamin, @iksilva @pinheiroemmanuel, and other lovely personalities such as @dobartim, @spencercoffman just to mention a few, for providing the background information I needed to kick-start on steemit.

But my ultimate thanks goes to @ned (Ned Scott) for thinking so well to have even conceived the idea "steemit.com"— that at times I ask myself, "what was this great dude thinking…? Frankly speaking, he's a genius! Though I haven't seen him in real life, but I’ve watched him speak in videos on YouTube.

Back to the core of this write-up...

For many new steemians, the first thing that comes to their minds is to introduce themselves with a “introduce yourself” post. I did introduce myself. But that wasn't all. I needed to start doing what every successful person have learned to do throughout their lifetime, even those on steemit. This was where my practical experience somewhat began, and through it, I learned some very great lessons; they include:

#1 Know Who You Are.

For anybody to be successful in anything he or she does; he or she must first understand the SELF CONCEPT— to have a very good understanding of who he or she is; what he or she can do and can't ( that's to say his or her strengths and weaknesses), etc. For some, writing news about sports or crytocurrency, while others may just be in their element when it comes to poetry, artistic works, or as the case may be. With my little experience here on steemit, I realised the fact that I can't be everybody but me-- to do what I know how to do best.

As we know, Steemit is an open but crowded community, so to say; that anyone who wants to be successful here on this platform needs to create a brand for him or herself. Did I say create a brand for oneself?

Yes, this has to do with knowing the niche (tags, or areas) your writing will focus; who and who to follow and so on. Now, to achieve this can be greatly daunting for anyone, let alone for someone who probably does not have a very clear understanding of him or herself.

#2 Be Ready To Learn.

Brian Tracy, one of my favorite best-selling authors nicely quoted:

LEARN more, EARN more!

But for many of us, especially new steemians, we want to try it the other way round, by trying to earn when we've not sufficiently learned what I call the Basics—the necessary things that need to be done. But it doesn't work that well. Success is not birthed out of ignorance; rather from an informed mind. And this information comes in the process of learning. Truly, we ought to learn every day, even as steemians.

Frankly speaking, trying to grasp the basic terms used in steemit wasn’t all easy for me, even though they appear pretty easy to many other persons. There's a difference between knowing something in abstraction and knowing through doing.

#3 Get Engaged

Nobody gets along or win a trophy by just looking or folding his or her hands, doing nothing. Even spectators in a soccer match are busy doing something, at least they're cheering up the footballers with the rhythm of their claps, shout and sometimes, songs.

I started with practically no followers… but I began to make constructive and meaningful comments based on the advice of @dobartim, I started to have more followers. In other words, I become more interested in what others were doing.

Beyond, having people to follow me, I learned to enjoy the process of connecting with others, while I maintained the mindset of trying to make a valuable impact. I know I still have so much to learn. Truly, one needs to be interested in others— their ideas— by making sincere but comments as contributions to various their works in form of posts. As a Zig Ziglar nicely put it:

Also, aside from commenting on the post of others, one can also maintain a good interaction with the community on steemitchat and discord. This I recently learned, and plan to thoroughly harness as soon as possible.

#4 Create Quality Content

The opportunity writers have, to create quality blogs— and more that, are duly rewarded; was essentially the reason I joined steemit, so I can connect with others through my contents.

Well, for the past 7 days, I have posted a pretty good number of posts on my blog here on steemit, which seem not to have been well received, considering their of upvotes and comments. The explanation for this I'm yet to know...

Could be that the contents of these posts are not good enough?
Are they not properly tagged?
Could it be as a result of reputation level?
Or…….?

Whatever the case may be, I do know and have learned, that writing is art; one get good at it as he or she keeps doing it with a reasonable level of enthusiasm. This takes us to the next lesson, which I will use to wrap up this piece.

#5 Consistency

Blogging and social media enterprise stretch one to do things that really he or she won't like in your natural self. Talking about mental exercise such planning, research up to creating quality content.

Within the past 7 days of my ‘steeming’ experience, I do know consistency is one that is irreplaceable for every steemian, specifically the newbies like myself. One need to persistent and keep keeping on even when its appear as though his or her efforts are yielding the kind of results expect. To be consistent in doing the right things always pays off in the long run; It’s one of the attributes with successful steemians like are @dobartim, @adsactly, @ogoowinner, @aggroed, @jerrybanfield

NB: This post is not some sort of instruction to other steemians, but my experience so far, which I decided to share.

And also, feel free to drop your suggestion, in form of a comment on how we (new steemians) can attain success here on this platform, while we connect real good with another.

Indeed, for every great success, there was a humble beginning.

I remain my humble self, who's ever ready to learn from you.

Thanks for reading.