Well, first don’t do what I did!
That is spending the first eight months of using Steemit being completely oblivious to all the thriving communities within Steemit.
Networking via Comments
Mind you, some of those eight months I was AWOL for about 3 months and to my Steemit friends I had made via commenting, it was like I fell off the earth.
It didn’t help that my last posts were about the trials and tribulations of breaking up a marriage with a man with a violent history.
But that is history, but comments are the first essential stepping stone to networking.
Make meaningful comments, not cookie cutter spammy ones.
Make comments like you are a real person, with an opinion, tell them what you liked, what it made you think of, anything extra you might like to add.
Networking on Steemit = Making Friends
And when you read networking, think forming friendships. How would you treat a and talk to a friend?
Would you look out for their posts? Give them an upvote now and again, every time? What about exchanging ideas, finding out more about each other, what makes them tick, even exchanging small gifts, even if that is encouragement.
Bear in mind that you have only 10 votes on Steemit and choose carefully who you’d like to support and make friends with. Perhaps they did for a reason so that you don’t spread yourself too thinly.
You don’t want to pick too many, else you won’t have time to form friendships and you will be spread too thin.
I keep in touch with a few people that I have known since I started on Steemit, but to be fair the majority of friendships were forged when I discovered Discord.
Discovering Discord
Now I don’t do too well in the bigger groups, conversation wise, as I’m not a natural at networking, or making friends for that matter. I am happy with just a handful, as that is all I can manage and I’m not good at small talk.
I like to talk about things that matter, always been a bit bad at small talk, so I have gravitated towards smaller groups with interesting conversations going on and some that have good promotional posts.
I have had to learn a bit to make conversation and “how are you?” is a good start.
Not ‘hi” or “hello”, then nothing, as that drives me barmy and I am sure that I am not the only one.
But after a few days, even if you pick one of bigger groups, you will start to gel with certain people and you can start chatting to those people through DM, or even voice chat to form stronger bonds.
Now, obviously you can’t do this with an infinite amount of people and sometimes you might need to reassess.
I’ve managed to support a couple of non-runners that will remain Unmentionable shall we say, so yes some mistakes can be made, but life goes on.
But with a handful of people - 10 max, this is the way to build meaningful friendships and network on Steemit, especially if small talk is a foreign language to you.
It was good I was asked about networking today, as I can see where I need to pick up up my game too.
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