You can author, comment, and curate on Steemit, but when to do what is a question I seem to be answering a lot these days as the Minnow Support Project kicks off (we broke 100 people in the Discord room, and should have plenty tonight in 2hrs, 10pm NYC time). Folks tell me how frustrated they are writing long posts no one reads for low rewards. I was asked why I post so much... and someone asked me why some of the whales never seem to post.
This all has to do with the rewards system on the platform and how each group is maximizing them to their benefit or spinning wheels to their detriment. To be clear you should be doing all of the activities on the platform and some off of it if you're committed to growing here, but here's what you should focus on for these stages of growth.
If you have no idea what's going on with this platform start here- https://steemit.com/steem/@aggroed/i-m-new-here-can-you-explain-steemit-to-me-like-i-m-5
Minnows
You have no vote power, you don't have many followers if any, and you're wondering if this platform is worth working on.
First thing is to make an introduceyourself post. You'll get more on that one post than you will for the next 2 months on a post is my guess. It's how you get known, but it's not a great long term sustainable mechanism for growth. What you need is followers, and the challenge of course is how to get them when you have none. You've probably written a post that took over an hour that got 8 views and paid 1 cent. That sucks... so, my advice is don't do that!
So, if you're not authoring and you're not curating (since your votes don't earn you much) what should you be doing? COMMENTING. Find some established authors that you like, and find some minnows who seem cool and hop in the comments section. Why? A whale might toss you a bone for $1 or more just for a good meme or a funny comment. It take 2 seconds to find something funny on giphy.com to get $1 or you can write for an hour to get nothing. So, that's the fastest way to catch an upvote, but you'll get your followers popping along in minnow posts and talking to them. Say "that's a great post, I really like what you did there, I thought that third section was really funny." You have a pretty good shot at catching a follow by doing this, and those follows are how you grow long term wealth on the platform.
If you're looking for more advice on this check out- https://steemit.com/minnowsupportproject/@aggroed/minnow-support-project-minnow-101
Dolphins
Once you start getting followers you are going to keep commenting, but you're going to start transitioning to authoring. You finally have enough juice in your follower tank to earn some cash on here. So, use it. Make some good posts and watch the amount of money in your account go up. Once you start having 300 followers you can start shifting and once you have 600-800 you'll want to spend most of your time on the platform authoring. Why? It's the highest reward thing you can do. You probably know some formatting by now, have some buds that can resteem you. You're breaking in, and it's time to post.
If you're looking for advice on that check out- https://steemit.com/blogging/@aggroed/tips-to-successful-steemit-posting-learning-from-kaylinart
Whales
There are some whales that like to post and get rewarded for it, but a lot of them don't even bother. Why? Because for them money is in curating. When you're a whale you can make $1k/week just curating. Click upvote, watch people follow on, sit back and laugh while you count the money. Curation favors big posts and big bets on them. And they can rake it in.
2 bonus tips
Look, tons of good stuff happens on the platform, but tons of it happens off the platform! Get into steemit chat, and get into discord. Lots of active communities there to pick from, and you'll socialize and really learn how working collectively can grow your following and your account!
Please vote for me for Witness!
You can find me hanging out on steemspeak, a discord channel that many steemers use to text and talk to each other- https://discord.gg/qjpRj7w
You can find me in Whaleshares- https://discord.gg/GykFB6S
or my new channel PALnet- https://discord.gg/HYj4yvw
I can also be found on steemchat as
. I moderate the channel msp. If you have a post to share give me a good sentence or two of why you think I’ll like it.To vote for me click the link underneath my profile, scroll under the list of 50 names and type aggroed into the box. If you can see my name you have voted for me (don't click the little blue upvote next to my name as you'll cancel your vote for me).
