I see many posting about how STEEM is rigged and that people cannot be successful on here. That is completely untrue. In fact, I believe if one does not succeed on STEEM, it is that person's fault. There is nobody to blame but oneself.
Now before some people get up in arms, I am not one of those people who believes that a lack of success in life is due to the individual This is especially true in the financial arena. I am well aware that 95% of the people are screwed before they exit the womb. The present system is rigged against the average person even in the advanced countries. In the third world nations, forget about it. There are only a select few who are fortunate enough to be in positions to succeed..
That said, STEEM is a crypto-economic system. It requires only a few things. The path to success is very simple albeit not easy.
So let us dive right in to what is required:
Foresight
One of the keys is the ability to see what is going on without it being overtly obvious. Technology is an interesting animal which provides glimpses of the future while maintaining a great deal of mystery and uncertainty. We never can know how things will evolve hence we make projections to give us an idea of the possibilities that exist. In other words, we are seeking a range where we believe the technology will go.
STEEM is no different. I cannot tell you what will take place going forward. I can look at what is occurring to get an idea of what is crucial. Since the first of the year, the development on here accelerated. That is a key barometer to watch. The advancement of different applications is what is going to help awaken the masses to what STEEM has to offer.
If STEEM had 100M people utilizing it, then it would not be the opportunity it is. Seeing things after the fact is easy. The question is can you see what is taking place here before it happens. Approaching this with the expectation that it operate like the other centralized, social media sites is not exhibiting foresight. In fact, it exemplifies a complete inability to distinguish between the two. This is one of the reasons why so many people came and left.
Proper Expectations
No, you are not going to make thousands of dollars off your first couple posts. That is misleading and is foolish for people to say. This is a long-term process with many ups and downs. It is a technology which means nothing goes 100% smoothly. There are going to be a lot of things happening, both positive and negative.
One of the biggest mistakes the STEEM community makes, or I should say certain members, is to set up people with unrealistic expectations by espousing nonsense about getting rich in 90 days off STEEM. That is no likely to happen. There is one way to make a quick million off STEEM; it was told to me by a guy in the oil exploration business.
"Do you know how you get a pile of money in the oil exploration business? Start with a bigger pile of money."
The proper expectation is long-term consistent growth of one's account both in terms of SP and interaction.
Understanding Social Media Success
This is a social media site. I do not get why so many do not understand that. Naturally, this is something completely new with a different user base than anywhere else. Hence, when one joins, he or she is basically starting over.
Those who left did not excel at social networking on STEEM. Interaction is the key. Too many people come on here wanting everyone to upvote their content without doing anything to develop a following. Then they slam STEEM for being a corrupt system where those with SP don't care about them. The truth is that most with SP do not even know those people even exist.
Hard Work
This is something that almost everyone who left failed to embrace.
Success on STEEM requires a lot of hard work. This is not something that is likely going to net huge results in the first month. Yes, one could find a huge SP account that likes what is posted and gain a powerful follower. If that happens, wonderful. However, the more likely path is many hours put into this blockchain.
It might require posting 90 articles, few that get above $.05 payout. This is how it works. There are many successful people on STEEM who did not get much in reward for their first hundred posts. What did they do? Posted another 100....then another 100...and so on.
STEEM requires a lot of hours like any other business. Many fail in the "real" world simply because they will not put in the time. There are many who have great ideas at just the right time yet fail to follow through. This is a key component.
Consistency
This is vital. One needs to be consistently on here, like every day to generate a following. I do not care how good your content is, if you are not constantly tending to your flock, they will leave. In short, you need to operate like you are forgettable, because you are.
Sure, there might be some who ask after a couple months, what ever happened to so and so. But the truth is that the online world churns people like no place else. If you are not consistent on here, you will disappear from their attention span. It is really that simple.
So there you have it. That is what it takes to succeed on STEEM. There is no magical formula. Many say that those with SP are lucky. Perhaps a few were. During my time on STEEM, I witnessed a lot comment how the early people were "lucky" to get STEEM for 10 cents. Certainly, that is a help. But we need to realize these people also took advantage of the opportunity to get STEEM at that price. Look at the price today. Many were saying how lucky people were to get STEEM at 80 cents. We are there now and how many of those people are buying?
The steps that I outlined can be followed by anyone. If you disagree with me, please state it. But before you do, let me tell you what I will do. If you say that STEEM doesn't work, I am going to look at your account. If you have under 7,500 posts, I am going to call you out on it because there is no way to be a failure with 7,500 posts or more.
If there is one key that I found works well for everyone, it is commenting. For those who truly want to succeed, post thousands of relevant comments. Spend hours adding to the STEEM ecosystem with relevant thoughts to other people's posts. As we all know from the stats, STEEM could use a ton more commenting.
I am approach 12,000 posts in about 13 months. Doing some simple math, this is in the neighborhood of 30 posts a day. And these were not garbage posts like "nice post, thank you". 
Do you think that you would get noticed posting that many words, 80% of them which were comments? Are you posting 30 times a day, every day?
Now, many become a success on here doing less than this. If that is your story, terrific. Of course, I have to say the word success is relative so it will vary with each individual. However, we can presume many would like to increase their payouts on the posting they do.
Success on STEEM requires getting involved and contributing to STEEM. If you want to get the attention of some of the heaviest of hitters, let us say some of the orcas (those with 50K SP or more), then read their posts and leave some relevant comments that add to the conversation. Many of those people will give upvotes or, occasionally, start following you. It most likely will not happen with one comment but do it consistently, and you just might find you have a follower with some heavy voting power.
One final thought: when you put up a post, you just never know who might wander by and see it. Have more stuff up there, especially in the comment section of articles that get a lot of views, only increases your chances of being noticed.
So, if you want to increase your rewards, start today by leaving 20 comments in addition to your regular posting activity.
Do that for 6 months and then tell us that STEEM doesn't work.
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