How to Comment on Steem Posts for Fun & Profit (the right & wrong way)
Comments For Fun and Profit on Steem
If you want more followers, comment on posts. This is common advice and it’s good, BUT, there’s a right and a wrong way to do it.
Here are two examples - one is the right / natural way to comment and connect with somebody. The other one is a terrible way to do it. I blacked out the name for the “bad” example so as not to be rude.
Example #1: Commenting Done Right
While browsing the “Steemit” category, I stumbled onto this post and figured I’d take a look:
It was a good post. @adil is an enthusiastic guy who is bravely jumping into the Steem ecosystem head-first. If you want some motivational energy in your feed, check him out. I was inspired by the post and decided to leave a comment.
Look at what happened next:
As you can see - this is a real conversation! Neither one of us is asking the other person to follow, or begging for upvotes. We kept talking a bit more even beyond what you can see in this photo.
After this interaction, I decided to follow him. I didn’t even look to see if he followed me, because that is not the point. It’s just a great example of how natural human engagement can be enough to get a real follower.
NOTE: I wrote this post a few days ago - and since then, to be honest, I had to unfollow this dude cuz he posts like 25 fucking times a day. Nonetheless, the example is still good and I do wish him the best
If he had responded with “thanks, follow me!”, I definitely would NOT have followed him. Which brings me to example #2:
Example #2: What Not to Do
I received this comment for one of my posts a few days ago:
…do I really need to explain why this is bad? This is as blatant of a “follow for follow” comment as I’ve ever seen.
Think about it. What’s the point of this? Who benefits? I have no desire to follow this user, in fact as you can see I asked them to not spam my comments again in the future.
Just don't do this. It doesn’t help anybody. If you build up a bunch of followers with tactics like this, I can assure you that they won’t be quality users. They’ll be spammers at best, scammers at worst. Users who provide real value don’t have the patience for this kind of thing.
Getting The Right Followers
Want more followers? Comment on lots of posts - but do it wisely! Contribute value to the Steem ecosystem by facilitating the kind of conversations that you want to see - GOOD ones.
Have you had any notably good or bad commenting experiences lately? Share your stories in the comments and I’ll upvote my favorites (worth ~$1.30 :-D) - but please black out usernames for negative examples.
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Argh! It's like a vicious circle if you get caught up follwing guys like those. Comment spam almost guarantees post spam and more spammers following you and commenting for follows.
The worst thing? They'll feel motivated by the acceptance and end up drowning out all the good stuff you would have seen in your feed.
People should consider it their obligation to the platform to only follow the good stuff. Nobody wins if they don't.
Ya, you speak the truth! On the plus side, those of us who follow NONE of the spammers are pretty much safe. By now I've got a nice home feed full of interesting content, no spam to be found :-)
Good to hear bud, it's nice not to have to go trawling for it :)
I agree with you totally. This post and your comment make me think that perhaps it would serve us all to write a similar post and flood the new users with the why not to spam. lol
I actually think this is happening now. I'm noticing a number of people posting about this spamming on steemit every day for the last week or so. It seems as the people who have been here for a while get fed up from being spammed they try and spread the word.
I've only been using steemit for ~2 weeks, but the bad etiquette here from the new users has been the only unappealing aspect so far. It probably doesn't happen to me as much as the more known users around here, but this particularly egregious comment (pic related) was found on a post that had absolutely nothing to do with what he said. I just don't understand why some people think this is a good idea.
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Thanks for sharing your story @r0nd0n! It's a shame that people do this stuff, I really hope that they are not rewarded for their spammy behavior.
Unfortunately, my story is all too common, but this problem only seems prevalent among the ignorant and uninitiated. Although I was able to understand the pitfalls of this approach from the beginning, many that are just beginning seem to gravitate towards it as a shortcut for rewards on steemit. It seems to me that as long as steemit is attracting new members, this practice will continue to exist.
Had this happen earlier today. The comment was very disconnected from the source material, and I don't think the word "ironic" is being used right in this context. It's a shame because the user actually has a pretty good body of work, but with a comment like this and no upvote it kind of seems like they are only interested in promoting themselves, and not really trying to build any kind of meaningful relationship.
ugh these are the worst - I think what they do is use a generic phrase that sort of applies to anything.
Another example is to say "Wow, I didn't think of that! By the way, check out my post:"
I just never link to my posts in other people's comments. That way they have no doubt about what my intentions are. I know you're the same way :-) thanks for sharing!
I think that sometimes the spamming is occurring because they are new and don't know any better. I like you're response to the obvious spamming, because it at least has the chance of accomplishing the goal of reducing the spam.
I don't understand why someone would join a community like this and then use a bot either, and they are missing out bigtime. Guess they wouldn't know that though. To me comments are a great place to learn new things and share the hard knocks of life.
You might be right - there are some people who could see other people doing it, so they think it's the normal way. That's why I try not to be super rude like "HEY SCREW YOU" but I do try and be firm about telling people to stop.
It's worth it - I've noticed a big improvement in my comments, these conversations are getting to be pretty cool. The botters and spammers won't win in the end!
No what will happen is that they will form their own little click within the steemit world. It is the fact that the choice to operate as a spammer will blind many for a long time to the value they are missing. The same happens in life with gossips and liars. It is only when the consequences hit home that they will decide to look for some other click within the community. That is actually why I suggested that everyone write a similar post. There is an old saying that "a ounce of prevention is worth pound of cure." Author Unknown.
In fact this has given me an idea for a project on this, but I am so new and for some reason can't log in to the Steemchat to share it. My idea is to write a post about it and have people post the link to there post explaining in there own words why they don't like the spam. If you get enough people to do this while linking within the post itself the ones they have seen we might just create a big enough net lol that will be several pounds of cure.
The idea is to create a huge net inside the steemit world that catches the new steemian and the old with not only why not, but why too stay out of those kinds of clicks. The only thing I don't like about it is that some people would think that encouraging people to post their link inside comments is an example of being a slick spammer. I just don't know if hosting spamming could be made in such a way that it host the spammer on their own petard. lol
I saw a fella spamming Steemit Chat with his blog post, which was along the lines of:
Title: PLZ FOLLOW AND UPVOTE ME
Text: PLZZZZZZ JUST FOLLOW AND UPVOTE I nEED IT
However, baring an open mind (and feeling completely delirious from the current heatwave in London), I've concluded that this short article was a poem and have submitted it to poetryfoundation.org
Haha, it's beautiful. Ya it really feels like Steem chat is just a cesspool of self promotion unfortunately, every single channel other than #general is filled with nothing but self promotion.
@heymattsokol good information.
I'm entering my 7th day on steemit, and my experience is that the new members around me didn't know this was a major DON'T DO. I'll speak for myself, as I didn't know that sharing a post for consideration was a bad thing.
Ignorance can be solved with informative dialog or posts like yours.
Don't rage the minnows, explain and all will be good. 😁
Hey @ronsmita, thanks for sharing your experience. I'll keep in mind that a lot of new users might not be aware of this stuff... good to know.
Yes, I find it is good to actually communicate. You never know what could come of it. Good little post.
Upvoted and Followed
good post / story seen it all before on TSU.co , the down side of steemit is you can't really report those kind of people the only thing you can do is flag them,
or tag the steemcleaners
yea, you're right that its a bit of a downside. but that's how it goes on the blockchain, if it's uncensored then its gonna mean people do stuff like this
HEY DUDE FOLLOW ME....... Ha Ha only joking nice post. Funny to read :-)
thanks for reading!
thank you - it's time to clean while I was swimming, snowball was formed