Today is officially my 30th day on Steemit and really, wow what an amazing journey it has been so far! 🙌🏼 🎉

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Today I also breached the 200 followers mark which needless to say is truly incredible. This was an early goal of mine that I first expected would take about 1,5-2 months. I'm truly grateful for all the support and for the all the relationships I've already been lucky enough to build both on and off the platform (e.g. when I met up with @flipstar on Koh Lanta for New Year's).

200 followers in 30 days as a result from natural growth and starting from absolute 0, is something quite unique from what I've seen on the platform. Thus, beside giving my deepest of thanks I will also shed some light for all you minnows out there on how to actually build yourself up on Steemit.

200 followers per se is not a lot, but times change, and things that worked in the past might work a little bit different today. Furthermore I'm certain that I can provide a golden nugget or two on how to gain a following at this day and age on Steemit 🙏🏼

How to Build a Presence on Steemit - 101

#1 Mindset

In my opinion the large majority of people on Steemit has the whole "follower thingy" back-turned.

People ask questions such as "How do I gain followers on Steemit?" and people write articles in the lines of "How to build a following on Steemit!".

The thing is, you must not focus on the followers in order to reap the rewards (e.g. a good network, money).

Instead you must start with the network, and consequently followers and financial payoff are generated as a bi-product.

Thus, in order to gain a true following, forget about the following. You should put a minimum amount of effort to "gain a following" and put a maximum amount of effort to build friendships and to work on improving your content.

Another extremely important key is that you have to be genuine. There is nothing worse than false people writing shitty comments in order to get upvotes & comments.

And if you haven't done it already, drop the "Upvote me! Follow me!" act, do I really need to explain why?

You might think it is obvious but it is not. If people really understood this they would be spending 5X the time writing quality comments and having interesting discussions in discord channels, rather than producing the same old crappy content, doing follow for follow and using upvote bots.

#2 Building Relationships (e.g comments, discord)

As previously mentioned, relationships are key for anything you aspire to do on Steemit.

And if you think about it, the relationships and community you engage in here is what's truly valuable in terms of long-term happiness and fulfilment. There are so many people on Steemit sharing the exact same interests as you from all around the world. To not reach out and say hello is such a mistake.

Enough ranting, now you might think: "Ok sounds great William, but how do I actually write a good comment? I've been using spamming bots for the past 2 months with 0 results?"

Jokes aside, here's my blueprint to initiate a relationship on Steemit:

1. Choose a category that aligns with your interest (don't be shy to search for those less popular)
2. Sort the category on the "Hot" tab
3. Skim through the headlines and find an article that is; 1) interesting, 2) the user have a little authority (AKA skin in the game), 3) not too many comments (less than 15-20)
4. Read the article (yes you actually have to read)
5. Drop a comment where you add value and encourage discussion
6. If he or she responds openly and seems like a cool person, keep the discussion going in the comments
7. Voilà, you have taken the first steps towards a true friendship

I spend most of my time on Steemit reading interesting articles, dropping comments, and maintaining my current relationships. At least 1 hour every day, which accounts for more time (by far) than I spend writing.

I also participate in a few Discord channels, although I have yet to find a channel that a 100% fulfils my wants and needs.

In the future, I'm thinking about starting my own channel dedicated to extreme personal development & hustle, something that you would find interesting? Anyways, that's for another time.

#3 Producing Quality Content and Improving Your Writing

Being totally honest with you guys I find that a lot of the content here on Steemit is frankly, shit.

A drawback of the incentive-structure here on Steemit is that to some extent, more posts equals more financial gains.

And sadly that results in a large pile of shitty articles. Even some people quite high up on the "Steemit ladder" produce at times poor content which sadly many newcomers imitate.

Sorry to break it, but in order to make it big you must produce solid content that people want to read and engage in.

That means you also have to improve and hone your producing skills. Thus, spending time learning markdown, photoshop, improving your writing, video editing, etcetera is crucial if you want to succeed.

And having the mindset as we talked about before, this should be obvious, but still see this issue everywhere on Steemit.

#4 FUN

This is a obvious but a profound truth, whatever you do, it must be fun.

If you don't care or give a shit about relationships and other people, then Steemit is not for you my friend.

If you don't write articles about what your passionate about and have a true interest in, your financial payoff won't pay even for a new dishwasher.

If you're not in it for the long run and are not willing to put in the effort, you're better off spending your time somewhere else.

Being a content producer on Steemit isn't necessarily not for everyone. And it is crucial that you take your gaze off from the shiny stuff at the top of the mountain and focus the steps along the path.

Enjoy the ride, smell the flowers, laugh joyously, and have fun.

Key Guidelines to Put On Your Fridge at Home

Do this:

• Focus on network and relationships, not on followers
• Be genuine
• Write quality comments
• Participate in Discord channels
• Produce quality content
• Improve your content producing skills
• Be in it for the long run
• Have fun

Don't do this:

• Have followers as your prime metric of success
• Use upvote- or followbots
• Do follow for follow
• Follow a lot of people in order for them to follow back
• Produce a lot of shitty content
• Focus on short term results and financial gains

Everything worthwhile in life takes time, if it were easy everybody would do it. Trust the process and keep Steeming!