Dolphin School! Followers! What They Are, and How to Get More and Keep Them Engaged!

As I shared in a post last week, the key to winning the future and success in the attention economy, is audience. He has will get more, he has not, will get none. It’s just a fact of life. It’s always been this way, from the early days of barter to today. If you can attract the attention of buyers and build a relationship of trust (AKA build an audience) you can build wealth.

Without this, it’s hard to do. Of course, the modern world allows you to fund those with an audience (buying stocks, or cryptocurrencies for example) and get a return on your investment, but audience is still the key factor.
Audience on Steemit is called “Followers”

You’ve likely followed some accounts already, maybe hundreds. If you’ve posted anything, you probably have a few followers of your own as well, now what? In the attention economy game, audience building is a number’s game, but maybe not exactly in the way you’re thinking.

While a growing number of followers is a sign of a good profile that is moving forward, the total number of followers doesn’t necessarily indicate the level of success, why not? Well, there are a lot of factors, but here are a few of them.
Not all of your followers will be active

To get upvotes, resteems and comments, you need active users, or at the least, active bots. You might have ten thousand followers, but if none of them login to steemit, you’re votes are not likely to be impacted by your following.
Whereas, a user with a few hundred very active followers could create an empire for themselves. When a high percentage of your followers are on steemit, and actively upvoting, resteeming and commenting on your content, you’re bound to increase your following, upvotes and ultimately rewards.

Attracting the right followers

You’ve seen talk of minnows, dolphins and whales, let me unpack that just a bit. If you are a beginner, with less than 10k steem, you’re a minnow. Users between 10k and 100k are generally considered dolphins, while whales are accounts above that level and vary in size up to those that are literally worth millions in steem.

If you want big payouts, you’ve got to get some “power followers”. So, how do you do that? One approach is to follow, resteem, upvote and comment on large accounts. If you can strike up a conversation, it might be good for some lucrative upvotes, particularly if you are consistent in posting and they like your style. A whale vote, depending on the vote power used, can be worth from 10s of dollars, to 10s of thousands. One whale voting on a series of stories I did last summer earned me over $8 grand.

How do you build your audience?

Post regularly, and keep your quality high. While crap content can and does earn good payouts, most consistently upvoted accounts put together useful posts. Next, engage, engage, engage. Always reply to every single comment. I cannot stress this enough. If you find a user upvoting and commenting often, return the favor.
By posting an average twice a day for the past week, I’ve gone from the 650 followers I had left when I took a break eight months ago, to over 800. I think the single biggest thing I do is answer every single comment with at least a thank you. It’s kind of a pain,because I can type fast enough to comment quickly, but steemit only allows one comment every twenty seconds. Take the time.

Start and encourage conversations

See someone posting things you like? Comment! Comment on their comments! Upvote their comments. This is an especially good strategy if they are writing on a similar topic to your own blog posts! People who enjoy their content will see your comments and engage with them. Invite them to read a post. Leave a link to an applicable post and ask for comments.

As long as you are contributing positive, useful things to the conversation it’s okay to ask them to return the favor and many will. Don’t expect something for nothing though. Stay engaged. Besides, curation rewards for upvotes and comments can pay pretty decently if the post takes off.

How do I know a “power follower”?

Well, when you click into a profile, you can look at several things. First, you can see their reputation score, the two digit number beside the profile picture. Next, you can see how many followers they have, this indicates their circle of influence, in the event they resteem your story. And finally, if you click into their wallet, you can see their steem power. Anyone with more than 100k steem power, voting at full power, can brighten your day a bit.

Then, make yourself useful. Read their posts, and upvote if you like them (otherwise, don’t encourage spammers, please) comment, and resteem if you really want to get their attention. Doing this several times will at least make them aware of you. I would suggest spreading it out, not upvoting, commenting and resteeming their last ten posts on the same day.

Well, there you have it. Hope that helps some of you.

If you like what you read, upvote, resteem and comment on my posts.
If you don’t, please engage me in conversation in the comments. Show me where I’m wrong.

As always, if I missed a tip, share it in the comments. This is all about learning and sharing here. Now, go try it yourself and share your results.