Comments For Fun and Profit on Steem
If you want more followers, comment on posts. This is common advice and it’s good, BUT, there’s a right and a wrong way to do it.
Here are two examples - one is the right / natural way to comment and connect with somebody. The other one is a terrible way to do it. I blacked out the name for the “bad” example so as not to be rude.
Example #1: Commenting Done Right
While browsing the “Steemit” category, I stumbled onto this post and figured I’d take a look:
It was a good post. 
Look at what happened next:
As you can see - this is a real conversation! Neither one of us is asking the other person to follow, or begging for upvotes. We kept talking a bit more even beyond what you can see in this photo.
After this interaction, I decided to follow him. I didn’t even look to see if he followed me, because that is not the point. It’s just a great example of how natural human engagement can be enough to get a real follower.
NOTE: I wrote this post a few days ago - and since then, to be honest, I had to unfollow this dude cuz he posts like 25 fucking times a day. Nonetheless, the example is still good and I do wish him the best
If he had responded with “thanks, follow me!”, I definitely would NOT have followed him. Which brings me to example #2:
Example #2: What Not to Do
I received this comment for one of my posts a few days ago:
…do I really need to explain why this is bad? This is as blatant of a “follow for follow” comment as I’ve ever seen.
Think about it. What’s the point of this? Who benefits? I have no desire to follow this user, in fact as you can see I asked them to not spam my comments again in the future.
Just don't do this. It doesn’t help anybody. If you build up a bunch of followers with tactics like this, I can assure you that they won’t be quality users. They’ll be spammers at best, scammers at worst. Users who provide real value don’t have the patience for this kind of thing.
Getting The Right Followers
Want more followers? Comment on lots of posts - but do it wisely! Contribute value to the Steem ecosystem by facilitating the kind of conversations that you want to see - GOOD ones.
Have you had any notably good or bad commenting experiences lately? Share your stories in the comments and I’ll upvote my favorites (worth ~$1.30 :-D) - but please black out usernames for negative examples.
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