The Problems Of Being A
NEWBIE/MINNOW
You've been on Steemit for a little while. At first you were unsure about how to gain followers and recognition in the community. You looked in the tags you were interested in and you learned. You started making your blogs bigger, more interesting. You're putting time into them and then one day it happens. You get this huge upvote from somebody with a great amount of Steem Power. You're happy! You try to recreate that magic moment by following the same format you used for that post but it never happens. There is a reason for that. Sort of. Read on.
The Pack Mentality
When you got that big upvote you obviously went to that persons blog to take a look at it. You wanted to see what kind of posts they were putting out so you could try to 'hook' that whale again. The trouble is you didn't look deep enough. You had to actually open some of their posts and see where their votes were coming from. You would have noticed that most of their posts were getting voted by the same people. That is their pack. A lot of the people in that pack came into the community at the same time. They faced the same struggles as you are facing now with one very big exception: Steemit was a much smaller community at the time. It was easier for them to see each others posts. Those Steemians played off of each other and worked together and formed their pack up. They were the first line of innovators on the platform. As they grew they started projects to help others come up. Some of those others were able to join the pack in time, either through outstanding effort or being ushered into the community by one of the pack. How can you join the pack and start earning more recognition and influence in the community?
How To Become A Member Of
An Established Pack
The simple answer here is you can't. You can try and you can put forth a valiant effort and you can get behind these established Steemians but there are still no guarantees. Steemit has grown so large in terms of members that it is hard to get noticed by these big fish for your efforts because the pond is so full now. There is, however, a way for you to grow on Steemit. You become part of a new pack. Don't focus your energies on trying to get those people to notice you. If you are putting out decent, relevant content that may happen from time to time. Instead concentrate yourself to creating your own pack. There are many people who are coming up with you and there are many good ideas out there for the community. Form alliances with like minded people here on the platform. Start programs and challenges and collaborations to help the community move forward. Steemit is always evolving. Just in the past year the community has seen dMania and Dtube and DLive come into being. There are more and more Discord channels catering to the sub-communities within Steemit. This is the evolution of social media and the people coming up now are the next wave of innovators for the platform. Don't try to gain here by riding the coat tails of those who brought it to where it is. Be proactive and help to take Steemit to the next level.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I appreciate your support.
Good stuff.. you are somewhat right. Unless you get very involved, or you get on discord and voice chat with lots of people, just general networking.. it's hard to get noticed because there is just too much content.
A lot of the people that comment and upvote on my posts are people I've known for a while and had conversations with. This is a social media sites, meeting people is key. Then, people you know eventually power up or get more Steem and hopefully they keep upvoting you. If not, hopefully they are upvoting something else worthy at least.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts yo, you are appreicated.
Thank you for the commentary. I do appreciate that when I put in the effort people notice and interact with the posts. It helps the community to grow and flourish. I did go check out your blog and I read your last post. I found it quite interesting and left a comment there as well.
You just pointed out a key point in networking with others. Too many minnows don't chat, talk, and get to know other members.
And really, if you want a snowball's chance in hell of joining a bigger pack, you really need that connection...
It's definitely true. There are plenty of people on Steemit who can usher in the future except it is hard to find them. There are so many people in the community who jumped on when Steem rose at the beginning of 2018 that only came on to profit. Those same people are still here but now they are putting out crap post after crap post and pushing interesting content down the tags so fast that it is almost impossible to notice. It's a frustrating cycle. Thanks for chiming in. It is always appreciated.
And they all fail to realize that Rome wasn't built in a day. In order to get noticed by the people with the big upvotes, they need that network of people sharing their posts. It wasn't until I started sharing posts with @gamersunited that I started getting hit by @curie upvote bombs. Getting involved with a group that helps each other out, even if your upvote is worth $0.001SBD, can add up over time. And as you power up, your own upvotes become worth more.
Groups shift and change all the time here. You should prepare yourself for people leaving the group or dropping the site all together. It is nice to think it is like this...but communities can be disappointing just like any other socail setting. You can go through friend divorces and you can lose followers to other users. People are fickle and so too is the system.
Be prepared for loneliness at times.
You can be on fire one month and then completely off the next.
Don't always trust your instincts
Welcome to Steemit
Don't let it crush your dreams
Good luck😋
hang in there @teddybear2018 . It's not always easy to find your voice and your niche. Just keep at it. The way the system is now seems to work against you but eventually people will begin to understand that they have to spread the votes around to sustain steemit. Especially if people stay on this high horse about quality content. The truth is that real social media is build on "crappy" content . People like to share things that mean something to themselves and their friends. That's why I think @steepshot is the "killer" app for steemit. You may want to check that out as well.
Very astute observations about the packs. I do understand that it is possible to get on Discord and shop yourself and your posts that way, but I haven't really tried that yet. I've been doing okay within the pack I'm currently running with and as long as more of them don't just fall out and off of Steemit, I think it will be okay.
The new pack all have 0 cent votes and getting a hundred upvotes from them is pointless though. There are numerous facebook "promote your seteemit blog" groups full of zero cent upvote people giving other zero centers an upvote. In my experience it never goes anywhere. There are some big accounts that post on those facebooks groups but it's a pipe dream to think one of them is going to notice you and follow you and upvote you. To be honest its ultra rare I even click on a (31) rep account, I think someone I followed resteemed this. The problem is voting on this is not going to make me curation money like voting on a whale post would. I would advised to follow/comment on accounts with good rep/high SP too. It sounds nice that you and a bunch of other new accounts are going to band together and make it, but it is that borderline impossible. Best bet, IMO, is getting a bunch of people together and everyone delegates SP to a bot that randomly upvotes members. You'll have to acquire SP though.
That is one of the biggest problems. When Steemit was a lesser known community it was easier for people to interact because the content was less 'clogging'. Now it is harder to get noticed and build SP, and without some influence; such as voting power, a lot of people won't give you a second glance. It is only going to get worse if Steem makes another leap and the platform moves further into the mainstream. Delegating SP is a double edged sword. It may help you gain in terms of curation but it doesn't really help you grow as an individual in the community.
What should happen is Steem changing algorithm to give rewards for upvoting low SP members. Like I upvoted you here for charity, I know it's not going to make me anything in curation. If steem rewarded me for upvoting new users I would be searching them out. There are people with a lot of Steem right now who like things just how they are though. Then it comes down to some people dropped a few grand investment why shouldn't they have more of a say then new people who didnt put in anything? I see that perspective too. It's complex issue and tough to solve.
I personally would love to see widespread adoption, and the reason it doesnt happen is because people come here, are unsuccessful and quit.
Then there are a whole slough of people here who only capitalize without offering anything at all to the community. Like the resteem services. I'm not very familiar with them but I notice them in my wallet history constantly. When you look at their sites they are offering no content at all. Just resteems. And they try to lure you with their number of followers but I would bet that 3/4 of them are inactive or just vacant accounts. There are definitely a lot of issues that need to be resolved in the community to help it grow and thrive. I'm just a layman and know very little about blockchain technology or cryptocurrency. I do, however, recognize problems when I see them.
resteem services offer you very little in value stay away from them, people follow them and quit, they may have 20 000 follows but you will be lucky to get one two clicks never mind upvotes. My frank advice to newcomers who dont want to invest money is make as many comments on generous whale blogs as you can and re invest the comment money made in paid upvotes on your blog. It's noble to want to change steemit, i try to , mostly by voting small special interest subjects whose tags are never on the front page of Steemit and aren't even in the shitty tags section.
But I'm also part of the problem because I upvote stuff here I didn't read because it will be good for my curation. I would like to be robin hood giving away all my fill 24 cent votes to new steemians a day, but its throwing my vote away really.
Good luck on Steemit, I try to give most honest advice I can
Very true about the pack. I guess one just has to interact more and that will pay off in the long run without forcing anything.
Interaction within the community is the best way to grow and flourish. I have read countless advice posts and that is a part of every one of them. It takes time to gather a following and recognition. The same is true in life also, though. You put in the time, stay consistent, interact with like minded people, and be patient. All things in time, I truly believe that.
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