When I joined steemit, the first thing I immediately picked up was the strong sense of community present here. Here people talked in a certain way, behaved in a certain way and connected in a certain way. Understanding that "certain way" of steemit is the first step towards getting integrated into this society. You must be on-boarded to be able to benefit maximally from your activities here. As you shoot towards learning more, here are some terms I'm sure must have confused the hell outta you on this platform and their meanings. If I missed anyone, please kindly mention them in the comment section. It may benefit a minnow.

1 Whales/Dolphins/Minnows:

The steemiverse is likened to an ocean. In an ocean there are the big fishes known as whales. A middle-sized fish is called the dolphins while the smallest fishes are called the minnows. There are also the red fishes who are a little bit above the minnows.

This classification is based on the steem power of the user. Whales have above >10,000 steem power, dolphins have 2000 - 10,000 SP while Red fishes and Minnows have below 2000 SP. What this means is that whales have more power in the system and can help a minnow or dolphin earn bigger on a post if they upvote you. Also you might wanna be friends with them because most times they are curators too. You can learn a lot of investment styles from them if you wanna grow.

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2 Reputation:

The reputation is the ranking of people based on how much work they have put in the platform. These works can be in the form of :

• number of comments and interaction,
• number of posts,
• number of upvotes,
• number of downvotes (flagging) and
• the reputation of the person that did the upvote or downvote.

When you signup newly, Steemit gives a reputation of 25 which goes up or goes down depending on the types of actions you take on this platform. Example if you go and post a spam link on the post of someone who's more reputable than you, then you are in trouble if he/she downvotes you. You might just wake up with a reputation of 3. Lolx. On the other hand, when you do good deeds and get noticed by someone with a higher reputation, your reputation grows faster. Also the higher you go, the more difficult it becomes to go higher. SO a combination of time spent and consistency is your best bet to a higher reputation.

Generally, people respect those with a higher reputation and ignore those with a reputation below 25. The highest reputation in the system so far is owned by @steemsports followed by @knozaki2015, @gavvet and @papa-pepper. Look at the rankings below of the top 20 reputation score. Look at their postings, followers and Steem power. You will get an idea of the importance of a good reputation on here.

source = www.steemwhales.com

3 Feeds/Blog:

If you have been an active user on Facebook, you will be familiar with the word feeds also known as timeline. Your feeds shows you what other members that you are following have posted or resteemed. Its arranged according to the time they were posted with the latest ones being on top while the oldest ones are down below. So you scroll to reach them.

On the other hand, your blog is the tab where your own posts and resteems are displayed. Its like the home page you get to when you checkout someone's @username. Another important thing to note is that this platform is very open (sourced) so their's nothing like hiding your blog posts (except NSFW- Not Safe For Work). So the point is that if you enter anyone's blog, you can even see their feeds, blog, comments, replies and wallet. Hooray! We have nothing to hide.

4 Tags

A tag is like the arrow-pointer to a post. Its a system for filing an article based on the topic / topics its most related to. When you are typing the blog post on Steemit, below the typing panel is a rectangular box where you can enter the appropriate tags separated by a space. 5 tags is the maximum and 1 tag is the minimum. If you tag your post right, the you are giving your post the opportunity for more exposure by showing it to people that are interested in that sort of thing.

If you tag wrong, not only that you are under-exposing your works, you may also attract the wrath of steemcleaners and their down-voting trail. For those that don't know, Steancleaner is a bot that specializes in finding people or posts that break the rules and downvoting it to oblivion. The one most frowned at is using the #IntroduceYourself tag even when you aren't introducing yourself or using it repeatedly unduely.

5 Upvote/Resteem:

Upvoting is the central activity on steemit because its how we all earn from our works. Its a way of giving your approval for a post just like likes on Facebook. However, in this case you are paid for getting liked. The steem power of the person who upvotes your post is the major determinant of the amount you get in SBD from the person's like or comment.

The more you upvote, the lesser the amount generated from your upvote. This phenomenon is known as the Voting Power and is represented in percentages. At 100% VP your upvote is worth the full value based on your SP and market prices. Generally, its recommended that you do not upvote more than 10-11 times per day which will keep your VP at 80-100% for maximum benefits from curation. This is because the VP grows by 20% every 24hrs. So if you drained it to 0% , it will take 5 days to get it back to 100%. You will therefore lose time and gain less.

Resteeming is just like retweeting on twitter, regramming on instagram and sharing on Facebook. When you resteem a post, your followers see it on their feeds. Its a way to help spread a post to people who are not originally following the author. You do not earn from resteeming a post unless you upvoted the post and your followers also upvote the same post after you have done that.

6 Replies/Comment:

Replies are people's responses to your posts chronologically arranged in one place. So once you open your replies, you can see everyone that has ever replied to your posts or comments. It doesn't matter whether the comment is on your post or on their post or on anybody's post.

Comments are your own responses to a post...be it yours or another member's own. Keep in mind that the more your interaction with people, the faster your reputation rises. Also something important to note is that Steemit considers a comment as a post. So make your comments count. Who knows you could even get rewarded if your comment adds so much value and gets upvoted. You can make some cool cash by leaving well-thought out comments on the posts of whales/dolphins.

7 Steem/SBD/Steem Power:

Steem is the reason why we are all here. Its the fluid cryptocurrency on which the whole of steemit and other associated websites are based on. Its value rises based on the market forces of demand and supply.

SBD is an acronym for Steem Backed Dollars. Its value is pegged at around the dollar. Hence 1sbd is equivalent to 1 dollar.

Steem Power is the mother of them all. Its like buying shares in the Steemit company. These shares are called vests. The more you invest, the more you earn as dividends on your posts. Also the more your SP, the more you can make someone else earn when you upvote their posts as already described.

8 Wallet:

Your wallet is the place where you get your balances of all the currencies described above. You can also perform transactions and also visualize your past transactions from there. The transactions include:

• Convert one currency to another eg SBD to Steem and Steem to SP.
• Save Your SBD/Steem.
• Transfer SBD/STeem to another member
• Buy or Sell SBD or Steem etc...

Its important to note that your wallet is open source and all your transactions are visible to all. So if you participate in fraud, you will be caught red-handed.

9 Posting key/Active Key/Memo Key/Master Key:

In real life your keys help you to open a door. That same way, on this platform, your keys help you to open different doors and there is a master key that can open all doors.

• Posting Key: this is used for normal daily login and for posting blogs, commenting and replying.
• Active Key: This is the key for every financial transaction you need to do.
• Memo Key: Its used for creating and reading memos which is the message that follows every transaction.
• Master key: Its also known as the private key. It can open all the doors. Its advised that you keep this key somewhere private, safe and offline.

10 Bio/Profile Photo/Cover Photo:

Whe you visit www.steemit.com/@username (replace @username with your name), it will bring you to your homepage. The first thing you notice will be the custom Blue backgound. That's where your Cover photo will fit in when you post it. Your profile photo is the circular space before your name. Your Bio will be what you write about yourself. Its preferable as a short summary of what your blog is about.

You can visit "settings" to set up these variables.

Tip: post your DP and Cover Pix with with www.postimages.org and paste your links in the appropriate boxes. Remember to use catchy images so that your blog can stand out to visitors.

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Since you now know and understand the meanings of these terms, my belief is that you are well on your way to high performance on this platform. You may want to remember these few tips:

• Pimp and post on your blog.
• Comment and share with others.
• Always provide value and best quality content.
• Earn your reputation and don't trade it for any sort of gains.
• Count your gains by the day and plan how to do more.
• Respect everyone no matter the wallet size.
• Please don't shoot yourself on the foot.
• Invite more people to join us.
• Happy Steeming!

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UPVOTE. COMMENT. RESTEEM. FOLLOW!

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I remain me, myself and eye @nairadaddy aka SteemDaddy! My aim is to leave you better than I found you everyday!

Created by @stellabelle

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