Mistakes to avoid when starting in the #steemit community, things you need to know before you just dive in to steemit. Yes it is a social media platform, but not just that, a great source of media and information, and a very competitive network as it is growing daily. I will briefly discuss some of the dont's that I have encountered in my first 3 weeks that you too should take note of, it can be a reel game changer for you and the way you build your entry platform into the steemit community.
1. Steem Power
This is the most important part of the steemit platform, it reduces with every upvote you give. This is how you earn curation rewards and upvote peoples posts. In the beginning you will be upvoting other peoples posts at 100% steem power, due to the low level steem power allocated to you for free once you join the platform. The more you vote the less your steem power level becomes and the less your upvote is worth. You can see the level of your steem power at steemnow that will look like this, just add your username and refresh. It would be best if you keep your steempower above 90% at all times to avoid it from draining and having long periods to wait for it to regenerate.
2. Introduceyourseld Post
The Importance of an #introduceyourself post is crucial, especially if you want to set the standard for followers, my first introduceyourself post and my second introduceyourself post, why 2 you ask? My first one wasn't exactly the way I wanted it and could be seen as a little bit rushed, my second one is because of discovering my mistakes and reading other community members posts that I have read so I wanted to improve mine, but you can do it right from the word go.
"You can learn new things at any time in your life if you're willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you."
by Barbara Sher
3. Bandwidth
This is another thing you don't want to run accross because it can be frustrating. What is Bandwidth? here is an article I wrote about Bandwidth. It is put in place to prevent spamming and as your reputation grows on steemit so will your bandwidth capabilities, best way to prevent it from running out or getting into a negative value is to create time slots for yourself to post and to comment. See your Bandwidth level here.
4. Gaining Followers
There is no easy way of doing this, there is a number of platforms that can help make it easier such as
steem voter and 
steem follower. I have tried them both and still didn't get the result I'm getting now, what am I doing different? Well, in the last week I have literally just gone through commenting on new introduceyourself posts that I can relate toor find interesting and welcoming new steemians to the community, it has increased my number of followers much faster and I'm getting to connect with new steemians. You can also join my follow/follow campaign.
5. Nothing Comes Easy
The thing about steemit is that most people think they are going to create an account and make 1000's of Dollar$ from the word go, fact is that spending time to interact with other people in the community and creating quality content is key to #success. You should never ask or beg for upvotes they will come in due time, set yourself a goal and be persistant in what you do even if the reward is not as great as you were expecting. When I say set goals, I mean set Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Yearly goals, create a niche from day one and build from there. This is the future of social media, blogging and media itself and will grow as the community grows. We can all support one annother and buil an exceptional family to empower single parents, students and the unemployed!
"Never give up, which is the lesson I learned from boxing. As soon as you learn to never give up, you have to learn the power and wisdom of unconditional surrender, and that one doesn't cancel out the other; they just exist as contradictions. The wisdom of it comes as you get older."
by Kris Kristofferson
