750 Words: 1 Month of Steem
Today marks a milestone.
Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash
Since the wise look back and learn, the following is my personal retrospective and lessons learnt.
I do not meant it to be a critique of the platform, but of my use and understanding of the platform.
I tried to capture lessons as principles that I can leverage going forward.
Ignorance
First off, I didn't know what I didn't know when I started using Steem.
Initial assumptions included:
- Steem is a blogging platform
- the main way to engage on the platform is by posting content or comments
- the tagging system is the best way to get content in front of people
Steem, it turns out, is more than I thought it was.
It is bigger.
It is more complex.
The initial FAQ documents were helpful.
So was the content that other people have posted to answer common questions.
Principle: RTFM and all the other stuff.
Change is inevitable
As the value of Steem has decreased during my month on the platform, it's been instructive to watch those with the most to lose engage with the rest of the community.
Some have been admirably smooth and supportive.
Others have become incredibly dismissive and demanding.
Some Steem users expect all other users to maintain their level of engagement despite internal or external circumstances.
I suppose this is to be expected when money is on the line.
It seems to me that everyone is trying to understand a platform that changes on a weekly basis.
Most of us are trying to keep up.
Respect and support of different ways we engage seems the best way to increase my learning.
As we share our journey we might even come to important lessons faster.
Principle: Allow others to be what the are and do what they do while learning from everyone.
Money as Change Agent
I thought it was cool to make money from posting content.
To actually profit requires an investment, though.
Additionally, the more invested, the more likely content authors are to see a return.
As 
Curation, for example is one way to profit.
Except there are complex rules.
Curating already popular authors is the only way to real profit.
So, the best thing to do seems to be to build a bot and convince other people to give you their money.
Practical principle: use Other People's Money and automation.
Utilizing Re-use
Like all social media platforms, Steem tends to reward the sensational and transient.
Steem takes this an additional step by only rewarding those things that are new.
Thus, great content from 2 weeks ago is going to be as ignored as that from 2 years ago.
The platform also erects barriers to reuse.
Steven Johnson in Where Good Ideas Come From agued that successful platforms act like coral reefs.
Reefs provide the framework for other things to be found and re-used in endless variation.
For example, it would be interesting to use the photo content on the site to build better blog posts.
Since the tagging system is so general, finding appropriate content is virtually impossible, unfortunately.
All this means that potentially useful content remains hidden and ignored.
So, content creators go to other platforms to get pictures.
Steem isn't in the running as a source.
Proposed principle: Good content should be rewarded and then surfaced to be repeatedly recycled.
Making Money is Systematic
As @nathen007 and @cryptoctopus point out, making money on Steem requires a system.
It's not enough to post and hope.
There is a complex set of steps that include self-advertisement.
It's also helpful to understand how Steem, Steem Power, and Steem Dollars work.
The relationship between them is not at all intuitive to the beginner.
Principle: leverage a money making system if you're serious about making money with Steem.
Wrap it Up
Okay, that's enough of my bloviating.
Steem is an interesting platform.
If it survives the next couple of years, it has the potential to grow into something both unique and useful.
The big step it needs to make is crossing the chasm.
I hope it successfully makes the leap!