I joined Steemit 24 days ago - gee, it feels much longer! - and initially the learning curve was quite steep. For starters I had no idea what cryptocurrency was and it has been a few years since I seriously blogged. Having ditched Facebook and deleted my account a few months ago I wanted an outlet for my occasional musings. This is when I heard about Steemit and I was fascinated by the concept, admittedly drawn by the premise of getting paid to blog - I have NEVER made any money on a blog before and Facebook certainly never paid me.
I made an introduceyourself post, which got me started with some followers and the post made around $20 - wow, could it actually be true? The first few days I spent trying to learn from many great steemians that had come before me - I read everything I could and took many of their words under advisement. I slowly refined what I would post, how I would present it and I engaged with the wider community by commenting on their posts, replying to comments on mine and trying to get involved in Steemit chat.
My followers steadily rose, especially as I made a point of visiting newly arrived steemians in the NEW tab and welcoming them in their introduceyourself posts. Trust me, a friendly welcome in a strange new place does wonders - be sure though to actually read their post and reply accordingly, rather that 'Welcome - follow me I'll follow you'. It just doesn't look good. At all.
I was slowly finding my feet, a few of my posts made quite decent payouts then things seemed to die down a bit. I didn't worry, I was still very new, I still am. As my main interest is 3D design and art I thought I would start a competition for digital artists - it is posted HERE if you are interested. In order to get it promoted a bit I thought I would get in contact with 
I'm happy to say this was 7 days ago and I have learned so much while the #minnowsupportproject has grown, it's membership has now swollen to 515! I have thrown myself into the community at PALnet - the minnow support project chat on Discord - and helped as much as I could with guiding new minnows through the sign up procedure. As great as the community is on Steemit, this is multiplied tenfold in PALnet. I have made genuine friendships, gained a greater following. I learned along the way, guided others. I have gotten great support and feedback from the other members and, at just the right time in my Steemit journey, I found a focus I needed, a drive to help and nurture my fellow minnows. It was never just about the money. It will come when it comes. This community right here is awesome but the community at PALnet is a whole other level of greatness.
To all you minnows who are struggling to get going, join us. We will all succeed faster if we help and support each other. We have all been there, we know what it's like to spend hours pouring over a keyboard, writing an epic post that ends up getting little viewership and fewer votes. We understand the struggle to get a following. Some - though not me - even understand this cryptocurrency malarkey. Although there are 2 voting bots there to use on your posts - once every 10 hours - if you do join, please don't let this be your only reason. You WILL get so much more out of engaging with the rest of us in chat. We are a friendly bunch and although we like to have fun and get a bit silly at times, we are there to help each other grow. You will find that you don't need to ask for votes or resteems, they will come organically as you form friendships. If you are interested in joining our growing number, visit us in chat on Discord HERE - quick note: you will need a little steem to register for both bots and for Streemian.com, a total of 0.003 steem. If you don't have enough steem let us know in our chat: a few of us greeters will happily send you the small amount needed.
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