From 0 to 400 Followers in 3 weeks – My First impressions of Steemit, and where I think we should go

Today marks 3 weeks since my introduction post here on steemit. By chance, I also happen to have reached 400 Followers this morning. Thus, I thought it would be a good occasion to share some of my experiences with the platform so far and where I see things going from here.

As I made clear in my introduction post, I have very high hopes for steem. The concept made a lot of sense to me back then and I was determined to start accumulating steem and investing the platform. However, I never expected to be sucked in as quickly, and get as hooked on producing content and engaging in conversations, as I have become over the last 3 weeks.

To quote directly from my introduction post

While the idea of building a blog has been attractive, I have often felt discouraged by a number of reasons. How much effort will I have to put in to build a website that is good enough? Will I end up investing a lot of time only for nobody to read my blog? It was here that I finally came across the steemit platform! I sincerely hope that the steemit platform can allow me to do what I love, and share my passion for everything related to space, science, technology, innovation, entrepreneurship, and education.

When I wrote those words, I did not dare to wish for my first post to get 1,060 views, 333 upvotes and hundreds of comments. I did not know a single person on steemit, did not know of any chatrooms or discussion forums, and did no external outreach. I’ve since gone on to obtain 50-70$ on posts consistently following my 330$ introduction. All of this is completely unheard of for any traditional social media or blogging platform. There would be no way to get such traffic without lifting a finger, but instead letting the platform and community do its own thing, and it would take months to achieve a similar level of monetizing and regular following.

Now, of course, this could only be achieved thanks to the generous and active support of many of you established steemians. I am very grateful for all corners of the steemit community that have seen my content and thought that it was worth following and upvoting. I myself hope that I am contributing to the community and also the quality and diversity of content found on steemit. And I hope to help promote that to the very end. As I have already invested more since joining, and will be looking to accumulate more steem in weeks and months ahead, I truly believe that promoting good content and fruitful conversations is the key to steem’s long term success.

Poorly made celebration image, because I felt I needed something!

The art of a fruitful conversation and the value of good relationships

If there is one thing that stands out to me about steemit then it’s the way in which it incentivises everyone to have as many good relationships as possible. Also with people they disagree with deeply on sensitive topics. Everyone wins from having fruitful and positive exchanges, and everyone loses from flag wars and ruining their image on the platform. So while other platforms naturally creates negative spirals, where people are sent into bubbles and flame wars, here the big winners are more likely to be those that manage to find good engagement also with people across the board.

I stress this because I really think it is a potential recipe for success. The question people who are invested in the platform ought to ask is: What pains are people experiencing on other social networks? How have these networks created environments where people spend a significant time of their day doing things they perceive as meaningless when they go to bed? Or as frustrating and annoying when they engage with people through the platform? And how can we co-create steemit as a platform where those pains and frustrations are not nearly as common?

Indeed how can we, as Tristan Harris suggests in his TED Talk, to “make technology that helps us spend our time well“?

Tristan Harris's 2014 TED Talk on ethical Technology Development

Having been here only 3 weeks, and witnessed only some of the potential, I obviously don’t know all the answers. But I sure am looking forward to discussing them with all of you. And co-create a platform of highest potential!

Fredrik / @Fredrikaa