Hello Steemians!
As I was overwhelmed by the number of newbies who attended in the 7th Cebu Steemit Blogger's Meet Up, I was compelled to share what I think are the ways to a fulfilling steemit experience.
This post is intended for the newbies here on steemit. Although I'm still technically a newbie, I would like to share the things that I did to have a holistic steemit experience.
As a disclaimer, I would like to point out that you don't have to follow everything that I did. You can formulate your own, as long as you know where to put yourself in all of this. In essence, being aware of what you can and can't do is the key to achieving your desired steemit presence.
What I learned from 
Without further ado, here are the things that I do when I'm not posting:
I Visit the Trending and Hot Pages
The Trending page is the front line of steemit. This is where most of the drama happens. This is also a page for the whales. Why? Because I observed that most of the trending posts are from whales. The trending page rarely changes because the trending posts stay trending until another post overtakes it or it reached 7 days already. This is where I observe what types of topics usually end up trending.
The Trending page is also where the whale wars are happening. The case of
and 
is the greatest example. While I'm not affected by all of the drama, it's good to know that you are aware of what's happening in the front line.
It's also where I read
's travel posts. I have no idea if she's involved in fraudulent activities as claimed and I wouldn't care to know. All I care is her travel posts which give me an idea of how a travel post should be written. I learned from her posts that if you think your post is already long, it's not long enough. Her posts are a complete package. It's too long that sometimes I have to skip some parts.
The Hot page, on the other hand, is where I stay much longer. It is where I usually found authors who are worth following. This is where gems are usually found. I think that the Hot page should be considered as the front line of steemit because the changes are much faster, giving everyone an equal opportunity of exposure. Unlike the trending page where only those with bigger SPs are having the exposure.
I don't usually dwell at the New page because of the number of new contents created every second. I visit occasionally, but not as frequent as the hot page.
I Engage in My Core Group and in My Local Community
Perhaps one of the best things, if not the best, that happened in steemit is the formation of communities, sub-communities, and core groups. The main goal of these communities is to help every steemian members to grow in the platform.
Communities are where questions are asked and answered, newbies are incubated and molded, and announcements and news are shared. Growing together in a community is much faster and more solid than growing alone.
I might have shared this already, but let me share this again: The formation of communities offline is much more dynamic than what happened online. One prime example is the growth of 
Aside from bigger communities, there's also a core group being formed. This is much smaller, maybe composed of a few to a dozen steemians. Here, sharing of ideas is much more intimate than in bigger communities. Friendships were forged and I have been grateful to steemit because I found life-long friends because of this platform.
I Comment on Introduction Posts
I don't have to scour through #introduceyourself tags because the likes of 
My introduction post earned $0.04, but there are a few comments that made me feel that I was welcomed by the platform. Newbies now are much luckier because the community leaders are actively promoting them. It's a good way to involve the community in welcoming new and promising steemians.
I Reply on All Comments to My Posts
This is what I learned from 
This is my common procedure when it comes to comments: When it's my comment to a post, I usually let them to comment last. But when it's a comment to my post, I will never leave one comment not replied. If I have nothing to reply, I'll just upvote the latest comment.
Of course, there exceptions when it comes to comments. I only reply engaging and something that adds value to my post. I will not reply begging or fishing for upvotes and follows. It is because they don't add value to my post.
I have come to a point in my steemit presence that I measured the success of my posts by the amount of engagement it gets more than the amount of potential payout it has. It's difficult at first to do this since we are so eager to earn, but I conditioned myself in the idea that earning will always follow after. It's more of the intrinsic motivation than the extrinsic one, which is the monetary reward.
I Read Other People's Content
I think this is another misconception of newbies that steemit is a community of content creators. Yes, we are a community of content creators, but we are also a community of content consumers. The internal steemit economy thrives and will continue to thrive because of the internal mechanism of content creation and curation.
Reading other people's work will also give me an idea of what that person thinks and how he managed to collate his thought process to put it into writing. This will help me see things in a different perspective and will make me see things from the eyes of others other than mine.
Reading other contents also help me generate new ideas on what to write. I have an alarm at 8:30 PM that would remind me to read or write something. If I'm not writing, I'm reading. This will help me to keep my creative juices flowing.
I Study the Technical Jargons of the Cryptocurrency World
Steemit is beyond blogging. It is a gateway to a new technology that is shaking the conventional idea of money. Don't get me started on this because I'm still learning. There are still a lot of new concepts to digest and I'm taking it at my own pace.
One thing is for sure, the social media and the view of money has been undergoing a paradigm shift. If you don't adapt to those shifts, you will surely miss out.
Decentralized social media is slowly gaining momentum and I believe no one can stop it. Conventional social media has been opposing it because they will lose every potential revenue they can get. Let's start with Facebook banning all ads pertaining to cryptocurrencies. And there's a rumor circulating that it will soon block contents regarding decentralized platforms. I would say it's just a delaying tactic of what's inevitable to happen.
I Travel
Perhaps this is the most relatable of all the things that I do. When I travel, I can see the world from another vantage point. New ideas will pop up in my mind and I will be refreshed from the monotonous and exhausting work life.
Travelling makes me feel like a journalist or a documentary reporter. It showcases my investigative and naturally-curious self. It makes me feel like Kara David of iwitness, my favorite documentary reporter.
I don't have to expound this much further because I think travelling is the most common activity of steemians, specially the millenials and the transitioning individuals.
I think this ends here. I'll add more in a separate post if I can think of other activities that would spark my interest.
Images other than my screenshots are taken from pixabay.com