Dear fellow Steemian - About self promotion
With the influx of new members and the things I run into, I thought it's time for another little chat.
Self promotion! We all do it. It helps us spread the word about ourselves and about our blogs. But what are the ways in which we can promote ourselves and which roads should we walk?
Non-intrusive ways
Once you write your blog and you hit that Post button, you're hoping your article gets noticed by many people. You dream of the riches that follow big upvotes. But wait, not a few minutes later, your post has disappeared all the way down on the New feed. Who will find it now? There's a chance your followers will still find it, but you might not have that many yet!
Steemit chat
For these situations, you can use the steemit.chat channels to promote your post! Create your account there, look for appropriate channels and post your link inside them. An appropriate channel would be the Postpromotion channels or a channel named after the subject of your article. Be sure to post the link just once per channel. Don't be a spammer.
Discord
There are a few Discord channels to post your links to. I am not sure how to create links to discord channels (I might just not have the right permissions), so for this one, you'll have to use the search bar on the top of the Steemit site. Search for posts about Discord and follow the link(s) there. This works about the same as the Steemit chat. Find the appropriate channel and post a link to your article there. Again, be sure to post the link just once per channel. Don't be a spammer.
During discussions in comments
If you feel one of your posts truly adds value to a chat you're having in the comments on someone's post, you can drop a link to it in your comment, describing why you think it adds value. Be sure to use this one wisely though. Don't do it to gain traffic, do it because it actually adds someting to the conversation.
In your own posts
Nothing wrong with a bit of link dropping inside of your own posts. Reference an older article if it fits the story you're telling. However, don't just write a new post in which you just drop all of your new links. Let's atleast try to keep things interesting. You new post should add value to the platform in its own right.
Bad ways to self promote
The above screenshot was the last straw for me to start writing this article. It was a private message send directly to me through Steemit chat. First of all, private messages are for actual chats, not for self promotion. Second, I am not a bro, I am actually very much female. Do your homework.
So what ways of self promotion should you avoid? It is very basic stuff, but it appears not everyone understands this.
Don't comment on someone else's post, just to try and get them to look at yours. Most people will not like this and it will make them less likely to visit your page. Your comments should add value to the post, they should not be about shameless self promotion.
Don't write private messages to people, simply because you want them to check out a post. It makes them very annoyed and it will make sure they do not check out your post.
Don't try to guild-trip people into following or upvoting you. It is great to hear that you upvoted an article of mine or that you started following me. That does not automatically mean I like your posts aswell. I follow people, because their content is interesting to me, or because they provide good conversations through comments. I will not follow you, simply because you followed me aswell. Don't ask for it, because I am very stubborn and will never comply in that way.
Your followers and upvotes need to be earned through good content and conversations. Aim for those if you want to be truly successful on Steemit!
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Header image taken from this post by @samstonehill. Check out his other Steemit images!
So far, I haven't ventured onto the steemit.chat (or really the Discord channel), but I see the chat mentioned or referenced a lot in peoples' posts; I really think that I am going to have to take the plunge and join it - I find the idea of having to create yet another and having yet another messaging application a bit offputting.
I find myself in a similar situation, when posting, where I'm trying to consciously guess when the busiest time of day is in the hope that if I post around that time, that some of my followers will see my post (but it cuts both ways because more people are posting at that time as well). Having another avenue or two to promote my posts seems like a good approach to improving the post's visibility.
Definitely! I haven't really found the right time to post, so I just post when I'm done writing. I'm pretty sure it does have a huge effect on payouts though.
The chat is a great way to get more eyes on your posts, so I can recommend it.
Thanks again for the advice; hopefully I'll see you in the chat soon =)
Words wisely written down to provide an apt Information to the new steemians.
Here is my Upvote for your effort to keep new joinees on the right track.
I might as well write an article on the same topic, but only when I gain enough experience.
Thank you, I'm glad you think it's useful :-)
Welcome.
Very cool article. Its funny that you used your methods as i was too when you posted it. Good work and hopefully the newbies will listen.
Thank you! Yeah, I promote my articles on the chats, which is basically the best and overall accepted way to do so :D
Thanks for the useful information.
Regarding promoting on the chat, do you have any feel for how much it brings you in extra attention?
I have just signed up and will give it a try myself.
I'm not sure how much extra attention it gives. Sometimes, people will mention in the chat that they upvoted you, but I don't know how much of the upvoting would happen without the chat. I post without promoting sometimes and do get upvotes aswell. It would be a fun experiment to test sometime!
Yes, indeed. Worth giving it a try.
But ultimately, solid and interesting content should be what matters the most.
Definitely! The thing is though, there is a lot of good content that gets overshadowed by the regularly upvoted, bot-followed few. In that case, having a few places (besides the New feed) to promote your articles comes in handy :-)
Yes, not too many other ways to do it. There are a handful of people who get most of the upvotes, even though they don't deserve it
That's true. These are mostly people that have been with the platform from the start and gathered a huge amount of followers. People follow them to upvote, just for the curation reward.
I wonder what their payouts will look like once the next HF hits. This will make some changes in the rewards based on voting power and should make the votes of our richest members less powerful, meaning the votes of our newer members should get more say.
I thought the votes would be more powerful for them. Isn't every vote multiplied by 4? Allowing them less votes but 4x the power? This will make them use all of it on themselves if i understand correctly.
I'm not sure what the math is actually, but I heard that the more voting power you have, the more it gets multiplied, so your vote grows even stronger. This will get changed in the next HF.
I know that the change is supposed to increase voting power more based off of Steem Power rather than rep. How this will work out is anyone's guess.
Yeah, it's a very interesting development. I wonder how it will turn out and if we see any changes in our own voting power.
One thing that helps get rid of those who spam the personal chat box is a long list of links in return.
It goes something like this:
Simply respond with:
That gets rid of them every time.
Oh my gosh, that is genious! I will do that right now, thanks!
When I have extra time, I add more links to the copy paste word file I keep handy for these occasions. I hope to have every post I've ever done on there someday! That would be a dream come true!
(I have no life, you see.)
Ahh making it easy for yourself I see!
Actually, in this instant, I choose to link to this article. Show him what an inspiration he's been :D
It's always good to show appreciation as well!
That's a way to deal it, but I think a lot of people who are new here don't know what is right and what is wrong, So I think probably we should Tell them first what They are doing wrong before teaching them a lesson. That would give them a heads up.
I myself have made a few mistakes in my initial days. Someone taught me calmly what I am doing wrong in doing that, and how people may get furious for what I am doing, since then, I am on right track.
Whatever floats your boat. Nine times out of ten, if I do respond with words expressing the right way to do things, I end up getting attitude. I just figure a long list of my work might help gain a new follower, or at least lightheartedly annoy them back.
Great.
Great advise! Thank you for sharing. ☆☆☆☆☆😎
Thanks for that advice! By the way I hear about down voting, but I don't see any such option on my steemit maybe they have taken it away recently?
People call it downvoting, but it's basically a synonym for flagging. You'll see a little grey flag at the top-right of every post and comment. That's the flag/downvote option.
Thanks play! Tbh I don't like the sound of flagging, seems a lil harsh for a down vote.
It has a bad name and it has been used poorly in the past. There are instances where flags are well deserved though. Less than a week ago, one of my posts got rudely copied and posted as though they were made by someone else. This is where the flag comes in handy. This person had apparently done this a lot in the past aswell, so I flagged these posts and some other members did aswell.
When flagged enough and by high standing members, your reputation lowers, which makes you less visible. In this case, that was completely called for.
I'm not sure about the flag etiquette though and when it is warranted. People all have their own opinions about it and honestly, I can understand many of them. For plagiarism (obviously), or for unfair rewards. This last one is not widely accepted, but I can definitely understand it if you care about the quality of the platform.
Nice tips about promotion and completely agree with you about bad practices, i am new on Steemit and i'm not very social networking but one of the things that i liked here is the content quality, the good conversations and the almost absence of trash, be it spam, negative people with others, trolls, etc.
Thank you :-)
The content is overall better than on other social networking platforms. The people are nicer too (something about not getting rewards when you're a jerk, I'll bet). With all the new people though, the bad practices of self promotion are starting to happen more often. I hope it's a temporary thing, but I'm not sure if that's the case.
I feel that the chat channels have helped me a lot. I'll scroll through and drop my new posts there. I always upvote and possibly add a few others that have posted in the same channel. It definitely helps gain views, votes, and followers. Good article.
Thank you! Sounds like you're using them as intended. Glad to hear it has worked out for you :-)
Upvoted!
Thanks for sharing this valuable piece of info.
Thank you very much! I'm glad you found it useful :-)
good points, it can be rough just starting out tho, :(
I know, it really can be. It took me a while to build up followers aswell. The best advice I can give you is to just keep on writing and, most important (especially at the start), join in on conversations. Write good comments. This will get people to notice you and click on your name to check out your profile.
If the conversation is good enough, some people might just follow you just for that!
just like in life hey ? haha, thanks @playfulfoodie