The Proof is in the Pudding
A Very Short Attention Span
Relax, I'm not talking about you and your mind. Login to Facebook, have a look at your feed. Leave it alone for a few hours. Login again. Notice how different things look now? It's only been a few hours, where did that one interesting post you were going to read disappear to? Scroll, scroll, scroll, give up, can't find it. It's gone.
The very same thing happens here on Steemit. The only difference, that's our work! If I was writing for a popular magazine or newspaper and my article disappeared after a few hours like Marty Mcfly's family in the photo, I'd be one disgruntled wordsmith. To top it off, here on Steemit, after a measly twenty-four hours there is little to no chance you will ever see a dime for that effort ever again. People rarely go back through your blogs to read something from three months ago. Day one views and done.
Imagine if Stephen King's books became free but impossible to find after the first day it got published. I think he'd be working at Walmart part-time to help pay the rent. Even a Youtuber can make a video last year and earn far off into the future all while earning from today's greatness.
Yeah, in a sense, we're all ramming our efforts straight up our asses. Nobody seems to care or even realize the potential of this platform we all call Steemit. The chance, not even a promise, of a small reward today seems to be the grand vision many authors here want to share with each other.
That's Not Enough for Me, Nope
As soon as you start writing here, you have become your very own publishing company. You are completely independent, free from all constraints and should be ready to take on the world and find your market.
Two Insanity Productions. That's me. Productions because I produce art and combine that with words. My own unique style, void of tradition. If I applied for a writing job, then and only then would I be required to follow standard procedures.
I've heard the suggestions people throw around the platform in regards to finding success here. Those are good, sometimes. Not good enough for me though. My intention is not and never was to be like everyone else. If those standards are the golden rules, sorry, I'm going to have to break them.
Since what I offer does not and will never appeal to everyone, I cannot depend on Steemit's audience and Steemit's rewards alone if I ever want to take my style to the mainstream and fulfill my goal of being able to do this sort of thing for a very comfortable living.
What I do stands the test of time. My work will be just as relevant ten years from now as it is today. That is also very important. If I spent the past three months writing about how sure I was a certain politician was going to become president, and they lost the election, there's three months of being wrong going straight down the toilet. Worthless information. Nobody buys a losing opinion. If you've been hired to express that opinion, that's a different story. You got paid and your next paycheck is on the way, wrong or right. Independents do not have that luxury. Not at the beginning anyway.
Handed the First Three Steps and Didn't Even Notice
Once you've established yourself as a business, found your groove, have a target audience in mind and enough material that won't make you look like an idiot in front of your target, it's time to take it outside for a walk. Contrary to popular belief here on Steemit, your older articles do hold value. Each one is now a free advertisement. An advertisement for you, your work, as well as Steemit. Never forget, Steemit is your business partner.
So maybe you'd like to take a walk to the park, or possibly go for a drive downtown, the destination is up to you.
Sure, you could share your articles one day at a time on Twitter and feed that short attention span. You could throw them up on Facebook and ask your friends to share so they too can look for a day. Do their friends share? Maybe, maybe not. It's still worth a shot though. Use them, but don't expect things to go viral. That takes time and an established following to achieve in most cases. The short attention span and only a few people to see means the numbers are working against you.
What Are My Options?
I've been using something else for years. A lesser known social media outlet, perfect for content creators who want their work to be browsed over for years to come. In two previous articles, I've mentioned how I've noticed a few of my month old articles are still getting hits. The view counter is an amazing piece of engineering, ask any youtuber. I mentioned how I took a look around, noticed I seem to be one of the only people with old articles receiving views.
Here are two examples of the progress since those articles. Keep in mind, our view counter hasn't been working well. Another thing to think about would be the fact we didn't have a view counter back when these were published. The truth is, these articles have received hundreds of hits and of course I have proof of that as well if anyone needs it.
There you can see how view count has risen since, even though the view counter has been broken most of the time. Every few hours I get more.
Pay special attention to the bottom screenshot. Remember, I said each time I get a hit it's an advertisement. My work looks good, the dime doesn't look good for Steemit. Simple memes are going around claiming authors can come here, write, and get paid. The current voting practices are actually doing more harm to Steemit than anything else, but that's a story for another day, right?
I will say, people here are not looking for quality, they are looking for easy curation rewards, following the same thought process and voting only for the easy money. The quality work spread everywhere is deemed unfit for the robot list because it has not been trending. It's not trending, because the bots are practicing favoritism. The proof is in the pudding, but like I said, that's a story for another day and probably the biggest reason I can't simply settle for Steemit alone to have the potential to carry me where I want to go.
I heard someone say the place is like a lottery. I can predict the winning numbers if you'd like. The popular sports events, compare the votes to the views. How does that happen I wonder. Certain authors consistently trending, again, compare the votes to views. How? It's not hard to figure out what is happening. Over seven hundred users are in on it, looking out for themselves, causing harm to the platform as a whole. Lottery, my ass.
Who Would Qualify For the Magic Soon to be Revealed?
Only those who wish to see their hard work actually see the light of day. When I mentioned what I'm able to achieve, I asked those who might be interested to actually show some interest. I think four or five people took this seriously and see the potential and benefits. We all have something in common. We're proud of our work, we want people to see it. You might be one of those people if you actually read this far.
If you're talking about Steemit, your audience is Steemit. If you're writing short stories, poems, sharing your art, your music, your videos, your interesting life, your travels and experiences, this might be for you. If you're becoming depressed when you work your butt off and provide pure quality of your tastes and see ten views, I can help. If you're busy sharing Facebook status style updates and memes you did not create or videos that you did not produce, this won't be for you. It's for serious content producers who want a real audience to see their hard work and a certain level of professionalism is required.
This is my third attempt to open a few eyes. Sorry to those four or five, it's not time yet. Many steps have been revealed here today though, and they are important. Soon I will reveal this simple trick plus include a few thoughts about the next stages. I have a personal road map I'm following, being patient, things are starting to fall into place. I would keep writing, but we all know how the overly long articles get treated. Just know, it's coming. Read between the lines, I've said a lot already.
I have a head full of ideas. Many of these have made it into half-baked projects to blog about things that are important to me. I have lost count of how many there are - must be over 30 by now, from cooking to coffee to cycling to forex to cryptocurrency to depression to drones to yoga to bodyweight training to name just a few.
The prospect of seeing a visible reward today and tomorrow here on Steemit has become a forcing device to get me writing about the things I have half- baked projects running on. My new big idea is to keep writing about these things. Maybe I will find an audience and maybe I will not. But I do know when enough time has passed I will have a collection of work which will be a whole more than a half-baked project. I do know is I will get a better idea of what people want to read about and learn about - that can drive focus big time.
I am all ears for finding any clues that will help me to do that. Meanwhile I will just keep writing (and photographing).
We all bounce around at times here. I'm normally doing ridiculous jokes and showing off digital art. That's what I push out to larger audiences. An article like this, I'll leave on Steemit. It's for us, steemit is the audience. I can't tell you what to focus on or how to run your business, I just know at least one trick to keep the old stuff alive. That's where you put your best stuff though.
^ Dig this response. I feel the same way about the "point system" being a way to gamify following through on those ideas, in some way.
The "points" are more attractive to me than money has ever been. Hence me willing to invest a lot of time learning about steem when I've never felt super motivated or enabled to monetize my creativity before. It's definitely a good thing.
I'm excited for busy.org and to see where Synereo goes now that they're kind of starting over. The attention economy combines a thing I crave with a thing I need, so it seems good for me, if not everyone.
Maybe that's the future. An ecosystem of these different economies all based on different ideals and currencies.
@carrinm exactly right. This is a great place to find our voice, our audience, and build a portfolio. All of the content we create is ours. If this place goes to the next level, great! I hope it does, it has promise to do so with some adjustments. If not, there will be a site coming behind it that will. And everything we've done here can be brought with us there. That's how I see it.
Part two is finished and the link is here on the article.
I am a curious cat!
Part two is out, the link is on this article.
Okay!
In time. I can't plan when I'll talk more about this. The plan now is to open a few eyes look for interested people. Realize, I'm not getting paid for those views. Just finding ways to get established and earn a larger following.
Ah, there's my vote checking in :) This was awesome. You're absolutely right, that Stephen King analogy is perfect. Someone close to me always says, never rely on one line, throw out three. I have something for you as well, pertaining to that. Now this place is awesome in many ways, but there are some glaring fundamental problems, that if not fixed, well we all know what happened to MySpace. This platform however, the idea of the people governing one another, the reputation that discourages trolling and garbage content, that is going to catch on. Whether on steemit or the next site that comes along and takes the best from this and makes it happen. Either way, this is a great experience.
Steemit has a great community. I'm not complaining about that at all. It also makes publishing free. The audience is too small though, for now... and the attention span is tiny. The rewards are a bonus. Some people want to use the platform for simple things, all the power to them. Some of us want to go big. I can't do anything with limitations and be happy. I know my self worth and won't settle for less.
Part two is ready to read. Link is here on this article.
I did read all this!!! Not a lot revealed and I read right to the end!
If it's a quick fix you want, I can't help you. When the view counter is actually working, go back to some of your older articles. Are they still alive? If not, would you want them to be circulating around the internet? Do you think they would be relevant in 10 years? What I'm able to accomplish doesn't pay me, today. Keep that in mind.
I'm in.
part two is available to read. link located here.
If anyone is reading this far, normally I stick around to respond and comment. Tonight, by the time you read this, I'll be fast asleep. I'll get back to everyone as soon as possible.
LOL, I just woke up and it's like 16 hours old!
I read both parts and I have started what you suggested. I might need to set up my other laptop just for that purpose since my little chromebook is already overloaded with extensions.
Probably like most people who don't only have a goal of raking STEEM from the pile for themselves, I actually have both goals, I mostly want people to see my work, and I want to earn enough to notice it and be encouraged to work some more. What do you think of posting first on Steemit then copying over to something like Patreon?
This post has been ranked within the top 80 most undervalued posts in the first half of Dec 13. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $7.31 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Dec 13 - Part I. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
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