Have you been wondering how your actions and interactions here on Steemit are impacting your rewards earnings? Would you like to find out how to most effectively build a following? New Steemit users can benefit from this analysis of my first three weeks of activity on the Steemit platform.

Time to Read: approx. 15 minutes

This article covers:

• My article Author stats
• My Resteem stats
• My Steemit strategy
• My User stats
• My Follower and activity stats
• My analysis
• My conclusion
• Credits

Let’s get started!

A brief summary of the stats for the two articles I have written on Steemit (this is only my third article, by the way.)

My first article on Steemit ( https://steemit.com/introducemyself/@mitneb/introducing-yourself-to-the-steemit-community-or-why-it-can-sometimes-pays-off-to-wait-for-it ) was posted under Introduce Myself on Tuesday, 22 Aug 17 at approximately 1630, Pacific Daylight Time.

• It has been viewed by 29, received 11 upvotes, and earned a whopping .12 payout.

Not counting the posts from @steemitboard, I received comments and replies from the following Steemians, and want to give a shout-out and big thank-you to these 12 Steemians for taking the time to post a reply and encourage me as a total Newbie:

@andyluy, @seajai, @dobroman, @bottymcbotface, @buildrobotics, @jokster, @news.world.tvv, @bluemist, @bitfairy, @xamir5, @xamir15, @originalworks.

In addition to those who replied, @joele and @yasdani786 gave this article a vote without a reply, so thanks for the upvote, you two!

• Tags for my first article: introducemyself, introduceyourself, eclipse2017, photography, Steemit. (These tags were chosen before I knew that it’s best for Newbies to stick with the topic tags listed in the Steemit menu.)

My second article on Steemit ( https://steemit.com/life/@mitneb/what-would-you-attempt-to-do-if-you-knew-you-wouldn-t-fail-or-why-not-believe-in-yourself ) was posted under Life on Wednesday, 30 Aug 17 at approximately 1430, Pacific Daylight Time.

• It has been viewed by 12, received 5 upvotes, and earned a less than whopping ZERO payout.

Not counting the posts from @steemitboard and my !originalworks solicitation, I received only one reply. This reply was from @jokster who was following me from my introductory post. Thank you, @jokster!!!

In addition to this reply, @pennywhl gave this article a vote without a reply. Thanks for the upvote!

• Tags used for this article: life, philosophy, nature, aviation, medicine. (3 of these tags are listed in the Steemit topic menu, but the last two are not – I was going by memory – bad idea.)

My Resteem Activity Stats

Between my first article and my second article, I replied to, followed and resteemed two articles; one written by @commentwealth and one by @andyluy.

• @commentwealth did not reply to my comment, but upvoted it for a $0.48 payout.

• @andyluy replied to my comment and also upvoted it for a $.20 payout. I replied back and upvoted his comment.

  • Interestingly, we both upvoted our own comments in this string, and @randowhale also upvoted @andyluy’s final comment in the string, giving @andyluy a final reward of $0.91 on this comment string under his own article.

  • Another interesting note; I followed @andyluy when I replied back to him from my first article, but @andyluy is not following me. I have had several ongoing comment strings with him in a number of great articles he has written, and he has been really helpful to me as a Newbie.

Between my second article and this current article, I replied to, followed and resteemed a total of 19 articles from the following authors:

@jerrybanfield, @ogoowinner, @tayyabhussain, @rabanheidr, @stay-in-the-gray, @matthewdavid, @yashpatel, @nichols3018, @redchartreuse, @stevescoins, @knowledge-trust, @eyeofthestorm

• I received a reply and a follow back from @tayyabhussain, @rabanheidr, @stay-in-the-gray, @nichols3018, @stevescoins, @knowledge-trust.

• I received a reply only from @matthewdavid, and interestingly, an upvote on his reply from @ch4nel and myself which earned a $0.01 reward.

• I received a reply only from @redchartreuse, and we both upvoted the reply which earned $0.01 reward.

• I received a reply only from @eyeofthestorm.

Time out for a shout out and a thank you to all of the above Steemians who have interacted with me as I resteemed and commented on your great articles. Thanks! You really made my day!

My Steemit Strategy

1. I have not purchased any Steem, Steem Power or Steem Dollars.

2. I have my post rewards set for Power Up 100%. I am investing in the Steemit platform for a long-term payout rather than for an immediate income.

3. I NEVER ask anyone to follow, upvote or resteem me…EVER.

4. I follow everyone who follows me, PLUS I follow people who write good articles or exceptional replies to other people’s articles. Exception: I do not follow, and I do mute obscene users who follow me. However, I will considerately reply to those users if they happen to make a comment to me.

5. I always try to make a comment to let the person know that I am upvoting their post and following them, and I include a comment about what it was that interested me enough to follow them.

6. Occassionally, I will upvote an article or comment without making a comment or following the author, but I try to always leave a comment if I liked it enough to upvote it.

7. I always upvote replies and comments that people make to me!

8. It is my goal to publish one new article a week, and make it worth people’s time to read. This probably isn’t often enough to build a huge following or establish a huge presence on Steemit, but it is a realistic goal for me. I am less likely to become discouraged by my own failure when I set a realistic goal.

9. I try to visit the introduce yourself and introduce myself topics several times a week, and encourage, upvote and follow new users.

10. I have not use bots or other boosters or helpers to increase my rewards, and I have not paid to promote my posts. I am not opposed to this, and will probably give it a try later on, but not until my account has earned me enough in Steem Dollars to allow me to spend some on these services.

11. I check my Steem wallet at least daily, and transfer payout balances to my wallet as soon as I see them.

12. My ultimate goal is to earn every bit of my Steemit account value through “sweat equity” rather than by moving money into my account from any personal outside sources. I am curious about how successful this approach will be, so am going to use myself as a test subject.

My User Stats

Item	On Activation	8/30/17	9/07/17	9/13/17
Rep. Score	25	32	33	34
Followers	0	25	66	87
Posts	0	68	163	167
Steem Power	0	0.501	1.041	1.089
Del. Stm. Pwr.	Did not record	14.52	14.526	14.531
Steem Dollars	0	0.001	0.616	0.639
Est. Accnt. Value	0	.73	2.01	1.98

• It should be noted here that I registered on Steemit on 20 July 17, but did not make my first posting until 22 Aug 17.
• Also, the middle column numbers were each captured on the 8th day after publication of each of my two articles.
• Finally, today’s numbers are in the last column, but only 6 days have elapsed since the previous column. I have been busy painting a room, so my activity on Steemit has been extremely limited these past 6 days.

My Follower and Total Activity Stats

No. of people	What they did
5	Read my article, Replied to my article, Followed me
6	Read my article, Replied to my article, Did not follow me
2	Read my article, Upvoted my article, Did not reply to my article, Did not follow me
15	Read a reply I made to their article or post, Replied to my reply, Followed me
12	Read a reply I made to their article or post, Replied to my reply,Did not follow me
5	Read a reply I made to their article or post, Did not reply to my reply, Followed me
19	Read a reply I made to their article or post, Did not reply to my reply, Did not follow me
12	Engaged in dialogue with me within the replies of an article, Did not follow me,I did not follow them
60	Followed me without any personal dialogue with me (I have no idea how these people discovered me)

Analysis

I found this research to be quite fascinating. I don’t know if any truly accurate conclusions can be drawn from this data, as it’s only reflecting a 3 week period. My last post was 6 days ago (other than one I made in the morning before I started writing this), so there has not been very consistent interaction with people on my part during this 3 week period.

Still, a few conclusions that are helpful for Newbies and others can be drawn.

• I have made a total of 167 posts. Of these, only 2 are original articles and 21 are resteems. That means that I have made 144 posts that are personal comments and replies to people.

• I have received 87 replies back on the comments I have made (not counting any from @steemitboard, @originalworks, or @tipu bot).

• I have never asked anyone to follow me, yet have 86 followers in this short time.

Based on this snapshot stats analysis of my first 3 weeks here, I can affirm what many others have said in various ways; that Steemit success is built upon creating content that others see as valuable, and also interacting with people in a way that makes them feel better, not worse, for having looked at what one has posted.

• It is safe to conclude that there are many people deciding to follow me after reading a post I made to someone, rather than because they read my article.

After all, only a total of 41 people have viewed the two articles I have published. I am investing in other people when I take the time to read their article or comment, and reply back thoughtfully. Evidently that investment pays off down the road.

• Curating (upvoting) the replies and comments people make to my articles and posts does have an impact.

If someone has taken the time to reply to me, I feel that the very least I should do is give their reply an upvote. And upvoting my own posts is helpful, too. This was demonstrated as a profitable endeavor in the comment string with @andyluy mentioned earlier in this article.

In conclusion

It does appear that a person can build something from nothing here on Steemit.

Actually, that isn’t entirely true because every one of us starts out with the same reputation score of 25, and some delegated Steem Power to help us get underway on the Steemit platform. I look at these two things as assets entrusted to me to build upon if I want to work at it.

So, restated more accurately, it does appear that a person can build something great from a humble beginning here on Steemit.

I hope you have found something of value in this article, and will be able to use this information gleaned from my first three weeks on Steemit to increase your own following.

If you are a Newbie, I hope you will be encouraged to keep on investing in others, and not be as frustrated if your articles or posts don’t get the responses you were expecting.

That’s all for this article. Thanks for sharing a bit of your day with me!

@mitneb

And now, let’s roll the Credits…

Thanks to the following Steemit users (138 if you’re wondering) who appear as a shout-out or a stats number somewhere in this article.

I would love to receive a comment from any of the people listed below letting me know that you discovered this article because you were mentioned here.

Cheers, and thanks once again for your contribution to this article!

@agnesdeerika, @aheart, @akila, @allthingsmavis, @always1success, @ananloge, @andyluy, @anomaly, @arifulsms, @asmaa012, @ayamoon, @bakabou159704, @biddle, @bilalhaider, @bitfairy, @bluemist, @bottymcbotface, @buildrobotics, @byronvitjoen, @carlobelgado, @chance777, @chancelonestar, @charmand3r, @chriskrosss, @commentwealth, @cosimo, @cristano-ronaldo, @cryptoctopus, @cryptojames, @cryptoriddler, @ctf, @daudimitch, @derekrichardson, @detol, @dobroman, @elevator09, @enchant, @epeakinfo, @ervin-lemark, @eyeofthestorm, @fadli79, @faustino, @fogel, @foovler, @funcore, @funnyordie, @gamemusic, @geke, @gordonramsay, @guyverckw, @hifilorau, @imagediet, @ispasky, @javivasv, @jerrybanfield, @jessfrendcor, @joanaltres, @joele, @johncongdon, @jokster, @josephlwiess, @julzee, @kayleigh-alesta, @knowledge-trust, @larkin20, @lautenglye, @louielowa, @lykencrypto, @malikidrees, @malos10, @markosky, @markwhittam, @matthewdavid, @mausamitimilsina, @maxer27, @mdarhri, @melowd, @michealtomsik, @mintymemes, @movieclip, @nadeemali, @new-game-coin, @news.world.tvv, @newzifa, @nichols3018, @nickoskitchen, @ninjace, @noisynooky, @noor.makkiya, @originalworks, @penguinpablo, @pennywhl, @perennial, @peter2017, @phil-coding, @platinum.elite, @punreal, @qqlaora, @qst, @rabanheidr, @randowhale, @raybrockman, @redchartreuse, @rmp, @rosatravels, @rudel, @samwicallis, @seajai, @shadyjesus, @shot-net, @skapaneas, @somenathsen, @spacehd, @srtechtube, @stay-in-the-gray, @steemitblog, @steemitboard, @steemlink, @stevescoins, @sylviamiller, @tayyabhussain, @techmojo, @tech-trends, @thebestgearbest, @thecryptofiend, @therichest.com, @tipu, @traderdad, @tunjex12, @underworldart, @uprise, @vevosongs, @wail.anaia, @wayforhappiness, @xamir15, @xamir5, @yasdani786, @yashpatel.