Lately, I have been doing a little "gardening" on my Steemit "following" list.
There are a lot of people I follow that seem to have become inactive; they've pretty much powered down 100% and have gone from the community. Which makes me sad, because pretty much all the people I choose to follow, I follow because I enjoyed their content.
Behold! A "Community" of Ducks!
Because I've been looking at a lot of accounts... another thing I find interesting is the way there are people here who have been actively posting for a couple of years, and yet? They don't really seem to have any kind of following. They still create decent posts like they did in the past... and yet they get a handful of votes and end up with a 3-cent reward.
What's more, they have quite high reputations.
The Importance of Community and Engagement
Of course, a little poking around soon reveals what's going on. And subsequently points to the functional dynamics of our community, as they stand apart from "wishful thinking" and "theory."
The "high reputations" were often built as a result of these folks — and let's not forget, the did create decent content — going through a period where they invested heavily in Bid Bot upvotes so they had a string of $50 or $100 posts for weeks or months... and I guess then stopped.
Which goes to show that the whole "looking like you're experienced and reputable" idea doesn't get you a damn thing, unless you back it up with some substance of your own.
Which leads me to part two: The importance of engaging and nurturing your community of followers.
A backyard visitor
The folks — again good people — make post, after post, after post... and just leave them there without making any effort to visit and engage with other people's content, or leave comments, or upvotes, or upvote comments on the dwindling responses to their content.
If you're part of a SOCIAL platform of some kind, you have to be social. People aren't just going to think you're the Second Coming of Christ just because you show up and start posting. You're just not that interesting or important!
'Nuff said!
Peripherally Community Related: Have YOU Voted in the 
Community Delegation Poll?
By now, you have probably been more or less bombarded with posts about the major contest and poll going on among Steemit Community organizations to win a year-long 20,000SP delegation from
There are various and worthy communities rallying for votes.
Why should YOU vote? Because these organizations represent a substantial part of the very infrastructure that holds the content and community end of the entire Steem ecosystem together. Between them, they create a substantial part of the activity here.
Your vote *matters" because we can't sit around and complain about how "nobody does anything" to build community, create and curate content...and then ignore the efforts of those who are out there busting their butts doing precisely that!
So, GO VOTE!
I happen to support 
Worth considering is the fact that
You don't have to be a "member" of any of these organizations to vote... just go to the poll page on dPoll, log in via SteemConnect and cast your vote! If you choose
Thanks for reading!
Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 190226 10:43 PST
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