Here's What Upvote-for-Upvote and Follow-for-Follow Actually DOES For You
... Absolutely nothing!
OK, before you get annoyed and start accusing me of inventing a click-baity title, let me assure you that there's actually quite a bit of real life research and study behind my assertion.
And don't forget that so-called "click bait" is only bait if there's nothing substantive at the other end... in this case, there is.
So let's have a closer look at one of Steemit's "dirty little issues of the moment."
We Can Probably Agree on The Following:
Don't forget to Upvote and Follow!
There is little doubt that the Steemit community has recently seen a significant uptick in mostly comments-- but also occasionally posts-- that involve some variation on the idea of "begging for upvotes and follows."
Now, whether you're against the practice OR you don't care; whether you avoid such comments or actually are one of the people leaving them, I hope you'll consider what I have to share here.
Why do I bother?
Because I have come to really like this social platform known as Steemit... and I'd really hate to see it go down in flames because people insist on sticking their proverbial heads in the proverbial sand about the negative impact "crap content" can have on a platform like this.
But I like looking at "what IS" rather than "what I SUPPOSE."
So I Conducted A Small Practical Experiment
Wallflowers
Color me crazy, but I'm one of those skeptical people who prefers to think for himself... so rather than just taking other people's word for the uselessness of the "follow-4-follow" approach to building a following on Steemit, I decided to investigate.
So I went off and read a number of "well circulated" posts with many comments (generally from "trending" and "hot")... and decided that I would actually take the time to visit 100 Profile Pages of people who left a variation of this basic formulaic comment:
"Nice post, I like it-- now please upvote my post and follow me."
We've all seen these. They are everywhere. In many different formats.
My Objective
My objective was to determine-- in visiting 100 profiles-- whether there was actually any content there that would make me not only want to upvote it, but enough promise of consistency from the content creator to make me want to follow that person.
Not sure what these are, but they like the ditch by our road
Criteria: In order for me to give a post even a 5% upvote, it has to be reasonably well presented; somewhat thought out and substantially include the poster's own work. Naturally, better work, better upvote.
In order for me to follow someone, they need to demonstrate a measure of consistency in terms of creating original content of some value, engaging with the comments on their own posts... and generally post topics I'd be at least minimally interested in seeing and reading.
Yes, there is a good reason why I only follow about 1/4 as many people as follow me.
The Findings:
This was actually a bit harder than I thought it was going to be... in part because I'm a "Statistics freak" and found myself wanting to add new categories to track, as I went along.
So, although I checked the profiles and some content of exactly 100 users, the below numbers may add up to more than 100, because some people were part of several categories. NO NAMES will be posted here, as this is not an attempt to call anyone out.
Profiles checked: 100
Reputation score of 25: 21 of 100
Reputation score under 25: 11 of 100 (clearly, some flagging is happening)
Reputation score 26+: 68 of 100
Highest Reputation score: 57
Joined Steemit July '17: 46 of 100
Joined Steemit June '17: 51 of 100
Joined Steemit May '17: 3 of 100
Short Upvote/Follow comment: 96 of 100
Long Upvote/Follow comment: 4 of 100 (basically paragraph long comments, but posted identically in multiple locations)
Clearly COPIED same comments to multiple posts: 17 of 100
Copied SAME comment multiple times on same post: 4 of 100
Proved they did not READ post at all: at least 9 of 100, but hard to determine... most like just "dropped a comment and ran.".
But let's get down to the core of this little experiment:
Number of pieces of content warranting even a minimal upvote, according to above criteria: 4 of 100
Number of content creators I would choose to follow, based on their content: 0 of 100.
Now, this was all pretty non-scientific
And you might be asking again why any of this even matters to me.
It's a weed, but still quite pretty
After all, there's nothing in the code to prevent this pattern. And there's nothing in the rules to discourage it.
Both true!
So why?
It's a matter of time horizon.
All these "issues" we have been looking at recently-- vote begging, follow begging, copy-pasta, self-upvoting and more? They are all very short term, very short sighted approaches. They focus on "What can I get, RIGHT NOW?" with no regard for the long term effect of what's being done.
Personally, the reason I care is because I really like this site... and I would like to still be here creating quality content... five, seven, ten years from now.
Taking a "what can I get TODAY" approach is not good for long term stability.
Afterthought: About "The Social Media Game" and "Playing The Game"
Autumn leaf in the sun
Naturally, what I have shared here is merely my own opinion and experience... following my personal approach to creating online content and social media.
My approach is-- and always has been-- "targeted." I don't use the "bulk approach" of pursuing millions of followers, in the hope a few of them like my content.
I won't even speculate on whether my approach is "better" or "worse" than any other... this was a personal experiment. And I wanted to conduct it as a way to make sure my "gut hunch" matched what was real.
It did.
I will share a true story, though.
A few months ago-- in connection with my recently having updated one of my web sites-- I was approached by a so-called "social media expert" who got all up in my business about about how he could help me get tens of thousands more followers for my twitter and for my Facebook page.
Santolina in bloom
He cited his "successful" campaigns and impressive numbers (220,000-ish twitter followers and 50,000+ likes on this Facebook page) as reasons for me to throw some money his way... but became evasive when I started drilling for hard numbers.
Much of his "pitch" seemed centered about my "small" twitter following of only some 1500 people, and my "boring" Facebook page with 16K likes.
"But they like my content," I said, "it's a hand picked audience I've built over 10 years."
We messaged a bit... and I asked again how many people typically read an article he'd send through to his followers.
"Often 1000 or more!" he said, with some pride. I think I was supposed to be impressed.
So I wrote an article (here on Steemit, in fact) and sent it through to my "sad little list." Because I like to be able to verify things, you can see the article here for yourself. Of if you don't care, I can tell you it was viewed a little over 2000 times.
Moral of the story?
Trying to gain large numbers of followers "by whatever means" is largely a meaningless exercise.
Leaves with water droplets
The only reason someone begging for upvotes and follows wants you to follow them is to get your upvote, not to read your stuff. And vice-versa.
Not only will it not be effective in building a following, it tends to send a "public signal" that your content is probably not very good.
"Followers" are just numbers. What you want is "Readers" who will actually engage with your content, and care about what you have to say... and they do that because you create something worth interacting with.
Anything else is just a "shell game."
Which is why I also didn't buy anything from the social media "expert" in my story.
What do YOU think? Do you see "begging for upvotes and follows" as a negative, or do you not care? Have you tried this approach, yourself? Did it work for you? Do you think this kind of approach presents a threat to the long term viability of Steemit? Do you think it is possible for "thin" content to drown out "quality" content to such an extent high value contributors will simply leave the site? Leave a comment-- share your experiences and feedback-- be part of the conversation!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Published 20170722 16:48 PDT
So much of what you said I agree with and am working towards. My greatest hurtle is finding readers. Followers" are just numbers. What you want is "Readers". I used to ask all my friends on discord to read my post, especially if I was proud of it. What I got was a few sympathy votes, what I wanted was comments. So, I decided to take a different approach and engage with the community. My hope is that well organically bring more readers. Also, by promoting other people's work they will hopefully do the same for me. I love your experiment and will probably do a very similar one. Thanks for sharing your experiment and thoughts :)
Finding readers can take a long time. I found out very shortly into my journey on Steemit that most of the people following me have hundreds they are following; therefore, they won’t see my random blog and they were just hoping to pick up a random follow back from spamming follow all around Steemit.
It’s often times better to find a medium to large size community that has a lot of active people in the comment sections and interact with people in there. I don’t really consider myself a blogger so I tend to spend a lot of time in other people’s comment section! It’s also a great way to meet new people then trying find someone from looking up different hashtags.
As an interesting-- somewhat related-- aside, I have found that most of Steemit's really good content creators follow FAR fewer people than follow them... usually by 4-to-1 to 10-to-1. I'm following 386 people last I checked... and that's WAY to many to keep up with, but every one of them is there because their posts touched me with the unusual, creative, informative, useful or some other quality. Occasionally I weed it down, mostly to remove those who have "gone quiet." Meanwhile, I am followed BY 1265 people people. If even 1/4 of them read and upvoted my posts, I'd be making $200 every time I publish... but they don't.
Engaging in comments is a great way to build a following. There are some very successful Steemians who almost never blog, but are active commenters... and they are quite well rewarded.
My experience is very similar, and definitely agree with the follow count. It's an immediate red-flag for me when there are more follows than followers (granted, of course, at least a few exceptions).
I also agree that engaging with thoughtful comments is critical as well. Discord and Steemit.Chat is also nice to "keep in touch" and interact as well. Very often I'll see someone comment and think, oh shoot, I've gotta catch up a bit on their posts. I think the change to a 7 day post payout was excellent in that regard, since it gives us all a bit more time to catch up on posts that we may have missed day 1, or 2, or even 3!
I agree, I much rather read then be read. I love commenting and picking their brain about their writings. Recently, I've gone through the people I am following to make sure I am following people I engage with and not F4F from my early days. Any name I didn't recognize I would click on their profile and all of them have been inactive for about a month. I want to follow people the write and are here for the right reason like me. Do you do a clean up of your followings ever so often? If so, what's your process look like?
With the current amount of followers I have, and free time on the weekends. I generally check in on each and every single one of them every week ; more on, on the weekends (I just go right down my follow list 5-10 at a time and take a break come back and check out some more.) I look for people who have been gone for at least 2 weeks without posting a single blog, resteem, or comment. If they mentioned they are going be a way for a while I’ll leave them on my follow list. I do have a short list of people I would keep if they went inactive for over a month. For those selection few after about two weeks I’ll just leave them a comment asking how things are going (sometimes people just need a friendly message to help them out from a really bad week IRL.)
I follow wide variety of content so it might not always be things I myself will upvote or comment on, but I still like to have some diversity just to keep my mind open to different topics. Other than that I really want be able to upvote/comment on everyone at least once a week. I have a select few I always comment on daily and support more than others.
There are a few other things I would remove someone from my following list. One of them is resteem spam. I know everyone does it. I’m sure guilty of it. Some people sadly will spam 50+ resteem a week and just clutter up my feed. Some blogs will go from speaking 100% English into speaking I have no clue and therefore I have to remove them since I have no idea what they are saying. Some after trying to be legit will turn into nsfw blogging for the quick money. Others decide hey I’m not blogging enough so if I spam images all day long with two sentience people will notice me (oh I sure did and unfollow!).
Finally, I keep an eye for massive reputation hits. Sometime people are being unfairly targeted. If there is a way for me to assist without getting myself dragged too much into it-- I try. Other times they did something wrong and no one told them “hey that’s not good, stop it.” So I try and work with them in understanding either from giving them examples, or having a conversation with them. If that does not work out in about a week I might consider unfollowing a person if they decided they just want kick ant hills and hit people with a stick.
That's a great process to check their entire blog on the weekend verses daily. Aren't you just filled with best practices. Have you written a guide post with all this information/suggestions, if not you really should consider.
With all that time invested in helping other newbies on steemit. I wonder if they realize the value you bring. You really care about the community and act like a moderator. I hope you continue and find lots of hidden gem in the process while also catching those attempting to abuse the platform.
I look forward to hearing more your discoveries and experiments.
Usually my issue with comments; I should have turned them into blogs instead! I was thinking the same last night when I wrote this up. I will be during the week sometime since I find it an important topic.
I am honored you took the time to write it. Now you have a solid base to write your post. I'm excited to read it :)
FWIW @enjar, at least 1/4 of my posts actually started as comments that "started going overboard" so I just copied what I had and turned it into a free-standing post.
It is still an issue I am unsure how to solve, and any further input you could add would be great.
Sometimes I still want leave that comment then expand apon it even further in a blog. Do people tend to report to steam cleaners for having similar content as a comment and another as a blog? Is that considered “rude/unethical?”
Other times I want make a blog then leave short outline of my points with a link to the blog as a comment. That way most people who don’t want click on the link and be taken away from the blog still read something. Do people tend to view this kind of behaver as trying take away from the original blog and make my own gains from it in a rude/unethical way? I know some people will make it clear if they don’t want any kind of links at all. I simply don’t want take away from the conversation either.
Finally, is it best to not a leave a comment at all, and just make it a blog. Then in that blog simply include a link back to the original content from where you got the idea from that you are expanding on?
Made a blog Do you know the kind of blogs are you are following about it hope it helps for anyone who reads it.
Thank you, hopefully I got a shout out :-D
haha hopes and dreams crushed!!!!! I've edit :)
@kubbyelizabeth... engagement and consistency are what have worked best for me over the past six months of blogging here. I'll post something original-- hopefully of some value-- and engage people every day, even when I really don't feel like it. I think that's the best approach... I curate quite a lot, and I do my best to actively curate and respond on my own posts... and if I end up with a post that has more comments than upvotes... I'll know I've successfully engaged the community.
By no figment of anyone's imagination am I anywhere near being part of the Steemit "elite" but I do feel like I am starting to develop a pretty consistent following of actual readers, and that matters... and I tend to engage back with them.
The recent "Community Engagement Challenge" offered a nice lift, too.
I agree with you, Engagement and consistency are key to building a following of readers. I loved the Community Engagement Challenge. It stretched me and held me accountable. Are you participating in other challenges similar to that one?
In my opinion, people who are begging for upvotes/followers has no chances to be successful.
I see lots of them in the comments section and I have no the slightest desire to look at their pages. They can wrote "very useful information" under my flower post or "nice flowers" under this your article. 😱 It means that they didn't read your story, and as for me this is disrespect to the author.
Agreed @erikaflynn. I think the part that most gets to me is the "didn't read" part.
OK, if you didn't READ, why are you here?
"Because I can make money"
This is a social content site... it revolves around creating content, being SOCIAL and building a following.
"That's too much work... I just want to make money."
It's the same kind of mindless automaton of a person who thinks sitting on Mechanical Turk for eight hours a day making 12 cents an hour for clicking on ad banners constitutes "working online."
If I hadn't seen how this sort of thing DESTROYS content sites if it goes unchecked I wouldn't be pointing the stuff out all the time...
It terribly annoys me if someone asks me to upvote and follow. It is a great negative. I just totally ignore those posts. Followers do not mean anything here on Steemit. If I had one vote from each follower on a daily basis then I would have been rich by now...lol!
Exactly @giantbear, "followers" mean nothing... Except for this experiment I did, I also ignore them. Meanwhile they consume lots of bandwidth and add "dust" to the blockchain...
Great article. Not surprised that all 100 had joined in the last three months. I have clicked on some that don't even have a single post.
My favourite line is "Followers" are just numbers. What you want is "Readers".
People baiting for upvotes will fade away, but I think that they will always be around. Just have to ignore them. The less attention they get, the sooner they will either leave or possibly change their ways.
Darryl
Latest Blog
Thanks for your comment @dadview... "followers" (I have 1265 of them!) are a bit like "Facebook friends." People say they have "2000 friends on Facebook." No, they don't. They have 1950 people who clicked "yes" to a friend request ONCE and 50 people they actually interact with. Those 50 are your "readers."
As I mentioned somewhere else here... if even one quarter of my followers came here and upvoted and interacted with my posts, I'd be getting $200+ per post in rewards. Instead, I'm feeling pretty blessed that 5% showed up and we're having this lively conversation!
Nice lets add your numbers to the growing pile of don’t do that to yourself! It just shows how miserable follow 4 follow really is. I’m down to only following 66 people and it’s amazing. Checking my feed once in a while is an enjoyable experience. It moves at such a rate I have a general understanding of what the people I’m following are blogging about. Even more on the weekends I have time to check out each and every single person I’m following. Best part is if I miss something really important since I was not following that person more times than not someone I’m following resteems it!
I get rather annoyed by seeming people beg for follows and upvotes. They just go around spamming it not even reading a single word. It’s like when you go to post a blog and by the time the page load someone has already left you a comment. I know some people are speed readers but dang they must hold the world record or something.
My biggest pet peeve is seeing the “will pay for resteem.” For a while I felt like my feeds tab was under attack. Just endless resteem after another from people wanting collect that .001 or .003 bounty for clicking a button. Needless to say I found them and unfollowed maybe 10 accounts weeks ago. They were not adding any value to being allowed on my feed page. Life was much better without them!
Glade you spent the time to analyze and look into it even further. Have a great weekend
Thanks @enjar-- I'm cutting down on my follow list, too... actually, I am in the middle of going through the whole thing and creating individual bookmarks folders... artists, crypto related, writers, philosophers, people whose greatest talent is their comments... sorting things a bit. Hoping that will make it easier for me to keep up with the users I actually care about. Also creating an "infrequent" folder for those who create great stuff but sometimes vanish for weeks at a time.
I started here six months ago... and right out the chute I started pounding the idea to NOT promote and market Steemit as "a place to make money" but as "a social content site that offers rewards." A few people have listened, most haven't. "Free money" is an easy sell. Selling Steemit to bloggers rather than "free money seekers" is a much harder sell.
The "paid upvote" services are starting to bother me. Not because I begrudge starving minnow a few extra cents, but because half the time they are "upside down." You send "randowhale" 2 SBD, get a $4.00 upvote that declines to $2.50 by payout time, then 20-25% of the total goes to curators... so you end up with $1.80-$2.00 for your 2 SBD... which is usually more than $2. Net loss. Meanwhile, the "whale" offering the service is 2 SBD richer, with zero risk. How the frak is THAT "equality?"
I have spent far more time then I’m willing to admit digging around in wallets. Things like that project are rather interesting. I have tested them out and do use them from time to time. Sometimes it works others times not so much. It’s more like having to pay a fee to just be even in the hot/trending pages for a hashtag for very long. The service in question funnels easily2,200 SP/SBD a day into other accounts from payment of services rendered. Naturally I won’t comment more than then that as kind of people I think are involved would rain down on me lol.
A more ethical and interesting one I find using is just clicking on the promote button. I pay like .01 SBD get .08 sometimes back. It gets sent to null and put back into the reward pool. I get upvote and now end up in promoted as well. I think that one is very under used.
I'm glad you did this survey. I look at those spam comments and think, "Hmmm. Maybe you do have a blog worth following, but I'm not going to look at it because you're already wasting my time with your copy/pasted comment." It's good to know I'm not missing anything.
I've been blogging about as long as you, @denmarkguy, and I have about the same amount of followers that I've earned slowly through persistence. I once read a quote that eased my mind about gaining followers: "An author builds an audience one reader at a time." As long as you keep putting one foot in front of the other, eventually you'll reach the top of the mountain.
Very interesting @denmarkguy. As a very new person, I am not sure how it relates to me because I need to meet people and connect with them here to even get started. New people who didn't come with a mentor or someone to introduce them depend on the charitable generosity of strangers to visit their posts and hopefully start upvoting and following them. I can see how someone here a long time with a lot of followers and clout would have the perspective to see things differently. Nice to meet you @denmarkguy
Nice to meet you, too, @sallykwitt!
As a fine example, the comment you just left is going about building a Steemit following the RIGHT way. You made a valid point, you engaged the article. And here's what happened: I upvoted your comment because it was good and relevant. That will also put it closer to the top of the comment stream for this post... where more people will see your name.
And because you did everything RIGHT, I'm going to check out your profile page because you sound like an interesting person, who might create interesting content!
So you proved yourself the "antidote" to what I was talking about here... well done!
One of the first few things I did when I was first starting out was to look for new people like myself. I would check the introduceyourself a few times a day looking for people who had content that I found interesting. I also look up tags that I have interest in and started to look for bigger players in those. After a while I found some communities that I found myself commenting on blog posts from. So I started to look into who was being active, and following those people as well.
Welcome to Steemit and have a great weekend you two!
Countdown to seeing comments proving your point... 3... 2... 1...
You win! I was having a bet with myself whether anyone would... time to pop some popcorn and watch the show!
Don’t you worry I’m trying help you out. Maybe some people will notice how many comments this has in here and pop in for some of their good fun loving “follow me back” nonsense!
What kind of popcorn?
What do YOU think? Do you see "begging for upvotes and follows" as a negative, .........
Denfinitely a negative.
...so much so that when I see it Ipretty much mute it...
(note: a banner at the end of a long post is different)
(note II: TL;DR is a real thing...so it can't be TOO long)
I was hoping you'd give your two cents' so thanks!
Your perspective is important here since you're possibly Steemit's most aggressive user of the "mute" feature.
But you're also a free speech advocate.
So if you're muting these posts... that says a lot. At least to me.
thank you.
I'm all for free speech.
they say anything they want.
but I don't have to hear it.
seriously..what does aggressive flagging accomplish that muting doesn't do just as well?
Agree ! :)
one more thing...I'm followed by a buncha followers...
I follow very few.
I am aggressively searching for folks to follow however, I suppose I have higher standards..
Note: you're one of the few.
Thanks. I've been raising mine.
Ignoring the "following" list on Steemit.
Created a bookmarks folder for "interesting commenters and interactors."
Far more interesting.
buy em books and shoes,
send em to school...
and what do they do?
I tried the Follow 4 Follow thing, but just got my news feed so bogged down in stuff I was not really interested in that I quit and cleaned out my following list. I do not see begging for upvotes and followers as being productive. Rather I think it is much better for one to work on their own writing and creative style where others may be begging them to produce more quality content. If you do good work, eventually others are going to see it and want more. That's where I'm at now, working on developing my own creative style and finding my own niche on Steemit. Creating for the love of creating, a person is never going to be completely disappointed.
I did the same. When I first started out I jump on a follow for follow train. Not even a week in my feed was just coved in “nsfw” tagged blogs. Not the kind people I’m interested in following!!!
I decided like you that it was worth my time to check out each person I’m following and reduce it down. I’m at a point now where I can check up on each of the people I’m following almost weekly on the weekends when I have time. Really helps me stay up to date on the kind of people I am following, and gives me a reason to go out and engage.
The thing people miss @fraterralph... and I can't find an effective way to beat it into certain people's skulls around here (and I definitely don't mean yours!)... is that when you go out there and promote Steemit as a "make money" site rather than as a "social content site" you're bringing in a very LOW quality audience.
A lot of the people who are "begging for votes" are the same people who sometimes spend six hours a day on Amazon's "Mechanical Turk" earning 12 cents an hour transcribing supermarket receipts... and they ONLY CARE about the three cents they might make from a dozen minnow upvotes. They don't care about actual CONTENT except as a vehicle to activate the Steemit "penny dispenser."
So what happens when a bunch of people who don't care about content create "content" to make a few cents? They create plagiarized garbage and minimal crap. So then what? After a while, people like you and I start thinking "this place isn't what it used to be" and go in search of greener pastures... while the "junk posters" remain. Next step in the progression... INVESTORS look at the crypto markets and decided "not Steem" with their investment dollars, because Steem is represented by Steemit, which is an ocean of spam... so then we have "two cent Steem" because the platform is no longer "an alternative to Facebook." At ALL.
And that would make me really freakin' sad!