How can you grow in steemit?

View the original post on Musing.io

I see several Steemians had put some serious thoughts into the question, and I commend them. The truth is, there are many ways you could "grow" on this blockchain. I dichotomize them into "passive" and "active". 

I will define passive as do it yourself without the need to interact with others in a meaningful manner. I will define active as engagement with other Steemians and their communities.

I will list examples for each category. The community may frown upon some of these practices, but it's a free platform. Do as you wish and receive the (possible) consequences. It's a two-way street. Anyone who tells you that you shouldn't receive flags are whiny anyways.

Some Passive Approaches

1. Buy-in with a lot of Steem. You could be like @gcalex voting on some random one-liners on an alt account that nobody cares about. Or, you could vote yourself, either way.
2. Create some content. Instead of powering up, bid the crap out of them. If you have any sort of competence, you can make a return from bot votes. This @xisan guy did it in a month.
3. Learn to tag. Find the correct tags and let their auto-curation votes on your posts.
4. Delegate to promotional services. Go to isteemd's website if you have large SP. Then, choose a bot for passive income.
5. Run your own promotional services. I remember @jeck1 came out of nowhere and is now a vote seller. You don't have to interact with anyone after advertising your service.
6. Join auto-curation groups. Groups like @shadowbot allow you to post away and receive votes on their own terms.
7. Report abuse to @steemcleaners. You don't even have to interact with the accounts you are reporting.
8. Be an efficient curator. Check out @aicurator. When you are that good, you can make a return on your investments by curating like a boss.
9. Play some games. Games such as @spl and @playdice offer you a chance to earn with minimal to no interaction with others.
10. Be an arbitrage trader. If you can take advantage of the price differences, good for you.
11. Establish a voting farm. This is less lucrative with HF20, but people still do it even if it risks flags.
12. Do nothing. Hope for the next BTC bull run.

Some Active Approaches

1. Join communities, and interact with the members. The goal is to procure valuable votes.
2. Actually engaging with users. Sometimes, they come back and check out your work at a later date.
3. Take part in projects on the blockchain. Many initiatives compensate Steemians for their efforts. @utopian-io is especially true when it comes to open-source projects.
4. Build a "popular" dapp. Attract users. Receive huge delegations from @ned. You could pull the next @dlive if you so choose.
5. Delegate to users on your own terms. Make business relations/contracts like @neoxian, @smooth, etc.
6. Create venues for people to spend STEEM. If you can't name a place where you can spend your STEEM in real life, there is an obvious lack of commerce around here.
7. Flag abuse with @steemflagrewards. Make sure you have thick skin because bad things do happen when you flag people, even if justified. But hey, you could make some friends.
8. Be a Witness. Unfortunately, you would have to climb pretty high up in the ranks in order for it to be profitable.
9. Promote Steem blockchain. The return does come faster if more people buy the tokens, but you would be fighting against the market.
10. Find your own circle jerk. At least, your vote farm will look more organic and authentic that way.
11. Scam Steemians. Whether you choose phishing or scams as a tactic, you could be successful as @clemintin. They will curse you, but you will be rich.
12. Pretend you are someone else. Be a piece of turd and get paid off of others' works like @shadesofblack.

This is getting a bit long, but there are so many ways to earn on this blockchain. Which road(s) would you choose? You could be innovative and come up with the next hottest thing. Content creation isn't the only way to get paid around here.