Having seen that there are many new faces on Steemit, which is really exciting to see that Steemit is growing so rapidly. I've decided to write this simple survival guide to help you kickstart your soon-to-be awesome journey here. Over the past months, I've written several guides on Steemit but there is no harm getting another post out there, just cause it's beneficial .

In the community, #teammalaysia,I'm seeing new members join everyday and we are soon to hit 1000 members! These are surely exciting times. Hence, I hope this guide would be able to escort you on some of the tips & tricks around Steemit.

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Before I begin, I must say that this post would be very much from my personal experiences on Steemit. As everyone has their own 'organic' journey, there may be some tips and tricks that you may find not your forte. It is okay, because do whatever suits you and if it works, Hurray! But if it doesn't, maybe try out the tips here and see where it takes you.

I do also encourage your tips under the comment section below if you've any to add on and share with everyone! it's a WIN WIN WIN for all!

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A Survival Guide to Steemit

Guard your passwords like your LIFE depends on it

Opening up your email first thing in the morning and see-ing an email sent by Steemit is one of the best feelings ever. It usually means that your account has been approved! Shortly after, you'll be given a set of passwords and these passwords are the only ones in the whole wide world. It is uniquely generated for you!

What should I do with them?

Saving the Masterkey is NEVER enough! Yes, a lot of us may have gotten lazy because the Masterkey grants you access to all the functions in the account. EG. postings, voting, transferring of STEEM/SBD. Basically everything. But for security reasons, please save your OTHER KEYS too!

Wait...there are other keys too?

Yes there are, and each with a specific function. You have 4 types of keys that you MUST save online & offline.

Posting Key - This key allows you to post and comment.

Active Key - This key allows you to perform transactions on Steemit.

Owner Key - This key is the masterkey and is required to change all other keys.

Memo Key - This key allows you to create memos. (never used before).

Now when you save the keys for Posting & Active, you MUST save the PRIVATE Key for them both. Where do I find the PRIVATE key? You will see a green button on the right side of the Posting & Active Keys.

Click them and you'll obtain the PRIVATE Keys.

Why do I need to save all the keys?

Well, it is so that you can 'Recover your account' when you've accidentally lost your key or your Masterkey isn't working. Yes, there is such a thing as your 'Masterkey' SUDDENLY not working. There have been several cases where Steemians suddenly just can't login into their accounts anymore because their Masterkey wasn't working. In order to recover their accounts, they needed the other keys. Worst case scenario would be if you haven't saved the other keys and you're depending on your Masterkey for everything. In that case, you may never recover your account anymore. So please, SAVE ALL YOUR KEYS!

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You have to BE PART OF a Community

When I say 'BE PART OF', it doesn't mean just joining a community and not ENGAGING with the members. Like @jaynie from #steemitbloggers would always say :

the SUCCESS to Steemit is "ENGAGE, ENGAGE, ENGAGE".

When I first wrote my first post on Steemit, I realized that there were no views on my post at all. And that also means, no views = no payout. Though a bad content would not get you any upvotes as well.

Yes, I joined Steemit hoping to see if I could earn some extra income, but it is because of the lovely communities that made me to stay. It redefines Steemit for me as not just a money-making platform.

That being said, I started thinking of ways to connect with people on Steemit. After awhile, I decided to see if there were any Facebook page for Steemians in Malaysia. True enough, there was an active community called #teammalaysia. During that time, #teammalaysia had less than 200 members and about 10 of them were active. They had a discord channel too.

Always see if there are any regional communities in your area

What better way to connect with people from your own home country. When I found #teammalaysia, I began being very active in the events they've started, always engaging with the members on discord and most importantly giving back your support, upvotes & comments.

For me, I engaged with a lot of my communities through a software called Discord. For those of you who've not heard of discord, Discord is a chat software that was built for gamers. But since it has A LOT of customizable functions, A LOT of Steemit communities have built their communities on Discord. I personally use Discord to chat with members, share ideas and most importantly build relationships with one another.

I am a proud member of the #steemibloggers community. The members of this community are all really amazing and helpful. This community has also helped a lot of new Steemians to kickstart their Steemit journey with proper guidance from various members who share their experiences and advice. After being part of #steemitbloggers for a few months now, I've built many friendships that I can now call them my fambam <3.

STEEMITBLOGGERS | QUALITY STEEMIT CONTENT in one feed

Do check the latest post by @steemitbloggers out! And if you're serious about all the stuff mentioned in the post, then we are glad to welcome you!

There are many other communities out there, it will also be good if you find a community where you're comfortable with. I can't help but emphasize this again, you have to be part of a community on Steemit to get somewhere. And when you are, remember to "ENGAGE, ENGAGE, ENGAGE".

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Finding a NICHE for blog

I came onto Steemit thinking that I would be 'creating' animation videos for Steemit to watch. That can certainly be done, but it takes wayyyyy too long to create a good animation video. Imagine posting only once a month because I will be spending the rest of my time creating that animation video. It just doesn't make sense. I needed a NICHE that can allow me to post daily.

I tried posting about my photography work as well, but that wasn't exciting enough because the topics on photography is over-saturated. I tried posting about my favourite animations as well. Basically, I was all over the place and didn't had a FOCUS on what I wanted for my blog.

On Steemit, you are basically BRANDING yourself to who you want your viewers to view you as. Having specific niches like music, podcast will definitely help you gain fans from that niche as well as they're sharing the same hobby/passion. So if you want to be known as a musician, then by all means start churning out posts that have you playing music.

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By having a niche, your followers are able to expect what contents are coming from you.

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On my second month on Steemit, I realized that there was a niche on the Steemit market for banner designs. That was when I dug out my rusty design skills and began designing Steemit banners for Steemians. I have been designing for Steemians till today, and from designing banners, I have expanded to designing logos, GIF animation and videos. While I am not designing, I would be writing guides and tutorials on animation as animation is still my passion and an animation topic is rarely seen on Steemit.

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Setting a GOAL for yourself

I wanted to end it there at 'Finding your Niche' but I thought I would just slip in one more tip for you guys who have read this far. It is about setting goals for yourself.

When I started Steemit, I made several goals both short-term and long-term. This was because I know I am the kind of guy who doesn't move if not given a deadline. So in order to progress on Steemit, I forced myself to set several goals. One which was a daily goal.

My Daily Goal was to post at least ONE content everyday including weekends. As I'm not a blogger and I don't usually write, I started off slow. I started with short to medium length posts which was about 300 words and below. later on, I could see myself improving in quality of the content that I produced. Practice makes perfect.

My Weekly Goal was to have at least 30$ payout within 6 days. I used www.steemnow.com to check and I tried to maintain above 30$ payout within the 6 days period. When I started Steemit, STEEM and SBD were at 0.84USD so having my accumulated payout within 6 days at 30$ is consider a lot for me. Now, STEEM and SBD has risen quite a lot from being just at 0.84USD, so I would suggest setting a goal that is appropriate for yourself.

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These are some of the things that I've learned in my journey here on Steemit. I hope you will find these tips useful to help you gain more exposure on Steemit. There are definitely a lot more if I would to go in-depth into each tip here but let's save that for another day shall we?

And with that, I wish you all success on Steemit~

_{Photos are taken from unsplash}

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Thank You

If you like what I do, check out my other posts on my artworks, photography & animations.

I'm also open for

Personalized Steemit Profile Banner,logos & GIFs

DM me on discord : zord189#7776

Credits to @pinstory & @coloringiship for this lovely photo of me.

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Animated Banner Created By @zord189