Minnow Musings: A Look at my First 30 Days on Steemit

Greetings Steemians!

A couple of days ago marked the one month mark for my becoming part of the Steemit community and creating my first post here. 

Thought I'd pause and take a few moments to reflect on my first 30 days, both as an exercise in "taking stock," as well as perhaps to offer a glimpse into "what it's really like here," to someone new looking at the site as a possible creative outlet. 

It's easy enough to see how well people who have "been here since the beginning" have done... not as easy to find information about those who "got here later." 

A quick personal re-cap:

I'm basically a blogger and content creator-- a life-long writer of this and that. Been doing it "in the world" for over 35 years; beeing doing it online for more than 20. So that's kind of what I am good at.. or at least what I know.

I'm definitely not a developer, and only marginally "technical." 

I'm definitely a blockchain/cryptocurrency neophyte. Prior to joining Steemit, I had a very basic understanding of Bitcoin, and I had heard of Ethereum... and didn't even realize other currencies existed. 

So what do I think?

I'm very glad I joined the Steemit community!

For me, it marks a return to something I really used to enjoy: Social Blogging.

Social blogging might be a bit old fashioned to some, but it filled a gap between the fluffery of Facebook/Instagram (sorry, pictures of babies, your dinner and mindless memes along with your latest meltdown because you couldn't find matching socks gets really boring!) and the very "serious" nature of most blogs on free-standing web sites.

It offers the creative expression of one side with the social aspects of the other.

So how did I approach being on Steemit?

Well, I just started writing blog posts and articles and interacting. 

That's what the "social" thing is all about. This is not a place where you just plop your content down and wait for people to bring you accolades. Or chocolate chip cookies. 

I mean, you CAN, but it will be a pretty slow process. 

On the other hand, I only interact with content that interests me... just blindly following every profile you see is probably not a good idea.

I think that's really what building community is about, and "building community" is (at least from my perspective) Steemit's greatest potential.

I Conducted an Experiment:

Most of my activity and effort has been "internal" to Steemit, so far, but I did conduct a brief experiment.

I maintain several niche blogs, web sites and online groups... and I wanted to see what would happen if I wrote an article here "for external consumption" and promoted it to "the usual suspects" who tend to follow my writing.

Specifically, I wanted to see how readers would respond to content posted on a site nobody'd ever heard of before.

That might sound silly, but a lot of "average web users" worry about such things as whether they will get malware or their computer will blow up if they look at "unknown" web sites.

I would say the experiment went fairly well... as of this writing, the 10-day old article has been viewed 1185 times. Ironically, that probably makes it one of the most viewed pieces of content on Steemit.

Anyway, the outcome was also pretty consistent with past experience... although some get more, 1500-ish views is pretty normal for a piece of content, for me.

What I did learn from doing this is that there's no way of telling whether any of those people made accounts and became Steemians. 

That's a bit of a question mark for me; welcoming people who follow your content is an important "social touchpoint."

Flag Wars, Trolls, Whales and Steemit politics:

I don't really like to dwell on the negative, and this topic is being beaten to death at the moment. But I also believe in sharing truthful observations.

Over the past two weeks or so, I've gotten to experience some of the "internal politics" of Steemit, as a result of actively exploring the site. I might not even have paid much attention, were it not for the fact that one of my posts inadvertently ended up "in harm's way."

Since this seems to be a project that's largely self-steering AND pretty young, it's only natural that it would encounter some growing pains. In this case, the whole issue seems like an invitation to examine just how functionally scaleable Steemit really is. 

Right now, were looking at some ruckus over "rewards" in the context of there being maybe 2000-3000 truly active users. Allright... let's model how this would be playing out if there were 200,000-300,000 active users. Would the problem intensify, or dilute itself out of existence?

I'll be interested in following how the community deals with the general desire for "decentralization" (which really suggests "apartness" to me) in the context of a social network (which really suggests "togetherness" to me).

What else have I learned?

There is a really good core community of creative people generating interesting content, across a wide range of topics from art to finance.

That said, I find the number of active users surprisingly modest, considering the alleged 130,000+ accounts.

Makes me wonder what-- if anything-- is being done, or planned, to address the issue of engagement and retention. Borrowing a bit from marketing and retailing, it's a lot easier and less costly to keep an existing customer happy and coming back than it is to go out and "buy" a new one. People who already made the commitment once are GOLD.

I really do like the lack of censorship here. 

I don't mean that in the strict interpretation of the word, but as a reflection of not being forced to look at "filtered" content, like Facebook and Google's algorithms tend to serve up. There's no pervasive "content you might like" that's purely placed in front of me as an extension of commercial interests. 

That's remarkably freeing!

30 Days, By The Numbers:

Of course, some people just want FACTS-- what exactly did I do during my first 30 days?

Posted 40 pieces of original content; these are actual blog posts.
Ended with a total of 600 "posts," which includes all comments, responses to responses and so on.
Followed 125 people.
Was followed by 149 people... thank you for that!

I'm still trying to understand how "rewards" work, exactly. There seems to be little consistency from post to post. My 40 original blog posts earned anywhere from $0.00 to a high of $46.90... quality wise, I thought they were all fairly similar. 

I still don't understand "curation rewards" but occasionally my "balances" increase by a few cents for no reason I can determine, so I'm guessing those are curation rewards trickling in.

Powering UP!

As the month came to a close, I took a moment to think about what I had learned about Steemit... and how I generally "feel" about its future. 

I've seen an awful lot of writing/content sites "look great" and then crash and burn, in the course of the past 20 years. Is Steemit just another flash in the pan with great promise and no execution? 

I don't think so... there are a lot of people here who seem to genuinely care about a long term future, and that has been less evident with past failures... perhaps because of the "decentralization factor."

Besides, I just really like it here.

So, I contemplated "the numbers" and decided that I have enough faith in the Steemit model/vision to continue blogging here, and I believe in the power of community building-- so, as a sign of... "putting my money where my mouth is"... I decided to use my accumulated Steem to "power up," rather than cash out. 

Thus, I start my 2nd month with 1727 SteemPower... which isn't much, but at least I feel like a very small stakeholder.

And that's one of the very cool things about this project: By being an energetic and enthusiastic member of the community and contributing whatever YOU think has value, you have the opportunity to become a stakeholder in the very thing you're contributing to. That's an attractively self-perpetuating thing. 

I think what I really like about it is that it focuses on "REWARDS for doing GOOD" rather than "PENALTIES for doing BAD." 

So, What's Ahead?

Well, I'm definitely interested in being part of the ongoing movement to market Steemit to a greater audience.

I will probably not be doing much with that until HF17-- but I'm planning to write an article or two (here) that will basically serve as a "recruiting tool." 

I am typically cautious about recommending things... I don't much care for people who recommend stuff as "the next great thing" when they haven't actually used what they are recommending. Lacks credibility, sorry. 

"This is the greatest restaurant EVER!!!"

"Yeah? What did you have? What made it so great?"

"Well, I haven't actually been there yet, but my cousin said....!"

"Whaaa... GET OFF MY PLANET!"

Sorry, that may sound intolerant, but seriously?

Community involvement

In general, I just plan to keep writing and publishing content I hope people will be interested in.

I might start mixing in more of my daily existence... including my art/creativity and the projects my wife and I are involved with.

I have some interesting friends who are... alternative and "free speech advocates" with large followings; might float the idea to them that they should set up shop (or at least a presence) on Steemit.

Interested in checking out some of the "commercial extensions" of this place... like PeerHub. Seems like the world might be ready for an "alt coin eBay/Etsy Marketplace."

So... here's to the next 30 days!

In the meantime, thanks to everyone for their welcome and support during my first 30 days!

(As always, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content created specifically for Steemit)