Being two years old, in Steem years, it makes me a veteran, when compared with new comers, and a toddler when hanging out with long term users that are proud Steemians for almost four years or so. This time spent in here doesn't make me a Steem expert, but it really offered me a bit of experience and it helped me learn something about its game, while hitting my head to the roof a couple of times.
I'm not tall, so my chances to hit the roof even when jumping, are less than minimal. Metaphorically speaking I hit the roof on Steem a couple of times, and I walked paths with no destination as well. Now, this post is mainly addressed to new comers, that might read it...or not, so don't bother about it if you're already a Steem rock star. Unless you wanna entertain your eyes with my nonsense for a couple of minutes, but don't tell the kids I'm talking nonsense.
Addressing the new users of Steem, that seem to be increasing by the day, since we are in a bull market and the psychology is changing, I would like to invite them to approach Steem as guests for a few days, after getting that confirmation mail and logging in to Steem, and not rush to blog too much during these days. I have done it the wrong way, and trust me nobody cares too much about a new piece of plankton's blogs. The wheels were already spinning when you came so be careful for your jump in the train.
Sniffing through the trending page, through tens of posts that are uploaded every hour and trying to understand the game of Steem, will come at help much more than posting two times a day or more, and spending two hours per post to try and make it a Forbes article of the year. Steem is quite a large pond and getting to know its fish and the environment would help you a lot when actually starting to pedal to the metal for becoming the best blogger this platform has ever seen.
Even if you already are a great blogger, and the truth might be that on other blogging sites you could be an alpha male with limousines, hot chicks and Cuban cigars, in here the chances might be that nobody knows about you, so you kind of start from scratch. Hence, I would advise any new user to choose carefully his tags, after taking a tour of Steem and pushing the content creation buttons. I don't know how many pay any attention at all on tags, but I see them highly relevant.
In my opinion there are quite a few whale curators that simply scroll through tags every day and upvote appealing posts, and one of those might be yours if you open your eyes and select the relevant ones for your post. I've seen plenty of good posts, or decent to say the least, that use tags that are completely irrelevant. Now there's the hive mania that has just began and if you wanna max out your exposure to your blog choosing a proper hive to post your content to might have a huge difference on a post's payout and attention.
Walking the lone wolf path, that I've been on for months, when I joined Steem is definitely not a good idea either. You might be Shakespeare and still be overlooked sipping some Jack at a table in the wrong corner of the bar, if you don't talk to people. I don't encourage spamming with facebook type of comments but I would highly encourage new people on Steem to express themselves and to do that on a bold tone. You don't have to have the same vision as the author of the post your commenting on, so feel free to share yours. I appreciate a lot this type of comments and I'm sure I ain't the only one.
It's constructive communication what you get from having shared, or sharing slightly different opinions, on Steem. If we would all agree with each other and falsely appreciate each other for anything, we would live in a dull world, and I've had enough with facebook. Hence I, and many others, point out that communication, the genuine one, is highly necessary and appreciated on Steem. We even have engage tokens, that I have to document myself a bit about cuz I'm left behind.
Avoid niches by all means, it's my humble advice, because you might get to a dead end road. I remember at the beginning of 2018 that I was following someone that was posting every day on crypto topics, and at some point, considering that we were entering in a bear market, his blog got somehow over saturated with crypto and his inspiration to blog was experiencing a burnout. Hence he was asking his followers what they would like him to post about... Like Picasso ever asked the public to give him a subject to paint because he ran out of ideas and lost the notes he had in a pocket while on the road to the Bitcoin ATM.
I bet all my money on inspiration, and it has never disappointed. If I feel like posting about the weather, than a weather post it shall be, and I'm not deflated if nobody interacts, but at least I consumed my desire and followed my inspiration. Now I have free room for other topics to arise. Forcing blogs and beating dead horses didn't get nobody to trending page, unless you are SBD potato or burning post. My type of bloggers, in which category I can include myself as well, are like drunk teachers in a bar. You can talk with them about anything and they always have a new story to tell.
Imagine hanging around every day with someone that only talks sports. Even if you are a sports enthusiast at some point you're gonna avoid that person. Embracing diversity seems more appealing to me and that's why it became my guru for this blog. Enclosing advice is, as the title say, don't rush to the living-room in the Steem house, make a tour first, ask when you have questions and don't be afraid to share your straight forward opinions. Case closed.
Thanks for attention,
Adrian