Day 150...What have I learned and how can that benefit you??? More than you might imagine...

So my Steemd.com profile tells me that

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Day 150 is upon me!

That kinda sounds like one of those milestones at which we should review, right?

• So what has Steemit taught me so far?
• What have I done particularly well and should focus on more?
• What would I do differently to get off to the best possible start?
• What have I done that was a complete dead duck?
• What do I see as the future of this platform and the blockchain in general?

Full disclosure: I bloody love Steemit and the Steem blockchain

I have enjoyed my time here immensely and I see no reason that I would leave the platform anytime soon. I have made some great friends here and I love interacting with them on the Discord servers too, I especially love the radio shows made by awesome Steemians on Discord, they've taught me so much, answered so, so many questions that were burning within and directed my Steem journey more times than I can count. This leads me nicely onto my first pro-tip* for new, longtime or even just jaded Steemians...

1. COMMUNITY.

The community here is second to none, don't get me wrong, you may have to search for the truly golden people and groups that enhance the journey massively, but that search is so worthwhile and I gotta tell you, it can be so much fun to make worthwhile connections here. I have genuinely made friends here whom I value so much. These friends were initially Steemit friends but over time became just friends. If you are brand new, wide eyed and fresh onto the blockchain...Trust me this is the single greatest thing you can do to turbo-charge your Steemit experience. There is one exceptionally effective way to make these friends and worthwhile connections...

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2. ENGAGEMENT.

Engagement is simply a fancy way of saying comment on peoples posts, resteeming the posts that speak to you, entering contests. If you really wanna power-up your journey join Discord I cannot emphasize this enough! if you are unfamiliar with Discord it is a text and audio app with literally tens of thousands of channels/servers that was once thought of only for gamers to chat in text or audio form whilst gaming. Discord has come a long way it is now used for a multitude of reasons the most noble of these is for classroom based e-learning. Many Steemians be they Minnows, Dolphins or Whales now engage with each-other in a whole variety of Steemit based pursuits. There are audio classrooms that teach how to engage effectively, curate well, write poetry, improve creative writing, write songs, music, books if it's useful to the blockchain...It's there!

Something that may interest and perhaps excite you to learn is that Discord is full of curation radio shows, curation shows have dedicated curators who search for great content and share it as part of the show this often results in many new followers, up-votes and resteems. Simply attending many of these shows, being part of the audience or an active speaker in an audio channel can result in rewards! If there is something new on the blockchain such as @steemmonsters @dustsweeper or a contest offering hundreds or occasionally even thousands worth of prizes, SBD, Steem or massive giveaways of a brand new promising crypto Discord goes into overdrive and everybody knows the new developments fast.

If you checkout the graphic above it is a screenshot from a Discord server, the server is run by @poeticsnake although most of us more affectionately know her as Snekky. On the left of the screen you will see the logos for many of the Steemit/crypto groups I am a part of, just to the right of this you will see a list of rooms/channels/servers within that one community On the far right you will see all the people present in the text chat/audio-chat/radio show. In the centre you will see many awesome members chatting away, dreaming up new projects, creating collaborative plans, contests or just having one hell of a laugh and joke! I hope I convinced you as I believe Discord is the secret to hitting the ground running and it takes moments to join and install...Just don't get addicted and neglect your blog! I did not intend to spend nearly as much time on explaining Discord but I sincerely believe it is that important if you intend to grow and do it faster.

Below is an actual Discord invitation link.
https://discord.gg/zBdzN3

Simply click on the link and it will take you to a page that looks like this screenshot below. you can usually see who invited you.

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3. CURATION.

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Be an awesome curator...This I really cannot stress enough. Content and curation is the lifeblood of this platform and the very survival of the blockchain depends upon it! Many people believe there is a finely tuned, precise art to curation but I see it very simply. If you read something you like give the author who has toiled over it some encouragement and recognition through an up-vote. If the post really speaks to you and you believe it is so fantastic or important that others simply have to read it, then resteem it to your blog too, this opens up the possibility of a whole new bunch of people (your followers) having the opportunity to see it who would otherwise most likely have missed it. The final point is the one that can really make someones day leave a really amazing, world class comment to tell the author just how much you enjoyed their post...My biggest skill on the blockchain is making fantastic comments and I love doing it but I too have received some comments that absolutely made my day. You never know the point someone is at as they read your comment, they may have almost given up and you have the power to relight their creative fire...This is an awesome gift.
You don't need me to warn you about the pitfalls of leaving a comment that simply says "great post" you are way smarter than that...when you leave a comment, make sure they know that you stopped by 😁

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If I can offer you one piece of advice about the biggest mistake new curators make...Don't spend hours trying to find the perfect post that is gonna pay you a big reward. If you are still fairly early in your journey even if you do find it there are way too many variables on how the 25% curation reward is split. The likelihood is that someone with far more SP than you will take the lion's share of the reward. To grow your SP and reputation simply engage a lot and vote often, always being mindful of your current VP (voting power) If you don't know how to find this I highly recommend going to Steemd.com and adding your username after the web address. See below, obviously you would remove my name and input yours...Yup! I know you didn't need me to tell you that, but people always say stuff like that so I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon too!

https://steemd.com/@stevenwood

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Most of what I have said can be boiled down to what I often describe as my 3 C's...

* Curation.

* Connection.

* Community.

Which kinda begs the question as to why I've used 8 billion words so far? The easy answer is that I never use 6 words when 112 will do the job just as well 😁

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Here is my get started super-fast on Steemit cheat sheet...

• Engage like your keyboard is on steroids...Seriously...Comment, comment, comment.
• When you meet quality people, check out their posts. Who do they interact with a lot. That may be a circle you want to move in.
• Post regular and share your personality instead of just a story or an idea, make sure each post contains the essence of you.
• Resteem worthy initiatives and community minded projects. We have a chance to make a real difference here...Don't waste it.
• Enter contests for some fast SBD or Steem. This will increase your SP faster and in the early days those small wins can feel like winning the lottery! Many contests are grossly under-entered if somebody has gone to the trouble of running one, show them some love by taking part.
• Join communities that share common interests with your own and forge strong connections with influencers in that area.
• If you make the awesome decision to join Discord, join the groups and communities that offer mentoring, radio shows with Steemit tips, tricks and hints. Look me up same name as Steemit. I love to help!
• Try and forget the rewards...create content for enjoyment or to help others. As Zig Ziglar famously said "You can have everything you want in life if you help enough people to get what they want."
• Try and always be community minded. if you are here for the long-haul this will stand you in good stead, people will learn you are a person of integrity.
• There is a strong sense of pay-it-forward on Steemit always aim to be a part of this mentality.
• The final tip is a biggie...It must be strictly adhered to at all times and is completely inflexible...If you get this one wrong you will be tipped on the Blockchain scrapheap before your journey even gets started...

You want to know what it is? Are you sure...absolutely certain? OK...Here goes...

HAVE FUN!

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I genuinely believe that is numero uno...Without fun everything is just...Uhm...Work! Who the hell wants another job? If you want to build a community then surely fun is the greatest incentive and an awesome cornerstone.

I am pretty happy with my progress after 150 days. I could definitely have pushed myself more, grown faster. Much of my time is spent on curation of some fabulous authors, this is important to me so I do not mind that it impedes into the time I have to write posts. Making friends on the platform gives me a warm, fuzzy, unicorny feeling inside and I spend time learning about and sharing with many of these people on Discord too. I am closing in on 50 reputation which I am very happy with. Many of my achievements here may seem insignificant to many but there is no race and even if there is, ultimately is only ever really with yourself.

The blockchain offers us the very real opportunity to make a genuine difference in the real world. Just imagine the difference a dollar or two a day could make to some of the poorest people on the planet? This combined with the potential to leverage the efforts of many of us creates a unique proposition the likes of which the world has never seen before.

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