FOLLOWERS & VOTES - Thoughts and Considerations
So, sometimes, we can get a lot of followers. Sometimes, we can get a decent payout for a great article. Then… the rest of the time, we just wonder.
Personally, I think that I am doing very well on steemit and I am glad that I’m here. I’m enjoying my time, making some friends, checking out some great content, and even picking up some STEEM.
Overall, steemit life is great.
Yet, I have some things that I wonder about, and I think that you might as well.
FOLLOWERS
So, right now, @papa-pepper has just under 300 followers. Not bad for a nobody who has only been here for 6 weeks. It certainly is encouraging to for us to see all those followers and to be able to know how many that we have.
However, have you ever compared the number of your “followers” to the average number of votes you get? If not, you may not want to. I know that @dantheman recently posted about the amount the accounts that may not be “real”, but does the same apply to our followers? I would think not. Somehow, at some time, someone chose to click the “follow” button to your account, and now you have them as a follower.
Hopefully, this is because they like what you are up to and want to upvote at least some of your material. I guess that someone could also follow another user just to “keep an eye on them and see what they are up to,” which would not generate much for upvotes, but most often, I’d like to think that isn’t the case.
A BRIEF STUDY OF FOLLOWER STATISTICS
With just under 300 followers, what does that mean in comparison to votes?
First, let’s figure out some averages for my recent posts. I post quite a bit, and the material is varied, so obviously not everyone may have time to read my blog or even be interested in the specific topic being shared, but I’ll do this analysis anyway just to see the results.
I will only evaluate recent posts that have already reached their first payout, and check the total number of upvotes that each one received. I’ll do the past 10, 20, 30, 40, & 50.
If I look at 50 of the last posts that have already reached their first payout, from THE DAILY ADVENTURES OF THE LAST BIG FOOT : INTRODUCTION to LOVE LIKE HIS : Chapter 2, at the moment, these are the upvotes that they received, when they are broken down into rows of ten posts each, starting with the most recent.
01-10 : 45 - 67 - 42 - 46 - 43 - 62 - 28 - 52 - 63 - 42 - TOTAL VOTES- 490
11-20 : 32 - 45 - 75 - 32 - 55 - 61 - 34 - 52 - 31 - 32 - TOTAL VOTES- 449
21-30 : 45 - 59 - 26 - 38 - 24 - 47 - 48 - 42 - 32 - 29 - TOTAL VOTES- 406
31-40 : 61 - 31 - 25 - 50 - 35 - 27 - 19 - 22 - 45 - 66 - TOTAL VOTES- 365
41-50 : 25 - 39 - 19 - 11 - 37 - 51 - 48 - 37 - 46 - 31 - TOTAL VOTES- 344
The average votes for each 10 posts are as follows:
01-10 AVG : 49
11-20 AVG : 45
21-30 AVG : 41
31-40 AVG : 37
41-50 AVG : 34
Total # of posts evaluated – 50
Total # of votes for the 50 - 2054
Average # of votes per post for the 50 used – 41.08
First of all, these are the results from 50 posts, made consecutively, over the past two weeks. The first thing that we should notice is that each of the newer ten posts received more upvotes than the previous ten. That’s good news for @papa-pepper.
Also, only nine posts before the last one used for data was when I posted about gaining my 100th follower.
This means that for the 41st to 50th post data, I only had just over 100 followers at that time. Because of the changing variables, it is difficult to manually decipher all this and attempt to gain some concrete understanding, since the more recent posts had a potential of over 250 followers voting on them and the earliest ones were posted when I had less than half as many followers.
However, what does the average number of votes per article tell us? For the 41st – 50th posts being used as examples, I had approximately 100 followers and averaged 34 votes per article.
Does this mean that 2/3 of my followers did not like my articles during that period?
Or, look at the more recent posts, the 1st – 10th ones being used. I had at least 250 followers during that period, yet, on average, I only got 49 votes per article.
Does that mean that 4/5 of my followers during that period did not like my recent posts?
When things are viewed from this angle, things seem to be getting worse. Though overall the votes and followers are certainly increasing, it seems that less of the followers, on average, are actually upvoting my posts.
Potential reasons for this:
New users who forget to upvote. - I have experienced some positive comments from people who did not upvote the post, perhaps either due to inexperience or absentmindedness.
Sleeper accounts. – Perhaps, with the large amount of accounts being generated, not all of my “followers” are actively involved in the community.
Variety – My posts span a wide variety of topics and subject matters. If someone started following me because of my gardening posts, they may have no interest in my comic strip or my fiction story.
Quantity – Almost since I first began steemit, I have been posting about four articles a day. This is a high volume of information and a lot to actually digest. I think I will slow down to about 2 or 3 per day in the near future.
Internet Frequency – We know that many of us are on steemit everyday, posting, reading, replying, and upvoting. However, if you have some followers that only go online once or twice a week, then you would not see them upvoting your posts on a daily basis.
Though the data can be used to gain some insight into some of what happens with followers and votes, much still remains undetermined. Of course, it is easy to get discouraged when you work hard at an article and only 20-some users vote on it, especially when a couple hundred users are actually intentionally following you. However, in the grand scheme of things, progress is the main thing that we would desire to see.
SOME WAYS TO MEASURE PROGRESS
Am I gaining followers?
Am I receiving more upvotes on average?
Are the comments people make on my post positive and encouraging?
Are my posts progressing in quality?
Hopefully, we can all see some growth in many, if not all, of these areas. I know that I can.
CONCLUSION
It can be very easy to get discouraged in this community, and many will always be willing to raise the banner of “UNFAIR!”. I would recommend not joining in on that chant. Just the fact that we have an opportunity to get paid to blog is great news, even if it never manifests itself in reality for us.
Hopefully, this post has provided you with some good food for thought. I should be posting one in the near future about some great ways to attract more followers, because I think that many of us would appreciate a little more attention while we are swimming in the sea of steemit.
Stay tuned, and I hoped you enjoyed it,
Awesome Handcrafted @papa-pepper logo kindly donated by @vlad - Thank you!
I'm one of those people who follow you for the gardening, but not the other stuff ... except for this post then ;-)
upvoted!
Thanks for joining in on this non-gardening discussion then, and please know that in no way was this post meant to be a lamentation about not getting more upvotes. It is just a brief analysis of same data and contemplation on what that could mean.
Thanks again!
don't worry, I find it very interesting, that's why I'm here :)
just 1 thing; you count your posts backwards, I would think your first post is #1 not #50 ... I did get that when you said your average was going up, but at first I thought 1-10 were the first 10 posts, not the last 10 posts
Yeah, sometimes I am a little backwards...
hahaha
Do you know, who are your voters?
Did you checked them regularly at Steemd?
Do you follow yours voters?
The results may effect the % .
I prefer this one in fact;
https://steemstats.com
and yes, I watch it all the time :)
This is how fast, I know , any activity here.
No one can escape what they did here!!!
Ka Ka Ka 😜
Sweet as ❤️
No, I've never looked on steemd yet. Is it just steemd.com?
I try to follow a lot of my followers, but right now I'm only following about half as many users as are following me, and many that I am following are not following me.
I also have noticed that you vote periodically on my articles, and I have never followed you, until now. Thanks for the comment and the advice. I'll figure out that steemd thing you recommended.
Thanks @bullionstackers!
there's more, have a look at this;
http://steemwhales.com/papa-pepper
Wow. Thanks do much for the direct link. That made it easy.
@user - steemd
Everything is recorded in there.
Even unvote , downvote , all history
Thanks, I'll check it out!
You forgot one possible explanation; followers that just want to curate ... although you might think they'll be the first to vote ... because of the 30 minute limit, they will look at posts that are at least 15 minutes old, and based on whatever parameter they prefer to rely on ... take a gamble ... or not
point being; those curators follow hundreds of people, combined with the fact that after 20 votes the weight drops, which is why they're actually not voting on that many posts, they try to pick the 20 very best posts of that day, which is not much compared with the thousands of posts that are being created
Excellent point. That is certainly yet another variable in the world of steemit! Good thinking.
what also matters; upvoting comments ... that makes people comment more
which you do and it shows; you have a lot of comments
and 1 more possible reason; following to get followers
plenty of people that will look at their list of followers from time to time and follow everybody back who's following them
which is why there are some people out there that follow hundreds, sometimes even thousands of people ... just to get followers back!
Hey @papa-pepper. I am a loyal follower. I will give you some insight on when, why I upvote or not. It is a combination of things. I have been on steemit about 5 weeks. I think I have counted 24 upvotes in 5 weeks (about 5 per week). I don't vote everything (not story/comics) but love gardening stuff. I am trying to spend more time on new posters now-a-days, doing comments. I always keep my eye on everything you put out, just don't vote all indiscriminately. You are definitely one of my favorites. Also, btw, I use the cattle panels (from yr intro post) also. They are great for lots of things growing-wise.
Thanks @celsius100, I agree, you are a loyal follower. I appreciate your insight here. If you've noticed, my posts do very quite a bit, and my other job definitely plays a role. Lately, I'll been laying hardwood flooring more often, which gives me a lot of travel time riding in a vehicle. I'll spend a lot of time writing on days like that. When I'm around home more, you'll see more photos included, and a lot more of the gardening and food posts.
I also appreciate you not just being a "blind follower" who upvotes every single post. I think that people should decide what, when, and how to vote, and choose how they want to vote. I'm very glad to hear that I am one of your favorites, and that you enjoy using cattle panels too.
Basically, I just wanted to share a bit of the thoughts that periodically cross my mind, and encourage others as well.
Thanks @celsius100.
Based on this post, I feel like we analyze things in similar ways. I asked @jesta over at steemstats.com to add the option to sort followers by their amount of Steem Power. He liked the idea so hopefully it will be a reality soon!
Like you, I've only been on here for a few weeks and have been focusing less on the money aspect, and more on gaining followers. As long as our number of organic followers keeps increasing, our success should increase accordingly!
Thanks, I just started following you earlier today. I haven't checked out steemstats.com yet, so I should probably do that too. I was also thinking that it would be nice to be able to have the option to look up all conversations with particular users - For Example, I wish I had the option to look up everything I ever said to you and all that you have ever said to me. Often, I can forget who I was talking about certain things with, and scrolling through long histories of comments and replies can be quite time consuming.
Thanks @shenanigator!
nice one!
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it @allmonitors!
Hi @papa-pepper! I have not much folowers, but I also noticed the statistic that only 1/3 upvoting, but not the fact that all these people are followers! Your posts are really cover a wide range of topics and disciplines. but due to the fact that my English is not so perfect it is difficult for me to read your fiction stories, but I like your gardening stories, your life posts and others. Keep writing, what you do is great. My steem power is not so big, but every time I try to do upvote and comment, just so you know, that I'm here, watching your content. for me it is important to see such support for my Steemit friends. You are definitely one of my favorites.
I felt this post was a little long but very valuable. You are discussing issues that many people have pondered and experienced.
As you say its hard to have a truly accurate conclusion but all the points you made are valid factors in the over all equation.
Ulitmatly my main point would be your closing point of which is that even if we don't make much we are making INFINITLY more than we would position gone FascistBook, Twatter or some blog page. In fact a lot of people PAY for their blog page and make NOTHING ahaha.
So the main reason people are getting frustrated is because they see people making THOUSANDS of dollars a post and think "I can write that good or even better! I am going to make BIG bucks!" Then when you make cents its a major let down!
So first off the ONLY people making BIG bucks are people with big followings in a particular area of life that is popular here on Steemit.
Everyone else is going to have to do what you are doing and based on your circumstances, as you said you are doing well. You are building followers, your reputation is increasing and you are adapting to the Steemit Platform.
If you keep up with the pace you are on you will be making hundreds a post regularly and it will be WORTH IT!
SO all in al if you want to be successful her in Steemit its going to take some WORK!
Steem ON Brother~*~
Thanks, and I agree, at least here we have a chance to earn something for our time and effort. Time will tell, but perseverance is key!
You are PROOF perseverance can pay off!
Steem ON!
Also, I was going to add more, but your comment makes me glad that I didn't. I've saved that for a separate post.
So @roleandp made an interesting tool - http://steemvp.com/ - that shows who is your "most loyal" follower, upvoting you most, and who is your "most valuable player", providing your with the greatest economic return. It's a really neat tool that is really enlightening!
As a new user, I kept getting messages that I didn't have enough Steem or SP to upvote more than once for every few comments that I left on different posts. I've seen different information about how much we should upvote (20 times to maximize our impact vs. 48 times in a 24-hour period). If we have more than a few folks in our feed and we are checking out more, we just can't upvote every blogpost, let alone every comment. I think a reply is what we can do. The Steemit help, on how posting rewards work page 6, says that replies reward the parent poster up to 6 levels deep, so there's incentive for sustained discussion. But I have no idea how to track that.
For me, the limitations in upvoting will be variety, quantity, and internet frequency. We each have to come up with the metrics that are meaningful to us.
It is a hard decision whether to give out votes for encouragement which may deplete the power of them until they are only worth encouragement, or to use them wisely for maximum impact.
I've played around with both, but I am now thinking that my support and encouragement mat be worth more than the $0.01 that my full power vote is worth.
That's great - you've gotten up to "a penny for your thoughts". Pretty soon you will be able to "put in your 2 cents worth". And then your view will "be worth a plug nickel" -- wait, scratch that one! ; )
HA HA! Nice ones.