Dear Whales and Dolphins - Please Read This Letter
I have recruited a lot of my friends to Steemit. I did it because I think the site is an awesome idea. I still think the site is an awesome idea. I am still trying to recruit more of my friends.
Most of my friends are leaving though. They are leaving because their posts are not getting attention.
Maybe they will come back, but right now they are deciding the site is not worth their time.
There are a lot of posts that talk about doing it for the love of what you do, and that if you write a lot of good content - eventually it will get noticed.
Writing quality content takes a lot of time and effort though.
They realize that some posts will get overlooked, and that it takes time to get noticed. They are OK with that, and they are willing to put in effort.
People will only keep posting things for so long without getting recognition before they give up though.
We are loosing a lot of good people because of this.
I know we all have our circles of followers and followees, and it pays to vote along with the crowd.
There are a lot of Steemers out there right now posting good content though, and they are not being followed or liked.
We need to do a better job recognizing these people and up-voting their content.
I'm sure there are others out there right now too, but @berniesanders is amazing at this. He has made so many Steemer's days by 'blessing' them and upvoting their posts. I guarantee you that there are a ton of quality content producers on Steemit right now that are sticking around simply because they got recognized by him.
We need a lot more whales and dolphins doing this.
@smooth is another whale that deserves attention for this. He is actually going out and hiring people to curate and find good content. Thanks @dantheman for pointing this out in your recent post, and thanks
@smooth for recognizing the importance of this and spending your time/effort/money to do this!
If you spent the time to read this, I really thank you for taking the time and reading what I have to say. I really think this issue is important. We need to do a better job as a community finding and recognizing content from good producers who do not already have a lot of followers or upvotes. For these people, getting recognized is a big deal.
"I have recruited a lot of my friends to Steemit. .................................
........Most of my friends are leaving though. They are leaving because their posts are not getting attention."
Why aren't your friends reading, comneting on, and voting for each other's posts?
I assure you we all do - there just isn't enough influence to make a big difference. Here is a post that was upvoted 55 times that I wrote that I probably spent 4 hours on and made $0.34. I did a few of those in depth, educational posts that I put a lot of sweat equity into - got a lot of support from minnows but at the end of the day I can't keep writing a 4 hour post each day for a quarter.
So then I shifted gears and started doing shorter posts. 1 hour of time. 30 minutes of my time - and they all get upvoted by my friends. Which is great but it's still hard to justify investing time into that work each day when there is an opportunity cost of doing "real work".
I don't even care about getting a $1,000 upvote (although it would be awesome) but even like $10 or $25 would make me feel like my time is being valued way more than it is. Maybe that's asking for too much.
I second this. When I learned about this site I was instantly sucked in and became a believer. I've tried to explain to my friends and a few of them have tried it, but it is frustrating for beginners when they come in with an expectation that it's going to be easy and then find out it's not as simple as post and instant success (for most). Not sure what the right pitch is to convince people to try it but without misleading them or giving an unrealistic expectation.
As far as recruitment goes, I think that selling the long-term potential of Steemit is the best approach. I've definitely found that selling it as "you can make a post that gets paid a thousand dollars" is not the way to recruit. It leads to unrealistic expectations, and disappointment. I also think that people joining up just to 'get paid' in general is not good. We want more people who can contribute to the site and community, not just write stuff expecting to cash out. People who see how awesome this Steemit idea really is, and get excited for the potential the future has to offer is what we should be going for.
This is the big problem with the site. It's not about content it's about who you are and how many followers you have on other social media you have. If your well known and have followers they see you talking to your followers about that big payout and getting those followers interested in steemit. If you can bring in money you will get the upvotes.
This right now is the phase of the website. The mindset is acquisitions and those who can flash big numbers in front of people have the best potential for large upvotes. It's a shame because to say "I have 100k facebook followers" is completely different than "I recruited 20 people so far". If playmate bunny girl says she has 150 instagram followers how many of them do you think actually signed up, created accounts, and are going to invest time & energy into this website to make it better?
I've recruited a dozen+ people to this site and have found each of them need me to hold their hand and really invest time to show them how everything works for them to pick up on it. Not saying everyone needs that - but it's been my experience. I don't think playmate bunny girl is going to do that for her followers.
I count votes before money. My posts don't make much money, usually none. Even if a few people vote or comment i feel like i won. But it does suck, the voting system isn't like a real democracy its more like American democracy. Whales equal Super Delegates and Minnows equal Regular Citizen.
The voting system will never change for the same reasons. The people in power are making to much money and Steem is continuing to bring in thousands of new people daily. If the system was broke no money made, no people joining.
They aren't doing well because their posts are boring like this one. Don't get mad. I've written mostly snorers myself. Posts, comments need to be interesting and provocative.
Begging people to read and/or vote for your content for the greater good isn't very compelling. "Good content" is very subjective. In fact when I hear someone talking about "good content" in the context of web/seo, etc the first thing that comes to mind is boring.
I'd rather you post pictures of your cat, tell dirty jokes or make snarky comments about my shit posts then see the quality content of this post.
I get what you are saying, and there are a lot of people out there whining about not getting votes, and begging people to notice them - when in reality, their posts just suck. There is a lot of that.
That is not what I am talking about here though.
There are a lot of my friends stuff that I won't vote on because I think it is bad. I don't even mind that my own content isn't getting a lot of votes, because I know it is not that amazing.
I am not trying to whine about my lack of attention or beg for up-votes for my friends. I purposely did not direct anyone to my friends, because that is not the point of this letter. There are way more people out there just like the people I know, that are not getting recognized.
I really feel that there is a larger issue here that the community needs to address.
There are actually a lot of good content producers out there right now that are getting overlooked.
If they keep getting overlooked, they are going to leave.
I would rather read and have discussions like this then about peoples lives and cats. That stuff is totally boring to me.
Fair enough, but my last sentence was using sarcasm. I appreciate a lot of people want to read stuff like you do but the market just isn't there for only but a few to receive a payday. Writing "quality content" takes a lot of time and effort and I dare say 90% of authors here are going to only see a pittance for their efforts because they aren't at the talent level of some and/or they aren't lucky. I think inviting all your friends and saying "hey look at all the money you can make at steemit" is a pipe dream. I think it should be "hey come over to steemit and have some fun". The last statement is more realistic.