I am @theessential

Greetings Steemians,

For those of you who don’t know me yet, my name is Zach. I joined Steemit about a month ago (actually less than a month). I currently have around 80 followers and have a little more than 45 Steem Power and counting - All of which, I have earned in the last month. That makes my account worth between $200-$300 dollars (depending on the market value of Steem). This means that in 1 month on Steemit, I have made a few hundred dollars that that I wouldn’t have made otherwise.

Joining Steemit

Today I wanna talk about my feelings of Steemit, what I’ve learned, and why you should stick around.

I joined Steemit because it had value to me personally. If you read any of my other posts you’d know that I found Steemit while “Googling” cryptocurrency. Almost every single article I read was from Steemit. When I first stumbled upon it, I had no idea what Steemit was. I assumed it was some kind of blogging platform but had never heard of it. One day I decided to make an account so I could give back to the community that had given me so much information.

I did expect to find that Steemit was the best social platform I’d ever joined! My first post was full of comments from people wishing me luck and telling me that I could really be successful here. At the time, I had no idea what it even meant to be successful here. 7 days after my first post- I was paid. I was pleasantly surprised that I the Steem payout was worth much more than the upvoted amount. I knew we were paid in Steem and SBD, but I had not checked the market value of either of these prior to my first payout. You can guess that i was pretty happy when I saw what my first post made.

I now knew that not only was Steemit as good source of information, it was also a potential source of income.

POWERING UP

Its tempting to liquidate the profits from your first Steemit posts- Especially if you need the money. I am not gonna tell you what to do, but I will give you my opinion and insight from what I’ve learned here.

Steemit is an investment. The second you start blogging and curating posts on Steemit, you are making an investment into the future success of this company. This is the kind of oppurtunity will grow the longer you are here. Steemit is a fairly new platform and like me, a lot of people had/have never heard of Steemit before. Despite this, Steemit is now competing with other major social networking sites/apps like Facebook and Twitter. In a couple years, Steemit could be the thing that everyone uses and those who have been here the longest are most likely to prosper in the long term.

With that being said, your payout will give you some Steem and some SBD. I would strongly suggest that you take your SBD and use the market to trade it for Steem. Then you should Power it Up to Steem Power. It is very easy and doing this wil help you in several ways.

First off, having more Steem Power means having more power on Steemit. As your Steem Power rises, your upvotes gain more and more weight. This means that when you upvote someone’s post, you will give them a higher payout. How does this help you? Well, Steemit is about networking and gaining supporters. When you have more Steem Power, your votes are worth more and you become more desirable. People are much more likely to follow someone who could give them a higher payout than someone who has no Steem Power and cannot offer them the same rewards. As you grow your Steem Power, you will grow your following.

Secondly, when you Power up your Steem, you take away the the ability to cash out all at once. Cashing out your Steem Power requires you to power down- A process that takes 3 months. Think of it as a way to save money.

Third, Steem is likely to increase in value as more and more people join the platform in the coming years. Having your Steem powered up is a great way to store you investment and still benefit from it at the same time.

IN SUMMATION

Powering Up your Steem allows you to:

• Have more voting power, thus gaining more attention from fellow Steemians.

-Save money and protect your investment

-Benefit you while allowing the value of Steem to rise in the coming years and growing the monetary value of your account

Let me just add that once you have gained substatial Steem Power, I would recommend to allow yourself to accumulate SBD and hold on to them. This will diversify your Steem portfolio and capitalize on the rising value of the SBD as well as Steem. I wil also add that at one point the SBD was supposed to be pegged to the USD but it has risen quite a bit higher than originally intended. This is important to acknowledge because if the SBD were to be reduced down to 1 USD- the value of holding SBD would be less than that of trading it for Steem while its high. There have been rumors that there are still being attempts at reducing the value of the SBD- though some would say that these rumors have been debunked. Always invest at your own discretion, cryptocurrency like Steem and SBD has always been highly volatile.

Here is a quick tutorial on how to cash out your Steem and SBD

First you must join an exchange like Bittrex or Poloniex- Do you research and make sure that they are trading Steem and SBD. SIgn Up and create your account.

Use a current and highly accessible email- then verify

Now you must also create an account on Coinbase.

Follow all the steps to verify and set up your Coinbase Account.

Now access Bittrex or whatever exchange you signed up for.

Then go to the Steemit wallet on the exchange (Not Coinbase) and find its deposit address.
You may have to click on generate address.

Copy the address EXACTLY AS IT APPEARS. DOUBLE, AND TRIPPLE CHECK!
Sending Steem or SBD to the incorrect address will most likely result in them being lost forever
Also, not that there is a diffferent wallet for Steem and SBD- make sure not to send Steem to the SBD wallet or vice-versa.

Once the Steem or SBD arrive on the exchange, sell them.
This will exchange the Steem or SBD for Bitcoin. (It can also be traded for Ethereum or Litecoin if that is your preference)

Now that you have your Steem and/or SBD converted to Bitcoin (or Litecoin/Ethereum), they can now be sent to your Wallet on your Coinbase account.

Again, make sure you use the correct wallet and send to the correct address.

Once they arrive, you can sell them for USD (FIAT) and the value will now appear in your USD wallet. After linking your bank account to Coinbase, you can then deposit the USD directly to your bank.

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DON’T GIVE UP, PERSEVERE!

Steemit has given us all a great opportunity. Not only can we learn from others, we can give back to the community and earn something for doing so. Steemit takes work, there is no question about that- but Ive noticed something....

The Steemians that have been here for several months to a year, and who have put in the work, are having success on Steemit. These people aren’t necessarily special, they are just dedicated. I’m not saying its easy, I’m saying..

IT IS POSSIBLE!

As you start putting out more and more QUALITY content, your following will grow exponentially and so will your earnings.

This means that the more followers and Steem Power that you have, the more you will earn!

Let’s talk about quality

One tip that I’ve read over and over on Steemit is that quality posts are important.

If you are putting out 10 posts a day that are lacking in quality content, you will more than likely earn less money and followers than if you put out 1 solid post a day that you took your time on.

Taking your time is pretty synonymous with quality.

Not everyone is a great writer or formatter but if you take your time and put your heart into your work, people will notice. People identify with the personality and dedication that they see in your work.

*Remember, even though you may desire to earn money, your goal should be to contribute to the community. Your contribution will be weighed by the masses and they will decide whether or not your posts are valuable.

Stick around and Keep your head up

Success doesn’t happen overnight but being persistent and networking with the community will pay off.
Remember that practice makes perfect.

Most of use weren’t bloggers before joining Steemit. This is a skill much like anything else. You must put in your “10,000” hours.

#Thank you Steemit!

I am so honored to be a part of the steemit community. These last few weeks have been awesome and full of support. I cannot wait to see what the future brings. Thanks to all the whales and all the projects that are providing support to all the minnows out there like me.

@minnowsupportproject
@aggroed
@pal
@banjo
@teamsteem
@discord

To name a few..

And thanks to the bots out there that are helping to get the minnows started by giving them a little extra on their posts!!
There are so many out there so I wont name any here.

Thank you to all of those that took the time to read my post. It really means a lot to me to have your support.

As always,
Thanks for stopping by Steemians,
@theessential

If you enjoyed what you read and think others might too,

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. This post and all others on @theessential blog are for entertainment purposes only. Invest your money at your own discretion. Thanks.

Citations:
Jamesclear.com - photo
Coinbase.com - photo
Thanks