RE: Just another day on Steemit, why I feel helpless.
You made an important point here!
One of the problems with excessive vote buying is that people are able to completely skip community engagement.
When I joined Steem 18 months ago there was a completely different philosophy. Selfish behavior was not very well seen, and everybody was focussed on pushing the overall growth and sustainability of the community. Now I've maintained these values at least for my own blog, where I'm close to reaching 7,000 followers and around 27,000 Steem only by blogging every day now - and without having paid for only one vote :-) I have amazing conversations with people from all over the world that are often prolonged in the chatrooms then. Some of them have even become friends I meet in real life.
I would love to see that type of culture on the whole platform. But maybe that's a too romantic and unrealistic wish :-)
Compared to 2016, the culture of Steem has made a 180° turn. Self-voting and excessive vote buying have become respectable, while engagement and dedication have become rather secondary. Maybe it has to be like that, I don't know.
From my point of view it's hard to believe that a decreasing engagement in a social network will help to strengthen the eco-system in the long run. Buuuut, we can just wait and see what happens :-)
Welcome to steemit btw, just seen that you're one of the newer users! Hope you enjoy the ride so far.
Well, I think the difference from 2016, is just that, the community was small. It was easier to be a community. Steemit is too big to be a "community" now.
I always see people rave about "Steemit gains X-amount of new users!," "Steemit has reached top 1,000 websites!"
However, this isn't a good thing for a "community." It makes it too large, and quickly the idea behind it falls apart. It has become the next instagram. Too much content, being posted too fast; it's impossible to see it all. Conversely, it's impossible for new users to be seen. Hence, upvote bots (advertising).
I don't see how bots decrease the social engagement. For example: a new user makes a post, and within the first 5 minutes, it's buried, never to be seen again, and no chance of anyone finding it unless they scroll for hours on "new" and happen to click it. There post gets 0 social engagement. Example 2: New user makes a post, decides to spend his OWN money promoting post. Post gets on trending, people actually click it, and this user not only gets some upvotes, but a handful of followers; MORE social engagement.
Define selfish. To me the person buying their upvotes, is not selfish at all. Selfishness, are people who refuse to vote, and think that no one is worthy of such a vote. Or a whale/dolphin handing out a .5% upvote. WOW YOU GAVE THEM $0.05 CENTS!! Vote is essentially meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Whales/dolphins don't take the time to vote, and minnows are to self righteous to actually vote on people they follow. Also, whales/dolphins want to sit a preach about "invest in steem" "steem wow!" when really they are just hyping steem to protect their own investment. I don't see them flagging on the regular... (they don't want to lose their sp). I don't see them voting on the regular with meaningful votes. That is selfish.
I think your success is simply because of timing. I think if you were to make a new account, and start over, it would be 10x more difficult.
I have 250 followers, some of these followers have big accounts. I have made post that I have spent HOURS on. 60 pics, 2000, words. Maybe its not great content, but what constantly makes it to trending would tell me otherwise. Yet I don't even get 5 upvotes, or more then 10 views... where are my 250 followers at!? Where are the bigger accounts that followed me because I supported one of their post?! Oh, they are too big time for a minnow.
People who road the early wave are not giving enough back IMO.
There's a difference between followers and followers :-) Those who follow you because you are trending are actually not those who'll come back voting and commenting your stuff when you're not trending. Only through organic growth you'll get the right ones - those you'll have meaningful conversations with. It takes a lot more time, but it's also a lot more sustainable.
Btw how do you personally engage with people? I saw that you only follow 9 accounts. Many people use their feed to build like their own community around them. How do you handle it? Also usually you need to invest more than you get back first. That's at least how I perceived it in the very beginning. You start following and supporting others, while you mostly invest time without getting much in return. But then over time that turns around, and you need to invest less time for getting more output. Does that sound like a plan to you? :-)
With selfish I was referring to self-voting. Lots of accounts vote more for themselves than for others. You can check this here: https://steemworld.org/@imlikett
Yours is at 6.45%. Very good though :-)
Also what helps a lot to get more visibility is curating content. Yesterday you only voted 4 times, while you can actually do this 10 times per day without your VP decreasing considerably. Sorry for diving into your numbers, but I thought this might be helpful to you :-) Maybe those 250 followers will engage more with you if you also engage more with them.
Steem on! :-)
Btw nice conversation.
How many people one follows should have nothing do with how much they are followed in return. Why do I only have 9 followers, how do I build the community around me? Simple, I follow people I want to follow, not just follow for the sake of following. Hence I only follow 9 people right now, and I am engaging with a majority of their post. My ratio is actually pretty standard compared to those that have 5k+ and follow about 400 people.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with self-voting, and it is a reward for gaining higher vote value. This shows you have built something, and should be able to reward yourself; the hard work has paid off. I'm voting period. If I wasn't voting at all, I would say you have a point.
Again, I should have to engage in the whole "follow for follow" instagram mentality just to get support from people who followed me. I think that is disingenuous. If people only followed me to get a follow back, sorry... unfollow me then. Just because you liked my content and followed, doesn't mean I have to follow you regardless of what content you are making.
Right, and this is what I brought up earlier and I will say again.
If you remade an account now, it would be 100x harder to gain traction. Steemit was smaller, had a better mindset, and so on... What helped you gain a following in the beginning, would not work now, or it would be a huge tedious grind just like any other social media. If that weren't the case, no one would use voting bots to help gain traction.
Nice convo though. Cheers.
Nope. The complete opposite :-) Engagement isn't made through clicking the follow button, it's made through conversations like the one we're having right now :-)
This is still a social network and the reward is just an incentive to light up interaction. So my theory is that engagement is the ultimate key to success in a tokenized social environment.
I love how you used sheer effort and not pay for one vote. I am not relying on steemit as an income source at this point. I like the platform. Yet the reality of letting go of trying to earn and promote leaves me with 20 views, 10 votes, and $.0.10 on all my articles. Sometimes I wonder if it is worth writing if no one really sees it.