My first Steemit birthday!
Does a month qualify as a birthday? For the purposes of fulfilling my excitement, I'm counting it!
So, actually, I'm a day late. I didn't have adequate time to write a post yesterday, but so far I've been fairly consistent in breaking rules, so I'll continue to do so. In this post I want to mainly target newcomers, being that this post will mainly cover my mediocre progress so far and some tips and resources I've found. But, like always, if you want to check it out anyway, you are more than welcome to!
I joined Steemit very zero knowledge of what the platform was. My girlfriend's brother(who is an avid crypto-trader) gave me just enough description to be interested, as I had been interested in the crypto world for quite some time but have had no money to invest. I signed up and a grueling 10 days later I got the e-mail saying my account was confirmed.
This e-mail came on January 3rd as I was just about to go to bed after a long day of wresting with my dog, Raiden. I quickly jumped up and started to create my account.
My first mistake I made was my introduction post. As I mentioned above, I had very little knowledge of the website. I was eager, and looking back I wish I had taken the time to make my first few posts of a higher quality. I rushed it, and as a result, no one saw my post.
And that's fine
It certainly wasn't the end of the world for me. However, if you're new to the platform, and wish to get a kick start on getting some attention, I suggest taking some time to explore some other #introduceyourself posts and getting a good sense of which are getting attention. Again, it's not the end of the world, but I have noticed that users who's first posts are well received gain success exponentially faster here.
After a few posts getting no attention, and my initial attempts at finding people to connect with, I made my second mistake. I followed a ton of people. Not very selectively, either. I made the common mistake of mass-following in hopes that the small percentage of people who actually took the time to check out my page would pay off in the end.
I did make some friends as a result. And for that, I don't necessarily regret it. However, even after spending an unpleasant amount of time trying to sort out who I'm following, and although I essentially tenth'd that original mess, my feed is still a huge mess, and I often forget about it. Your feed can be VERY useful, or very useless, depending on how you go about this.
By the way, I only unfollowed inactive users, bots, and people I would most likely never interact with. Anyone who had followed me or interacted with me in any way, I continued to follow. I respect all of you quite a bit :)
A quick glance at my page shows that I have a lot of followers. Well, a lot of those accounts are inactive. So, really, it didn't do much for me that I couldn't have done organically with less work overall.
Learn about Steemit, STEEM, SBD, etc.
Something else I wish I had spent more of my time doing was using the readily available resources to learn more about the platform. Documents such as the Steem Blue Paper and the Steem White Paper offer very useful information as to understanding how all of this works. I wish I had read them during the time I was waiting for my account to get verified.
After becoming more familiar with that, look into how the market works. Look for patterns, learn when to cash in your credits and how. I, for one, have a lot of faith in Steem and although I definitely could use the small amount of rewards I've received here I have invested all back into the platform in the form of Steem Power, and although the choice is always yours, I'd suggest doing the same if you'd like to see your account grow. But you'll learn about all this as you use the site.
Explore
If you plan on people just happening upon your page, well, good luck. Especially at the beginning. But, this site is meant to be fun, useful and as a method of community building -- so use it as such.
You'll find a lot more people find you when you find them. I am very avid about the use of thoughtful commenting, and if you are persistent in visiting users' pages and interacting with them, they will eventually start coming to your page. It's how I have received most of my active followers and I value every one of them.
It's a fun way to find more people you want to find, too. If there's one user's page you enjoy visiting daily, you'll probably start clicking some of the names of the people they mention, or that are commenting on their material as much as you are. Keep looking in the nooks & crannies.
Relax
I've seen a lot of positivity in my time here on Steemit. I've seen a lot of negativity too. Not so much peer-to-peer, but negativity about people's lack of success here on Steemit and how the market hasn't exploded during their short time here.
This is supposed to be fun, and should be treated as such. But, obviously, everyone drools over the possibility of Steemit leading to financial freedom, myself included. People come on here, put minimal effort in, and then make posts complaining about how they haven't quit their job yet. Now, no one's really going to want to support the guy running into the school yelling "WHY DOESN'T ANYONE NOTICE ME?" In fact, I think human history teaches us to be wary of such individuals(kidding, maybe not so PC. Sorry).
But also, if you want to have success here, you're going to have to put in work.
My personal take:
I've put what I believe to be an above-average amount of time into this website. If you look at my wallet, you'll see I'm certainly not exactly a Steemit success story. However, I am very, very interested in the platform and have been enjoying it very much. I've also been using the site as a resource to research other things, such as cryptocurrencies in general. If I can get paid to do so, however minimally, then why not?
It's an escalating pattern, as well. It's a given that you will have to put in more work in the beginning if you want to be a success in the end. Am I saying that I think I will ever be a Steemit success? Probably not.
But there are other things to consider:
1. We have no idea what will happen with STEEM
It could go anywhere. I've heard a lot of people speculate it could reach $100 by the end of the year. If that were the case, that would mean my current 53 STEEM, now worth just over $200, would be worth $5300 USD. That's well over twice as much as I make in a month at my 50+ hour/week intensive job. I've heard numbers even higher, (even $2000), but who knows. Maybe it won't budge. But you earned it by interacting with others around the world so.. why not?
2. Steemit is growing
Steemit, as a platform, is growing immensely in popularity. Although it seems very obvious to some friends I've made who have been here longer, well, it's not as obvious to me as a newcomer.
Until I look at some numbers:
Steemd shows I was the 556,500 th member to join. A very nice, round number, yes I know.
Steemworld shows a current member count of over 710,000 members.
That's over 150 thousand new members in a month. Considering the platform's been around for well over a year, well, just think about what that means.
It means there are going to be a lot of people very jealous of you soon, if you work hard now. And what will they want from you? Attention. And how will they get that? By giving it to you.
That's it, for now
Now that I am finally starting to learn more and feel more confident in my understandings of the site, I am planning on making more posts about advice. There was originally a lot more that I wanted to fit in here, but I think the length of my ramblings is nearing an undesirable affect.
One last thing I will mention, however, is the importance of finding users that create posts designed to help their followers. I look up to 
Thanks for stopping by :)
Manna - Earn what we all deserve
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