Large audience = instant Steemit success?
There are a lot of rumors floating around that Steemit payouts accrue to people for no other reason than that they have large audiences on other social media platforms, as though a large audience is the only thing anyone needs to bring to the table to do well here.
I'd like to dispel that myth.
Large audience = instant success?
I recently sat down with Brian of @highimpactflix for a discussion about the basics of Steemit. Brian's social media audience is MUCH larger than mine. Brian's YouTube channel HighImpactFlix is rapidly approaching a quarter of a million subscribers, and Brian reaches several thousand other people on platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Part one of this discussion is available here.
Brian's social media reach is ten times greater than that of the @dollarvigilante, Jeff Berwick, but he hasn't experienced a windfall of cryptocurrency on the same magnitude. In fact, I've personally been a bit more fortunate with Steemit than Brian despite the fact that my total audience is less than a few thousand people.
Well... that's awkward. According to skeptics and conspiracy theorists, Brian should be a whale and I should be broke. What gives?
Perhaps the game isn't really rigged, as complainers and skeptics would have everyone believe.
Don't be discouraged.
Brian certainly isn't discouraged. Why would he be? His content is great. He's spreading the word about anarchism and voluntaryism among an extremely large audience through his own original work and through video interpretations of work by myself and other anarchists like @larkenrose. He isn't worried about not getting paid ten grand for every Steemit post. People like Brian and I would be doing this even if Steemit wasn't a thing; we'd be doing it even if we weren't getting paid.
For those alarmists who think that this platform only benefits those with large audiences elsewhere - think again.
And for those who are still waiting to see returns: keep your chin up. CURATE. More than 25% of a post's payout goes to curators. Also: consistency is key. Refine your product; refine your message. Learning the basic of HTML wouldn't hurt either, and it would only take you an afternoon. To some degree, market success on Steemit is a matter of "right place, right time".
Pay attention to the signals the market is sending, and you'll do just fine.
Part two of my discussion with Brian:
Please feel free to share this article and discussion with new or potential Steemit users who may be apprehensive about posting content on Steemit due to concerns that they need to have a large preexisting audience to do well.
Also, feel free to let me know if Brian and I got anything wrong in the video. We're both still learning!
About the Author
I'm Jared Howe! I'm a Voluntaryist hip hop artist and professional technical editor/writer with a passion for Austrian economics and universal ethics. You can catch my podcast every Friday on the Seeds of Liberty Podcast Network.
I spend about half my time creating content and the other half scrolling through content to find something that interests me and that I can contribute to. It's not much, but in the past two weeks my valuation here is at over $200 dollars, so I'd say it's been pretty decent.
A lot of people, including this choad here, seem to think that their content should be rewarded. Full stop. Your rewards are going to be largely due to posting the right stuff at the right time, like you said. I've been heavily involved in fiction writing, and while a couple of stories have hit sizable returns, most of them are at $10 or less. The last chapter I wrote for my scifi story wallowed at $.08. But I've been actively involved in the community and built relationships with just about every writer I can talk to, and it's been grand. I managed to win the 3rd place spot in the first #steemwriteoff competition they had.
Persistence and quality. Really, Steemit is just like every other endeavor. Keep pushing at it, and keep providing quality content.
Great post. I'll have to check out @highimpactflix myself now and pass on some love if the content is as you say.
The main reason I haven't started posting on steemit myself yet is that I have a diverse set of interests I love to write about. But I am gauging the market, spending a good few weeks curating and watching what content is satisfying demand the best so that I can properly target my work with the right follower base.
So far it seems I will be focussing on contributing to the ancap philosophy discussions, and my religious studies works. With combat sports as my pet passion in the hopes that the market on steemit for that content will grow.
Read the market friends!
And curate, I have next to nothing compared to many. But just from curating I have $30 worth of Steem sitting there. It cost me nothing but a minute here and a minute there! This platform is amazing.
Well said and well played. Gathering information for future action is never a bad thing. Peace!
Great post... I find it hard to get curation but I'm working on it.
Keep at it my friend. Success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. Hard, consistent work pays off.
Well I have had limited success so far, but I know HTML... since about 2000! Anyway, thanks, I have a few followers so far, and have 4000 subs on youtube, 80000 members on a fb group, and 6000 likes on my cooking page. yes, I think I could get a few people in here if I really wanted to promote it. But I am making posts for now.
The thing is that it doesn't matter how big your audience is, what matters is how much of your audience is ready to quickly jump over to steemit and upvote your posts. We're in infancy right now, the more users steemit has, the more diverse the community, the easier it will be for your posts to rise on its own marrots. Think about how easy it is to make a post on reddit that gets 35 upvotes. Its harder to do that on Steemit for now. If the user base of steemit grows, the platform will flourish, if the user base does not grow or starts to shrink, it will not.
"well...that's awkward." I LOVE it!
Your article says it SO well Jared! People will find themselves perpetually frustrated if they try to upload content for the sole reason of making a crypto-buck. (I'm human. I understand the temptation to do just that)
Yes, a monetary reward is nice, but if you're doing what you love and loving what you do...WHO the heck...or WHAT the heck is going to bring you down?!? Time to focus on making this world a better place.
Bravo, Jared. Thanks for the interview!
Well articulated @jaredhowe! Their larger social media standing would be more efficacious if the soul purpose of this forum was to generate mindless subscribers. However, being more message orientated and empowering the curator, steem provides a platform to all speakers, large and small, if they support genuine quality and novelty . That's why we're here and not just mindlessly scrolling the @twitter feed. Viva la @steemit !
Curation is not the "cure". Yes, I see what I did there. If you start out with the approximately 7 dollars Steemit gives you and you curate your little heart out (remember, there is a diminishing return on how many votes you give out versus your impact on said votes), you cannot compete with large SP holders. Their overall cut of the curation pot diminishes yours.
Net effect, if you curate at the most appropriate time, the 30 to 31 minute mark of a post (I am sure there is a way to refute that by posting a minute or two earlier, although it does cut into your curation rewards), your efforts of waiting can be taken away by the power of one whale. You can verify this effect by looking at post voters on Steemstats.
I am not saying it cannot be done over the long haul, but suggesting curation is the answer is not entirely accurate. Not to be one to point something out that I feel is wrong and flee. I posit a better solution. Yes, continue to curate those posts you feel are a good gamble and support your favorite authors. Also, try to comment on those posts, such as this comment. That in itself has gained me much more SP (which is minimal) than any of my own posts or curation effects. And, try to provide some content anyway. In the long run, you will get better (I have improved immensely over three articles) and I have found what I appreciate in my favorite author's posts as well.
Ok, what is this "curation" thing?
What's the explanation for whales who hit tens of thousands of SD on their very first post, mere days after the site went hot?
Not being an alarmist, but how does one achieve a measure of trending when every single post drops like a rock off the feed? The way it looks, if you want people to see your content, you have to saturate and repeat just to keep it on the feed.
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