Greetings!

As usual, I am super thankful for Steemit and most of you fellow Steemians!

Ever since I first heard about this, I knew it was something special. I have been promoting it and contributing as much value to the community and economy as with my spare time for almost a year now! 

I have participated in lots of Steemit contests/challenges, I even started a Steemit Fashion Line offering sustainable, hand painted, epic steemit gear, and the most item listings available for $steem on PeerHub!

I have writen articles about why and how Steemit can be revolutionary!

I have organized and hosted Steemit Meetups. 

I have gotten lots of my friends to join Steemit. 

I have fed thousands of EXTRA free meals to people in need with proceeds from Steemit!

I just reached 1,200 followers! This is my very first "MILESTONE" post or followers post. 

I am PROUD to be on Steemit and of all the contributions I have made, but it somehow doesn’t really feel like its much of an achievement…. 

I have been noticing a very big growing trend of people giving follows in hopes of getting follows back. I have to my dismay also noticed LOTS of new accounts following sometimes thousands of accounts a day, copy/pasting follow request/trade comments on people's posts, then after a day or two unfollowing accounts that they followed….. This kinda works because its often that someone (especially someone new) will follow someone back who follows them. I mean it makes sense. Someone says they followed you and they liked your post. You just kinda want to return the love...A very tricky ploy, one of which may trick some but I am quite sure will not work here. 

So I am taking this time to share some of my observations, conclusions, and give some humble advise on the matter. 

Firstly, I can say honestly that I of course want as many followers and high payouts as possible! I don’t judge anyone for wanting to make money on Steemit.  

With that being said, I have always felt that follows and high payouts should go to people who are posting the most valuable content for this Steemit community and the betterment of the world as a whole. 

I have noticed that most of the successful accounts here on Steemit are ones who not only make quality posts but contribute a lot to the success and growth of this community. They are also people who have put in hundreds if not thousands of hours into Steemit and actually care about more than just payouts. There are of course many people on Steemit with more followers, posts and SP than I. Yet I can't think of a better example of a Steemian success story than @papa-pepper. I hope he gets more followers and earns even higher payouts because whats good for him is good for Steemit. Because he doesn't just take he shares, supports and contributes. 

Yes its true we WANT more users. We want Steemit to grow and become mainstream. Yet at the same time in order for it to really grow, the growth has to be sustainable. 

If there are thousands of people joining because they have hopes of making money and think they can make big money by making shit posts and copy/pasting vote requests to thousands of posts, then they are in for a lot of disappointment. I am quite sure that they will have very little success with this method. 

Now it is possible a lot of minnows will get together with vote trade agreements and get thousands of follows and votes, but their votes are worth very little, and even a thousand minnow/dust votes will not amount to satisfying their fantasies of big, easy payouts. 

So then what happens is these people will get discouraged and drop out because all they really care about is $$$. 

I have also noticed LOTS of shit copy/paste comments on my posts as I am SURE anyone who has a decent rep has also noticed. This is just people selfishly begging or tricking for votes/follows. 

I have actually taken LOTS of time to respond to such comments with polite and sound advise because I do want people to be successful. 

None of these people even responded to the comment that I made on their comment that was a waste of my time to begin with, because they don't actually care. They didn't say yea good advice, or oh I didn't realize that, or thanks I will check it out or even ask another question. Just nothing. 

WHY? Because they did that hundreds of times on hundreds of posts. 

This guy here actually commented back and he learned something and maybe we will actually HAVE a connection on Steemit. 

These are just a FEW of the many comments I have received and made in just the last few days. 

So while I may have reached 1,200 followers, how many of them upvote my posts? About 100 or so a post and generally speaking 75% of those are the same upvotes each time. So basically 1,200 followers means nothing. In fact, most posts I see on steemit have more VOTES than views.....Hahahahahahah 

So to wrap up this post, my conclusion is this: 

Steemit is Awesome!

Steemit has the potential to be revolutionary!

Followers don't mean much and don't guarantee good payouts.

I think everyone who uses any kind of social media should get on Steemit!

Success is not easy right now and actually requires a lot of smarts and consistent focus!

Focus on what you are best at, most experienced in, or most passionate about and make your posts about that. 

Yes, make LOTS of comments on people's articles, its the BEST way to meet new people, but a copy/paste comment is actually worse than NO comment. If the comment is not intelligent and relevant, it's not going to get you any big payouts or powerful followers. 

If you want to be successful then look at the big picture and also realize that even 1 cent for a post is more than what you get on fascistbook!

SteemON!