My first week on Steemit, and my advice for you!

Hey guys,

Welcome to this new weekly series titled Self Portrait. In this series, I will try to talk about a lingering topic which I have been thinking a lot about over the previous week and share it with you. Every post in this series will also be accompanied by a self-portrait of myself since I felt like it would serve as a good photographic challenge.

For this first edition I wanted to share a review of my first week on Steemit including what I wish I knew when I started, what I have learnt and what I hope to do in the future on this platform.

But first...

I wanted to share with you that writing this post was extremely difficult for me. So difficult in fact that it has taken me almost a week since my last post to actually be sitting here actually writing this post. There are many reasons for this, but most of all, I think that I became a little overwhelmed with all the different commitments that I have going on in my life at the moment. I study full time at University, I also work at a Diner every Saturday and Sunday, and finally, I have also been trying to start up a small photography business. Therefore, adding blogging on Steemit everyday made for quite the busy and stressful week. For this reason, I took a week off to catch up on some school work and really have a good think about what I wanted to achieve from this platform. But now, having had that time off, I am ready to commit myself to Steemit again.

What I wish I had known before I started Steemit...

1. Steemit works! The first thing I wish I had known was that Steemit is not a scam, or a ponzi scheme, but a revolutionary new social media concept which I believe could in many ways be the future of online interaction.
2. Steemit takes a lot of work! Regardless of if you are posting photos, advice on crypto or even spoken word, its imperative that before you start, you know that to do big things on Steemit, it will take a huge amount of work, time and creativity. This is part of the reason I took time off Steemit this week, as I felt I needed to be sure in myself before I committed myself to this again.
3. Steemit is addictive! But in a good way. I must say that the sheer joy and pleasure of creating a piece of writing or art for the site, then seeing it make money online and draw people's attention is an amazing and satisfying feeling.
4. Get onto discord. Just one week into my Steemit experience, I was invited to a discord group where I was able to talk with other motivated Steemit members where we could all share our experience and advice with each other. This really added another dimension to my experience and also helped me find more like minded people on the platform.
5. Everyone is really nice! The final thing I want to talk about that I did not know before I joined is just how wonderful and kind everyone is on Steemit. From all the encouraging comments on my page to all the new friends I have made on discourse, it is just amazing to see such purity and good ambitions among all you fellow steemers.
6. After 7 days you cannot edit your post. A pretty self explanatory one, but make sure you're posts are flawless before the 1 week time limit, as once you are paid out for your post, you cannot edit or change it. I learnt this the hard way after I realized I had left some grammatical errors in my first post hahaha :) 

Lingering thoughts from my first week...

• Be consistent
  • This is something I managed to do throughout my first week, but failed in my second. I believe that to build a base and reputation on this platform when you start, you have to post consistently, every day if you can, to show people that you are serious about the platform.
• Be organized
  • Part of the reason I did not post in this second week was that I convinced myself that I had to write this one week summary post. However, I got overwhelmed about it and ended up putting myself in a corner. Sooo I think it will be good advice for my future to always be thinking  and planning at least 2-3 blogs ahead so you don't end up getting stuck on one.
• Be beautiful
  • Like so many things in life, blogging and steemit are very visual, so take great care to use only eye catching beautiful photos for your thumbnail and make sure that your posts look great and are easy to work through.
• Diversify
  • There are so many incredible platforms under the Steemit umbrella which all work under the same system. Test the waters on more of these platforms and see how you like them. Im sure that one day when Steemit really takes off, having an active account on all these platforms will be super helpful.
    • D.Tube
    • D.Sound
    • Steepshot

And finally...

• Be Yourself!!!
  • Part of what makes Steemit so amazing is the fact that this is a subjective experience for us all. You can do whatever you want on here, and no one will be entitled to judge you in any way.
  • Its your opportunity to express your own creative freedom through sharing. Make the most of it
    and just be you

My goals for the next week...

In my first post, I outlined my goals for the platform. Now I will outline my goals for the next week or so on the platform, or until the next self portrait series. I hope that sharing this here will encourage me to follow these goals :)

1. Post a video to d.tube.
2. Post some photos to steepshot.
3. Make atleast 5 blog posts.
4. Reach level 50 reputation.
5. Make one more post go viral.

Thank you for reading this far if you have, and sorry that this post was a little different to the more photo based ones. Since there is a lot of writing and almost no pictures, I'm sure this post wont do very well, but regardless, I've had a lot of this on my mind over the past week and it feels damn good to share it :)

Look out for more posts coming soon, 

Much love,

Tristan