Growing Frustrated
I'd like to start by saying that I've been on Steemit now for a little over three weeks and love the concept of a free and open forum for people to share their ideas and their passions. The concept of crypto-currency is ingenious and I'm totally onboard with this concept as well. As I writer who has been in the business for over two decades it was a dream come true for me to finally find a place that pays me for what I contribute. That dream appears to have been more short-lived by the day.
What I'm growing frustrated with here is the inability to clearly understand the inconsistency I'm seeing in reader engagement. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to what gets upvoted and what doesn't. It seems some people get huge upvotes for anything they write, while others get little or nothing. This is not intended to put down the talents of those getting the huge upvotes. I don't begrudge anyone for their successes, but this is beginning to appear to me as more of a popularity contest than it is a true reflection of the value and wealth of knowledge and experience people are adding to this community.
I've seen a lot of other users post similar concerns and I see people telling them to "be patient", "Steemit is still in Beta", etc. The main questions this community needs to ask itself very soon is, "In terms of content, what exactly is the true measure of value here on Steemit?" an "How do those people adding the true value get the appropriate rewards." Once these questions are accurately answered then those answers must be made as clear as possible to the Steemit community. Unless these questions are addressed soon I feel the platform will begin to lose people who share engaging and substantive content.
I think Steemit is like any social platform. Why do certain things take off? Remember the Chewbacca Mom from few weeks ago that took over Facebook? She got on several tv shows, Khols gave her family free toys, and she got a lot of other things. But why did her video take off? I think it was like the most viewed Facebook video ever.
But she already had a large following on Facebook and that helped her. But again, did it "deserve" to be the most viewed Facebook video? Who knows? But it was.
I still think it is the same thing here on Steemit. Post regularly, build your audience, and then when some one who has a large following, i.e. a whale, upvotes you then things could change.
In my experience, making good content is only half the victory. On our podcast @paradise-paradox, we've been publishing videos and audios for about 20 months, and from the beginning I thought that, if we make good content, sooner or later someone is going to notice it. That's true to an extent, but the fact is, normally if you publish something on the Internet and don't tell anybody about it, nobody is going to know about it. People will share good content if they get a chance, but you need to get the ball rolling. If you can put your headline and title image before 3000 sets of eyeballs, that's when things start to get interesting.
The other day, I heard @andrarchy say something like: Whenever I publish something, I want to show it to whomever might possibly be interested in it. Now, that's the attitude of a true hustler, and you can see that his results reflect that. Of course, he's not sharing trash either; he's sharing well-thought-out content which people want to see.
Get on the rocket.chat #postpromotion channel if you're not already. Join the 5 or 6 Facebook groups that exist for sharing Steemit content. Join writing groups on Facebook, or any other groups related to your niche. Submit your content to Reddit, Digg, Google, Bing. Most importantly, engage with people on those media where you can. From your perspective, it seems like a popularity contest. From others' perspective, they have asked for the support of their friends. People are rarely popular by accident; normally, it's because they've put in the effort to make connections with people.
The other tip I can give you is, you already have some content on here which is quite successful. I can see you've earned a few hundred dollars between two specific posts. So don't be so quick to say that the dream is short-lived when you've already achieved so much on here. Making $500 as a writer is nothing to sneeze at. By many measures, that's a lot of money. I wrote a blog for years and didn't make that much; I'm sure you've had similar experiences. Celebrate your victories, and analyse your victories.
I hope that gives you a few things to think about, and a few action points. Good luck my friend!
Thank you for the thoughtful response @churdtzu! You give really good advice about online networking. I’m learning from guys like Ramit Sethi how vital this is to steering traffic to your content. I’ve been managing my social media pages for years for my writing but this platform is like a slightly altered universe in a sense. I am TOTALLY grateful for what I’ve made on here, I’ve made more in three weeks here than I did the first few months after I published my last book. It’s very difficult to make this kind of money as an author, especially in this day and age. You’ve helped a lot, thank you.
Great, I'm glad it was helpful. Considering you've already got a handle on social media, it should be reasonably easy for you.
This is called a great comment. Thoughtful, helpful and meaningful. I found your comment worth reading than 95% of content I have read in my entire time on Steemit. That is more than 2 weeks.
Thanks @dev, glad you liked it. Though funnily enough, half of what I wrote comes from stuff I read on Steemit.
Will have a lot to learn from you. Don't mind me spamming and stalking you in next couple of hours. Will try to learn from your content and tone. Then try to implement it in my writing.
Till now I have not seen the face of luck. I hope it is roaming somewhere near and I grab him soon and never leave :)
Great. When you look at what I've done and you try to guess what works, remember that what works for me won't necessarily work for you. Remember, be real, be honest, be persistent, and promote, and sooner or later you'll pick up some luck.
Eric we do have similar evaluations after about the same 3 weeks here. I am willing to stick around and see what happens but I am growing weary.
I am too. The part of my brain that has been jaded by trying to make writing my full time gig for so long screams, "this is a scam." I want to believe so badly, this is what scares me. For me it's all about determining how much my time/energy are worth. If get to the point where I feel I'm putting forth too much energy for the rewards I'm receiving it will be time to say good-bye.
If a whale upvotes you, you will get visibility, and then votes will come whether it is good content or not.
In saying that, the better the content the more votes will follow the whale.
What gets the whale? Hell if I know, Luck and timing maybe.
This has been my impression as well.
Steemit Is still so young, The user base will eventually grow to more people with over 500 steem power then currently exist. Once we have more "Tilapia" a wider range of content will have eyes that can actually up vote content less valued by the whales and dolphins.
Join our MinnowsUnite Chatroom On Gli.ph(55 members strong)
https://gli.ph/g/mT205P/CbFybHevfa12pvgQqtZgt50coGG6ZTyxDzDyWSXQJ7s=
Thanks, maybe I should just scale back the amount of energy I'm pouring into this and be more patient. I've posted 24 articles in 3 weeks. I appreciate the link to the chatroom. I'll check it out.
все будет хорошо не переживай))
Благодарим Вас за заверением.
I'll continue the echo chamber that the site is very young and once it has more time to mature it will get better for everyone. In the mean time I'm trying to help out the newer users. If you're interested you could swing by my post from earlier today where I'm giving out upvotes in exchange for telling me something about yourself. I believe in the concept of steemit and I want to help people move up the foodchain.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@robsteady/give-me-a-comment-about-yourself-and-i-ll-upvote-it
Thanks, @robsteady . This seems to be the general consensus. I appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment!
Yeah, I think a lot of people see how this place can work out in time, but a lot of people are just getting frustrated and jumping ship. It's kinda sad but hopefully enough people really care to help out and it does come to fruition.
The concept could be life-changing for many people. I'll be patient.
Keep up the good work!
Also, @ericvancewalton, perhaps the Steemit creators should define what "great content" really is.... Is it pics of hot women with their thoughts for the day? Or is posts with great ideas in them. You know. Reading. I understand that content today means also great pics and videos but I don't think it means only great pics and videos. Let there also be written content and let the written content be controversial, interesting, probing, and judged as negative by some. As long as people enjoy reading it and it provokes deeper thought then to me that is great content. With that said, it seems to me that the "Whales" are the ones who decide by their upvotes who has great content and who doesn't.
I suppose the posts which appear in "trending" would be a representation of what great content is considered to be. I'm going to continue writing here as well, I might scale back a bit but I'll keep at it. Thanks for your input @patrick-g !
Sure thing Eric, btw, in trending I noticed that most if not all articles were tagged # steemit or # steem, which may be why these articles are getting better visibility by heavier influencers. I'm going to try to post my next "meaning of life" type post with these tags and see if it helps. It would be sweet to make $4k to $5k on one post. :)
Forgot to say...just mention Steem or Steemit somewhere in the article in some way.....
And furthermore! :) I'd like to make some dough writing here also but I also enjoy writing about the things that are interesting to me so I will continue to write and if it's a money maker then good. If not, well then I had the cathartic experience of writing what was on my mind. :)
I share your frustration too. I will wait for some more time to think how things turn up here.