How I Achieved 200 Followers in My First Month on Steemit - A Recap of the Last 28 Days
When someone has a dream that they desire strongly enough, they will find a way to make things happen.
I can't believe it's already been a month since I decided to start posting on Steemit. It feels like just yesterday that I found out about it from @stevenalexander posting about it on Facebook. I signed up and had gotten my account approved, but then left it alone for a few weeks. I was intimidated by it all and had no idea how to start writing my first post, so I just put it aside for a while. One day, I finally decided that I just had to sit down and start writing my post so that I could begin my Steemit journey.
I wrote my #introduceyourself post and shared it on Facebook. And I didn't think much of it after that, but when I came back to Steemit later that day, I saw that it had gotten a few comments and upvotes and was making a few dollars already. I went through all the comments, and I was truly amazed by how genuine most of the people seemed. I took the time to reply to all of the comments, and I began to get into discussions with people. It was pretty sick.
I felt good about the success of my first post, so I decided to try again. I posted a fictional story that I wrote, and a feature article about the island I come from, but neither of them really got seen or upvoted by too many people. Then I tried to post my Friendship In a New Age blog posts, but they didn't really get a big audience, either.
Still, I kept on writing. I discovered the @MinnowSupport Project and joined their community on Discord. I met some amazing people who really helped with keeping me engaged in the community. Within that first week on Steemit, one story I wrote got upvoted by @curie, and another story I wrote got upvoted by @blocktrades! They were both completely unexpected surprises that really helped to keep me motivated in that first week. Those two huge victories are the reason why that was the most motivating week of my writing career.
In my second week on Steemit, I continued to spend a significant portion of my time on the site as well as in the MSP Discord channel. I ended up on @Ma1neEvent's radio show too, which was pretty cool! I got to talk about my journey on Steemit so far, as well as my plans for future posts. It was because of being on that show that I finally got the final push I needed to start The Dancing Dreamers blog. I joined my first contest on Steemit that week with a story of how I met my best friend, and I ended up winning second place!
I also came to the realization that week that I should invest in Steem. I wanted to power myself up as much as possible and as quickly as possible so that I could be in a better place to show support to my friends who I had been trying to get onto Steemit.
My third week witnessed a lull in my activity, because my mind was focused on a trip I was taking that week. I did manage to launch my contest to celebrate hitting 100 followers, so I was happy about that because people got to talk about how Steemit has helped their lives. One of my Friendship In a New Age posts finally made a few bucks, so that was exciting for me. :)
This fourth week has been amazing for me. All of the posts I made this week are making several dollars, so I am really looking forward to seeing what the final payouts for this week will be. I posted about my road trip to California, and then I posted a painting that I did during the road trip, which was accompanied by a poem. I posted about my experience at Escape: Psycho Circus 2017, and I posted the winners of the contest I ran, as well as another short story that I had just written.
So here I am today, just 28 days later. I've somehow managed to grow to 200 followers and 53 reputation in this short time. But if I can do it, anyone can! I will explain below how you can have the best chances of replicating (and hopefully surpassing!) my success.
How I Did It
The first thing I can tell you is, you should come join us over at the Minnow Support Project's Discord channel, hosted by the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network. As much success as I have had so far on Steemit, I would not be even a fraction of the way to where I am today had it not been for the amazing people I met at MSP. I still remember the joy I felt when I posted a link to a story I wrote and someone expressed their genuine interest in my writing. Small things like that can really do wonders for someone's confidence in their own abilities, which will translate into a nice little boost in one's motivation to keep creating.
The next piece of advice I can give you is to not go into it focusing on the monetary aspect. Yes, the money was a great selling point, but make no mistake: Steemit is not a get rich quick thing. It takes countless hours or hard work to be successful on Steemit, so if you go into things only thinking about making money, your fire will burn out and you will eventually forget all about this place. Always keep the passion in mind over the profit, and you will make it in the long run.
A very important part of success on Steemit is in developing real connections with real people. If you're going to leave a comment on someone's post, make it count. Don't just comment asking people to follow you or upvote your posts. Leave some meaningful, relevant comment that will hopefully result in engagement from others. People can tell if you're genuinely interested in their content, or if you're just leaving a comment trying to fish for new followers. Be genuine.
Likewise, if someone leaves a well-thought out comment and makes it clear that they spent some time on it, don't just leave a one liner response like a simple "Thank you." They most likely left a long comment because they wanted to engage in discussion with you.
Join contests to try to gain some visibility. Even if you don't win, a lot of times people will read your entry, and if they like what they see, they are more likely to check out your profile.
In addition to making connections with people on Discord communities like MSP, make some connections on Steemit! Go to the main page and browse through the posts in tags that you're interested in, or tags that you plan to post in. Read other people's posts and leave comments on them to start discussions! People are more likely to check out your profile if you've first expressed a genuine interest in their work.
Stay the course and focus on building those connections with people. Try to balance out your time and energy to about 25% posting and 75% curating when you're first starting out. Most of your earnings will come from curation at first, as well as pretty much all of your following. It can be tempting as a creative with so much to share with the world, to just want to pump out as much of our own work as possible. But the biggest part of success on Steemit is building real connections, so focus on those first. The numbers will come, you just have to keep that fire in your heart burning brightly.
Thank you so much!!!
I have so much to express my gratitude for! I definitely have to thank everyone involved in the @MinnowSupport Project, for all the awesome work that they do to keep that place running as well as it does. Not a single new minnow slips through the cracks over there!
Definitely a huge thank you to @stevenalexander for showing me the wonders of Steemit and for giving me some helpful tips when I was just starting out and trying to navigate my way through this crazy pond. Seeing how successful he's been has helped me to stay motivated to post on a regular basis!
Thank you as well to @jrswab and @paps for sharing their knowledge with me and helping me to improve the quality of my posts. If you'll notice, almost none of my posts from my first week have any nice formatting to them...it wasn't until after I started talking to those guys that I finally learned what I needed in order to format my posts.
Thank you again to @Ma1neEvent for having me on his show a few weeks ago, as that really helped to push me to move forward with my plans for my EDM blog on Steemit. Thank you as well to @discordiant for letting me use his cool animated MSP banner!
Thank you to everyone who has chosen to follow me! I really appreciate your support so much. Thank you for all the times you have upvoted, commented on, and resteemed my posts. It truly warms my heart to know that there are people out there who appreciate my content!
Seriously, I couldn't have done it without you guys. My goal after hitting 100 was to reach 200 followers by the time my first month on here was up. I achieved it because of you. So thank you so much for being here with me and helping me along on this journey! Here's to more steady growth going into my second month on Steemit!
![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmUPjzTUvVe8mzd7XGUyqPw4r9ay5skceGfuLCvR6mVBXu/pal-sig-anim-trans.gif)
!steemitworldmap 40.754539 lat -111.902618 long Salt Lake City, Utah local Steemian! d3scr
Thanks for sharing your story and tips. It's very inspirational.
There's a little tidbit at the very bottom that says you're in Salt Lake City? I'm from SLC!!
Thank you so much for reading my post! I really appreciate that you took the time to check it out. Yes, I live in SLC! Are you from here as in you're currently living here, or you're from here but you have since moved out and live somewhere else now? I just checked your profile and it looks like you talk about stuff that I'm interested in as well, so I've followed you. :D
Grew up in Magna, BA from University of Utah in Economics, left for a couple of years to get MBA from Gonzaga University, moved back in 2013 and currently living by Trolley Square.
Nice, that's so sick! You're the second person in the area who I've met. Looks like an SLC Steemit meetup is a step closer to becoming a thing...haha. How long have you been on Steemit?
I've been on Steemit for a little more than a week.
You can confirm here: https://steemd.com/@josephsavage
You can actually check any account age and recent activity by changing the name after the @. I use my page extensively to track when upvotes actually come in from bots. I also sometimes look at others' pages to see what kind of content they vote on, or to see what pages are getting big upvotes from @buildawhale or @bellyrub soon, etc...
Nice! Have you checked out the @minnowsupport Project yet? Also, do you think the tips I provide in my post are helpful?
The @minnowsupport project crossed my radar once, but I didn't have time to read everything and then I sort of forgot about it. I just followed the main page and I will look into it in more detail as I find the time.
The tips you provided in your post are great!
Ahhh I see. You should come check it out on Discord sometime! We've got such a great network of people in there and everyone is super helpful, etc. It's a nice place for minnows to start out. I'm so glad you found my tips helpful!
img credz: pixabay.com
Nice, you got a 65.0% @coral-reef upgoat, thanks to @rodeo670
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Glad that you find a way around even in your earliest days in the community.
Thank you so much! I hope I can keep this up long enough to someday see my own reputation be as high as 70! :)
Don't worry about the rep because its just a number :)
Alright haha, I'll try not to pay too much attention to the rep. :P Do you have any helpful tips for me to aid in pushing forward with my progress on Steemit?
Post at least once a day and get involve in discussions within steemit community.
Thank you!
Great post! I'll try to follow your instructions with this comment and try to show genuine interest in generating a meaningful discussion ;-)
What do you think about posting content on steemit that you have previously posted on other (closed) platforms such as steemit? The reason I am asking is that I was considerably active on facebook over the past years and I created a number of (I would say) quality posts with articles on different exotic places I visited. of course, I focus on writing about new things I experience, and it is not really about the money (perhaps about followers), but I just think it would be a pity to not share those posts.
What do you think? Would the steemit community be interested in seeing those posts? Or would you consider it "self-plagiarism" (as for instance the author of this blogpost put it: https://steemit.com/abuse/@shello/self-plagiarism-and-dishonesty-on-steemit-is-self-promotion-okay#@raci/re-shello-re-raci-re-shello-re-raci-re-shello-self-plagiarism-and-dishonesty-on-steemit-is-self-promotion-okay-20171106t125207886z)
Thank you so much for stopping by and starting a discussion with me! Upvotes are nice, but I'm really hoping the most for people to engage with me on my posts. So thank you!! :D
In terms of your question, though, I would say that because it was already your content to begin with, you should not feel bad about migrating it over to Steemit. In my opinion, it's still considered an original work because it is your original work.
It would be a great way for you to try to gain some new followers before jumping straight in with new content, you know what I mean?
yes, exactly, that is exactly what I meant :) for instance, I have traveled to really exotic places in the last years and I just think it would be a pity not to share this kind of experience that would otherwise stay behind "closed doors" on facebook.
Your post actually inspired me to write a short article on that issue, and I would appreciate your input on that: https://steemit.com/german/@raci/mein-auslandspraktikum-in-moskau-und-was-haltet-ihr-von-self-post-recycling
It is amazing to me how much traction you have gained here in such a short amount of time! I thought you had been here much longer until I saw the mention of "28 days" in this post! Wow! It is great, though, to see your giving back by posting advice to others, giving encouragement, and even hosting contests! I hope others follow your advice and example!
You mentioned investing in Steem, although I can't invest as much as you did. What is the best place to do that? I went to my wallet page, right clicked on "Steem," and then clicked on "Buy." I was taken to a "BlockTrades" site that appears to only handle exchanges from one cryptocurrency to another, NO simple options like "USD --> Steem," so I'm not sure where else to turn. It's all so confusing!
Thank you so much for reading my post! I really appreciate you stopping by to check it out and leave your feedback. :) As for investing in steem, you can just use that same blocktrades site to do it. You just have to buy bitcoins first and then use your bitcoin wallet to buy steem through the site. Hope that helps, let me know if you still have any questions/concerns! :)
Yes, that helps! And I got into a chat on Discord last night with someone who told me how to buy Bitcoin, so it all fit-together!
Sweet! So glad I was able to help out :D
Yes, the other person told me about Bittrex and Kracken, two tools for transferring money. Kracken is useful for transferring to/from one's bank account to Bitcoin, and BIttrex is useful to/from Bitcoin to Steem. It's a shame one can't do it all, unless there is one I haven't heard about. Are those the tools you use?
No, actually...I just use coinbase (^_^;)> I didn't realize that other people do some other long complicated process. I also use a site that mines bitcoins for me every day, as a way to invest and grow in btc. :)
Oh, cool! I will checl those out, too! Thank you! 😊
No problem, happy to help! Let me know if you have any questions or need any more information :)
Enjoy your journey on steemit and MSP and make more friends human :]
Thank you botty! :P I definitely will enjoy my journey on Steemit.
Very inspirational, and some really good advice.
This is still such a small platform that building those connections is possible. The upvotes are wonderful, and motivating as well, but the comments where someone really likes what I wrote are fulfilling in a different way.
Congratulations on your past 28 days!
Thank you so much!!
This is so true! I love all the upvotes, for sure, but what I'm really after is true engagement from the people who look at my content. :) Thank you so much for popping in to read my post and for commenting!
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Yeeeeeeee get that military support in! :D