A few days ago, I published 'An Easy Survival Guide to Steemit!' in hopes to be able to guide newbies who have just set foot on the Steemit platform. I hope that you've read my previous guide on some of the basic tips and tricks that will help you start up your journey with lesser hiccups. Though I must repeat again, that the contents of these tips are purely from my experiences and what works best for me. You may or may not agree on some of the tips or you may have found a better way doing certain things. If so, do share them with me down in comments section below! I would love to hear them as I'm still constantly learning.

I realized that I've far from reaching the real depths of Steemit and it's every corner when I started talking to a fellow Steemian on discord and helping him with some questions. Along the way, he mentioned something about token distribution.

Which I've never heard of before about the percentage of distribution. Hence, I've learnt something new again today. Without further ado, let me start.

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Another Survival Guide to Steemit

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ENGAGING in POST

I've talked about the engagement from the community aspect on my previous guide. But I've yet to talk to you about post engagemenet which is your first line of engagement.

It is your FIRST LINE of engagement

What do I mean by that? Well, before you get all cozy up in Steemit community discord channels, your FIRST potential engagement is your post comments. Even before you know that discord exists, the only way to engage others on Steemit is by "Upvoting, Commenting and Replying". As simple as that.

You have to constantly engage with other Steemian's posts by leaving a comment and an upvote. Remember to be generous on your upvote because your upvote are not much of value since you just started. So BE GENEROUS. When you are commenting on a post, make sure you've fully read and not just screen through a post just to pick up a few keywords to create an artificial response. Omg! How did u find out Zord? Well...been there done that. But it's usually the worthy/sincere comments that get more engagement. And who knows, the person might check your blog out.

Always GIVE first, and NEVER expecting

Do not expect Steemians to serve you a silver platter right at your doorstep. That is not going to happen and most of the time, it becomes really annoying for someone to be begging for views and upvotes. Even sentences that insinuate Steemians to look at your blog is annoying. @branlee87 has made a good podcast regarding 'The Mentality for STEEMIT Longevity' which I find it rather true that a lot of people who join have that mindset of entitlement.

When you've posted a post, remember to reply to the comments NO MATTER long or short. It shows that you are always engaging with the people around you. When you have the Voting Power slider bar at 510SP, you can also give a small upvote for the comments you deem fit.

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You have BANDWIDTH on Steemit

What is Bandwidth?

Any activities on the Steem blockchain IS NOT FREE. Wait... what?!?! Yes, you heard that right. You have been leased STEEM POWER by Steem Blockchain to get you started off posting, that is why you don't have to invest any money into starting Steemit. That limited amount of SP delegated to you by Steem Blockchain is equivalent to the bandwidth you are going to have. Like a piece of pie.

The MORE STEEMPOWER you have, the MORE Bandwidth

Bandwidth acts like your data on the Steem Blockchain. Whenever you execute an action on the Steem Blockchain, you would consume bandwidth. When your bandwidth is depleted, you cannot do anything but go to sleep.

Things that uses Bandwidth

1. Posting
2. Commenting
3. Voting
4. Using the Internal Market (blocktrades)
5. Claiming rewards
6. Any other Transactions under Steemit

How do I obtain more Bandwidth?

To obtain more Bandwidth, you need to have more STEEMPOWER. STEEMPOWER is your weight of influence on the Steem Blockchain. The more STEEMPOWER you have, the more % of bandwidth is allocated for you. My advice is to power up your STEEM to STEEMPOWER till you reach 100SP at least. That would be sufficient to do your activities on Steemit even on peak hours.

If you haven't got to 100SP and are facing bandwidth problems, there are other ways to curb this problem. You can wait till after the peak hours to post. In Malaysia, the peak hours are usually 10PM to 2AM (GMT+8), that would be 9AM US time where most of the traffic comes from. So, try posting before or after the peak time.

To check your Bandwidth, you can go to www.steemd.com/@yourusername

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Curation Trails & SP Delegation

Curation Trails

Curation trails is where you specifically selects to follow a user's upvoting direction. Once you've followed that user, you will automatically upvote the posts that he upvotes. Here are some of the popular curation trails :

You may also adjust your voting power as you please whenever an upvote is executed.

A lot of these trails are created to support a specific Steemit community. If you are looking for a trail to support, do support the ones that are helping the growth of Steemit. Trails like @curie, @sndbox, @sndbox-alpha, @surpassinggoogle and many more.

To follow a trail, you may go to www.steemauto.com.

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SP Delegation

SP Delegation is when you lease/loan your STEEMPOWER to a selected user. Just like how Steem Blockchain delegates an amount to you when you activate your Steemit account. You will be able to withdraw your SP delegation anytime you wish and it will take 7 days for your SP to return to your wallet. I would advice you to NOT delegate any SP until you have sufficient amount yourself.

To delegate your SP to another account, you can head on over to www.steemworld.org. It has a really nice interface too!

At the site, go to Balances and click Delegate SP.

From there, a new window will appear and you are required to fill in the account for delegation and the amount to delegate. Type these info in and you will have to connect with you ACTIVE KEY. The delegation process is instant so you will be able to check your wallet and see the delegation of your SP.

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What is the difference between Following a Trail & SP Delegation

There are pros and cons for either one. I will list them out here.

Curation Trail

Pros

1. You get curation rewards (passive income)
2. You will vote automatically
3. Your name will be under the voter section

Cons

1. Your Voting Power will be used.
2. You have no control over how many posts the selected user votes.

SP Delegation

Pros

1. You do not use your Voting Power.
2. You can withdraw your SP anytime.

Cons

1. Withdraw time is 7 days.
2. You do not get curation rewards.
3. Your name would not be in the voter section.

For me, I would follow one or two trails only. That is enough to deplete my VP or keep it constant at 80%. I try not to get my VP below 80% so I can give higher upvotes for my manual votes. Hence, I advice you to only follow 1 or 2 trails. Your votes are pretty much useless if your VP is low.

If you find that you would still want to support a member or a community but you are afraid that it will deplete your VP, then you should delegate your SP to support them. I have also delegated SP to communities which are important to me because I can't afford to give out anymore votes through trailing. Delegating SP doesn't require my VP, instead it gives the account holder a boost in upvote value/SP.

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Using the RIGHT TAGS

As always, because you've read up to this point, I've decided to just add on one more brief tip explanation on Posting Tags. Your 5 tags are one of the most important part of posting. IF you use the wrong tags, you may get any visibility to your posts at all.

Tag(up to 5 tags), the first tag is your main category

The main category can't be editted after you submitted your posts. On the other hand, the other 4 tags can be editted.

To use the RIGHT TAGS, you are encouraged to use TRENDING tags which you can see at the left side bar on Steemit homepage. These tags are #life, #photography, #steemit, #art and many others. There are several tags which have a certain policy to use them. These tags are mainly to be used by community members. Tags like #teammalaysia and #steemitbloggers are some of the community tags only available for their own members to use. Using these tags inappropriately would results in a tag abuse and may cause members to flag your account without warning.

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There you have it! A really long winded post for you. These are some of the basics you need to know to survive around here. If you haven't check out my previous Survival Guide, let me just post it down below once again.

An Easy Survival Guide to Steemit!

And with that, I wish you all the best in your journey on Steemit! Till next time!~

_{Photos are taken from unsplash}

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Thank You

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