So your new to Steemit? If you're anything like me your introduction and initial education about Steemit came from Youtube - for me that was Joe Parys and Jerry Banfield, and so these were obvious choices of people to follow (note - I don’t follower either of them now!). Now what? A common trap for new Steemians to fall into is to mass follow ‘whales’ or accounts with massive Steempower in the hope that one of them will upvote you- this generally leads to disappointment. Today I thought I would share a few tips about how to follow people that will be most beneficial for you.
Why not just follow all the whales?
This is what lots of newbies do, and in general these whales won't even know you exist! I have nothing against following whales or any accounts in particular, but I believe in following accounts because you are genuinely interested in their content or feel you are learning from them.
Follow people for their content, rather than how much SP they have!
The reason that I unfollowed Jerry is that I feel he makes Steemit sound to easy - just invest and throw money at it and you will make money - it isn’t that easy Jerry! When I started I was concerned about how much SP people had but now it doesn't bother me. If you want to know what some of the larger accounts are up to you can just check the trending page, or check out their blog (yes you can read someone's blog without subsequently following them!)
Note - Some of the larger accounts are also Steem witnesses so it pays to at least check out their page.
Don’t mass follow
If I read an article I generally check out the persons blog and get a feel for what they are all about rather than just blindly following. Some people might write a really good article you enjoy but may also post loads of photos/memes/jokes that you don’t want to see.
Don't be afraid to unfollow people!
I go through my ‘following’ page fairly often, and unfollow anyone that isn’t providing information I enjoy. I generally unfollow people who resteem to often, as this just clogs up my feed - I followed you for the content you produce, not the content others produce! On this note, I made the mistake of following a couple of ‘resteem bots’ when I joined - I recommend not doing this. Some of these accounts might resteem 20 + articles a day (of varying topics and quality), and again they just clog up your feed.
I reccomend doing this fairly regularly - its amazing how quickly the list of people you are following grows, and I think that monitoring this and keeping it relevant is important to enjoying your feed on Steemit and finding the blogs that you enjoy.
Follow your interests and passions
One of the best things to do in terms of following the ‘right’ people is to follow those who create content you are interested in. For me this meant spending some time sifting through the tags of music, crypto, technology and Steemit. I sometimes find people have written an awesome blog about a topic I am interested in, so check out their blog and it's mostly about a different topic, and so I don't follow them.
You can learn the majority of how Steem works from the white and blue papers and the FAQ, but there are also lots of gray areas and debates, such as the use of bots and upvoting your own content. For this I suggest following (or atleast reading) a variety of blogs about the ethical side of Steem and creating your own opinion.
Conclusion
I could conclude by suggesting some Steemians who I feel are ‘essential’ for everyone to follow, but I feel that this is a personal preference - just because I enjoy someone's content it doesn’t mean that everyone else will.
What are your thoughts - do you have a ‘following’ strategy?