SteemIt Isn't About The Money... Not Anymore!
It didn't take me long to find out: SteemIt is so much more than a way to make money...
My Turbulent Start On SteemIt
Just like most of you, I signed up for SteemIt because of the money. No, that’s not entirely true. I had been looking out for promising cryptos and had purchased some Steem. I only heard about the platform later. Either way, money was the motivation to register for an account.
When I first joined, I really didn’t know what to expect. I liked the fact that some people called it a 'blogging platform' rather then a 'social media' platform, simply because I am a bit of a loner. Both online and offline, I don't feel comfortable interacting with people I don't know.
So I started blogging like I was used to: 'internet marketing-style', which means no more than writing posts to promote a product or a service. I considered SteemIt as a perfect opportunity to double my profits: I could earn money through my affiliate marketing, and by getting SteemIt rewards.
Of course it didn't take long before my posts started to get downvotes, taking my reputation score all the way back to 11.
I didn't understand... SteemIt was loaded with affiliate links, and my posts got downvoted? The confusing part was that some were downvoted, and some were not.
Affiliate links appeared to be a delicate topic on SteemIt.
It took me while to understand that writing a post that's all about the promoted product is not the right thing to do. When you post a quality article and use an affiliate link that fits your content, most Steemians will let it go by - as long as you have a disclaimer on your page, stating there is an affiliate link on your page.
Anyway, I'm drifting off...
The Power Of SteemIt As A Community
I've never been a community-minded person. Instead, I always kept my distance when the word 'community' was used, because in my reality, joining a community always involved a lot of expectations and obligations - which I definitely not like.
The Spam-Initiatives
It wasn't until three weeks ago that my opinion about this changed.
People started to make posts addressing the growing problem of low-quality content and spam posts and comments. I had noticed the increase too, and suddenly I found myself having long, interesting conversations with other people in the comments sections of several posts.
More and more people started to post articles or set up initiatives trying to reduce the problem. Without saying it out loud, we all knew that if this problem would keep on growing, it would eventually cause the end of SteemIt.
At that point I realized I actually cared about SteemIt, and it's community...
The Support-initiatives
Many people seemed to agree on the fact that a lot of those lousy comments and no-quality posts were caused by the giant in-stream of new Steemians, who simply didn't know any better. The real problem was lack of education.
Of course there are some communities that have being doing a great job all along, but I noticed that a lot of people took it upon them to educate newcomers and to support them to post good articles and quality content. Whether under the form of a contest, a course or an invitation sent out to newbies to post their article in the comments section to either get some useful feedback or a resteem and upvote - people are trying hard to help newcomers to learn how SteemIt works.
I haven't seen such an engagement in a long time, and I can only have loads of respect for the people that are willing to spend their time on the education of newbies, and in the long run, the future of the SteemIt community.
The Power Of SteemIt As A Connection
These last few weeks, I've been bumping into posts that add real value when it comes to my personal struggles in life. Most of the time I don't know how I discovered the post and why I decided to click the link to actually read the article. I don't believe in coincidence, and I believe those articles were simply meant to be on my path to personal growth - because I had to learn something from what was written.
Posts by people like @honeydue, @bkdbkd and of course @chrismccron are helping me to fight the battles in my life and the monsters in my head. Sometimes the things you need to hear are said by people who are on the other side of the world. Thanks to SteemIt, I am able to connect with people who are fighting the same demons, or have already defeated them and I get the reminders I need to keep growing as a person.
All this to say that for me, SteemIt is not about the money anymore (although I would be lying if i said I didn't like to get paid for what I post). SteemIt is so much more than the 'incentivized blogging platform' it looks like from the outside. It's not only helping to improve my skills, it's also making me a better version of myself every day again.
A big 'Thank You' to every single fellow-Steemian for being part of this valuable community, that has been turning my world upside down ever since I joined.
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Image Sources:
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Welcome to Steemit @simplymike! Glad to have you on here. Your post resonates with many as it shows the way many joined this platform and realized that it is much more than a monetized blogging/vlogging platform.
I think that with time, more and more apps and Steem blockchain algorithms will filter out the spam and junk, and discourage the bad actors from continuing on their destructive ways.
This platform has everything it needs to truly make it as a social platform and more.
It truely is. There are an unlimited number of possibilities that just need to be discovered.
I hope there will be found a way to filter out the spam and copy-paste posts and comments soon, before they will be destroying the platform and all it stands for. I’ve already seen positive people who would be able to add a lot of value to the platform leave because of it...
Thank you @simplymike for this amazing post, it has filled me with motivation to continue writing quality posts. Steemit is alreay helping many young artists and poor people to support thier families and it has all the potential to be a life changing platfprm for thousands. The only thing I don't like about this platform is that many people are still taking it only as a source to make money and that includes some of the supermembers too. We need to male thos community spam free too since many people are simply spunning the content and posting while many just dont reply to the comments on thier post. @ebargains your service is just amazing, will be using it for my next post.
True. Someone should find a way to get rid of the abusers. But I think that if everyone who is here with good intentions should keep ignoring them, they will eventually disappear. Or so I hope :-)
Great. A well detailed article from the bottom of your heart. I even started my journey aiming for money like everyone else. I took nearly 1 month to explore this platform.
Now that I have realized that Steemit means a lot more than money, I spend most of my time here reading many excellent things of my interest than spending time to write. Agree there are also some uncontrollable spamming happening here and the reward pool is misused. But from what I see, if everyone come here with a principle to post only quality contents and promote or vote only quality contents, then the platform will be a lot better. Change starts from every individual so I kept this principle for me when I started here. Hope gradually fellow Steemians will also understand the importance of it.
True. The best way to change something is to begin with yourself. That's why I keep ignoring the people who post comments that are plain spam, hoping that some day everyone will start doing that, and they'll just disappear :-)
Great article. well written, steemit is all about community afterall.
Indeed it is...
You don’t know that when you sign up... you only find out afterwards
It's good to see you again, now with a new laconic nickname :) I wish you great successes.
Thanks :0)
That's absolutely lovely and I'm thankful for fractionally have created some impact, it makes me believe I'm doing something right and I'm in the right path in my life walk. I wish you all the very best, and keep fighting for yourself, that's 100% worthy and the most benefited person is you. I love how awesome this place is, and everyday I get to know amazing people. That's just so freaking awesome!
Once I heard someone saying you do get here for money and notice how people are actually good vibezzz and it's sorta contagious and when you see it has made a revolution in your life.
Sooo thankful for this! Many thanks for letting me know that. I'm glad we are all here together!
Cheers!
That’s the reason I mentioned a couple of people (like you) in my post. I think it’s important to give people a pat in the back every know and then. Especially when they’ve had such an impact on my life. By not telling them, they might never know, and might keep doubting whether their efforts are worth it and they’re moving in the right direction...
This has been one of my favorite articles of the day. I think I might bring back the featured post to SteemThat.com soon so that cool stuff like this that I find will splash across the website! Resteemed excellent post!
Thanks!
And btw: SteemThat is awsome!!!
Without noticing you became a deep steemian, well done friend!!
Thanks. And I only just noticed you resteemed my post: Thanks for that too 👍
It´s nothing bro, welcome!!
Hey @simplymike so inspiring that you came around to see the real potential here at Steemit. I will Follow you. Also, another good one that I also Follow is @jaynie/ Sne is really good. A great motivator!
Thanks, although I didn’t plan to get so sucked up in the ‘community spirit’.
Normally I’m kind of a ‘loner’ doing his own thing, but it’s contagious :0)
Btw, I really likef your article about diversification of the content.
Followed you back
Thanks for your post. It's been very helpful for me. I've been on here for three days and I had no idea of all the dynamics and etc before starting. I really jumped in without understanding a lot about this steemit. But, overall it's been positive if not overwhelming to figure it all out.
I’ve been here for 4 months and I still feel overwhelmed sometimes. There’s simply so much going on, I don’t know even half of it. Today I ran into some more interesting initiatives I still have to figure out.
SteemIt has a steep learning curve, and if you make it through the basics, it’s really worth it.
I haven’t learned so many new things in such a short time span, and I’ve never had so many interesting conversations with other people during my 15 years in internet marketing as on these last 4 months on SteemIt.
And the best part is that I’m actually enjoying the interaction :0)
If you’ve only been here for three days, I’d say “buckle up and prepare for a wild ride”. Starting out can - no: will be very frustrating at times, but once you get to see how strong the community spirit is, it’s all worth it...
Tell me about it. It's been 4 days now. Pretty much all day everyday. I'll have to start stepping away now that I think I have all basics.
I just seem to have got sucked in and it's all I thought about for several days now.
Same here. SteemIt has becom a full-time job: writing, doing research, finding interesting articles and initiatives, commenting, replying, ...
I wonder how those people with a big, popular account manage to get everything done.
It seems like a lot of people work in groups, but I'm just playing around digging in all the sites to try and see how some of these people do it so well.
Me too. I prefer to wotk ony own. But I’ve been thinking about setting up an initiative that would help newcomers like you to get some more exposure, and get some rewards, so they won’t get demotivated. Because my new account isn’t big enough to give them some decent reward, I had to approach someone and propose to work together to make the prize pool bigger and to share the workload. (There are loads of initiatives like that, like #newbieresteemday, gor example - if I find the time today, I’ll post a list of helpful iniatives which you can enter to
Thanks for the tag info. Looking forward to hearing about more initiatives.
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