When rewards disappoint us on our posts and every comment feels like criticism, what do we do to continue posting on Steem until we break through into a new level? In the previous post we learned more about the Minnow Support Project and how it helps new users to get connected and be successful on Steem.
Would you read this blog post, which is part 2 of the radio show, or watch the video at the end because here we discuss three different ways three of us made it through challenging down times on Steem and stuck with it until today where posting on Steem is by far the best blogging opportunity anywhere online?
Discover The Minnow Support Project on Steem! Part 2: Get Through The Dip!
Jake:
All right, that's awesome, and again everybody, we are, of course, visiting with @jerrybanfield here on the @ma1neEvent Interview Show and also this is airing on Jerry's channel as well.
Jerry, what other things would you like to see Steemit the website do?
Because I personally have enjoyed seeing it change throughout the year. It's gone through quite a bit of changes throughout the year. I'm curious as somebody like you who's promoting the platform and things like that, what other features or things would you like to see the Steemit blogging platform add as we go forward?
Jerry:
Outstanding question, Jake.
Better analytics is what I'm hearing from other bloggers.
Right now, if I go on a post, I don't know who is reading my post, how many people have read it?
I can see it says 379 with this little eye icon on here, but what does that mean?
Does that mean someone loaded the page 379 times?
I'd like it if Steemit would set up a system where we could put in Google Analytics because it opens up the rest of the world in terms of seeing who's reading our blog, how long are people staying on certain posts?
Right now, I've got over a hundred posts on Steem and it's very challenging for me to say, which one of these are people reading?
I had a post that got 35,000 views in the first couple of months. Almost all from free traffic sources like Google organic search, social media sharing, etcetera.
I didn't even know that.
If someone had not gone through and actually pulled the post views on every single one of my posts and did a huge infographic on it, I would have had no idea and I bet 99% of the authors on Steem have no idea, which posts of theirs got the most views.
In particular, like Bianca has been on Steem for a year and a half now since the very beginning, you may have had a post, Bianca, that went viral, that did really well and if people aren't commenting on it you'd have no way to know that because the upvotes are done.
I'd really like to see a Google Analytics integration because Steemit Inc is already using Google Analytics on Steem, and on udemy.com for teaching courses, one of the best things they gave us as instructors was a Google Analytics integration.
If I had Google Analytics integration, I could also run remarketing ads for everyone who's read my blog on Steem. I could essentially run ads to help people come back specifically to my blog and I could easily see which of my posts were getting viewed the most, which would help me know exactly which type of posts I might want to make more of.
If we make a post that goes viral and we have no idea about it. Then how do we know to do that again?
Jake:
Yes, I agree that more analytics like you are saying would be very interesting and it would be cool to see where people are viewing it from in the world maybe, or what time of day, those types of statistics would be nice to see.
I would think that any of that type of information would certainly be useful.
Let's see here, @poeticsnake do you have more questions for Jerry?
I believe she had at least one more.
I'm also curious Jerry, I saw that you have started a Discord server.
Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
Jerry:
Sure.
I have my own Discord server now and it's on jerrybanfield.com/contact/. It's where any of us can get an invitation to it, and what's really nice, my Discord server helps me prioritize my communication.
On my Discord server, I've got three different channels, which helps me then to prioritize.
Right now one of the biggest challenges I've had online with a lot of followers is, how do I make sure I respond to the followers who are most interested in having a relationship with me?
How do I essentially also not take the time to respond to those that don't care very much, who just want to post to talk to other people, who just want to comment and share an opinion?
I don't need to interact with everyone that makes a comment.
This new Discord system has three different levels. It's got a Partners, a Members and a Friends channel.
On Friends, anyone can join that for free and chat, and with the server just launching I've been able to respond and read almost every message in the Friends channel. Everything I set up, the more people get into it, the more it ruins it.
The Discord channel is set up to have lots of people join, and then what I do is I check the channels in order of levels. The Members channel is reserved for people contributing $10 or more on Patreon and I will probably open that up to $10 or more in upvotes on Steem too, and then the Partners channel is for $50 or more a month in upvotes on Steem as well as people on Patreon or people who've bought through my website.
Therefore, I also have a voice call with partners on the Partners channel every week. The Partners channel allows me to be accountable and available to those who are supporting me the most, which is surprisingly difficult. Even having lots of money come in, "Alright, how do I pay attention to one person who's bought this course?"
I think this is a nice level to help a community, and then anyone who just wants to chat with me can come in, and right now, I've been responding to almost everything in the Friends channel.
This is scalable over time, which is exciting, and it's a simpler system than the Minnow Support, The Peace, Abundance and Liberty where there's just tons of channels and thousands of people. Discord's got built-in scalability, which is really nice.
I hope my "Jerry Banfield and Friends" Discord server makes it easier. That's how you connected with me. That's how we were able to do this because Jake you jumped into my "Jerry Banfield and Friends" channel and started chatting with me there and that's how we have set this up.
I'm grateful, after struggling for years I don't do email, I don't do phone calls unless they are paid. A lot of the people we are following and want to get a hold of are often difficult to get a hold of. I'm grateful now I have a very transparent system. If you want to talk to me and chat with me, this is exactly how you do it. You get on my Discord channel and any other method is not likely to work.
Jake:
Yes, like you mentioned, communities like the Minnow Support Project on Discord and many others, there are dozens now of communities that have grown and sprung up on Discord and even on Steemit.chat too. Some people are using that to chat with other members as well, but Discord specifically has all these communities that are being created and I feel like it just adds that extra layer to your Steemit experience.
Of course you have your blog, the comments and your followers on your blog, but then you can transition that to a community on Discord like the Minnow Support Project and begin that process of talking to and networking with other members of the community, which, of course, can lead to opportunities, projects, or just more viewers to your blog and things like that.
So, I would say if any members of the Steemit community are out there and you haven't found your way to a Discord community, you should probably take a look at that because there are a lot of opportunities there for you to find other members who are maybe like-minded, who like similar content that you are creating and you may even make some new friends as well.
Like you said, without Discord you and I probably wouldn't possibly have had a chance to talk. I met @poeticsnake, I believe, through the Minnow Support Project, so I'm making friends now with people all over the world whom I would never have met without Steemit and these Discord communities. I'm definitely grateful for them and it's great to see that you have made one now for the people who follow your blog.
Jerry, are there any other things you want to mention on the show or any parting words for any members who may be listening to this?
Because again, this show airs on MSP Waves radio, which is part of the Minnow Support Project. It airs every Wednesday night 10:00 to midnight UTC time, which is 5:00 to 7:00 Eastern Time on mspwaves.com.
Are there any other things you maybe want to mention to some newer users because a lot of the people who may listen to the show might be the quote-unquote minnows, as we call them?
Jerry:
Yes, would you please tell us some more about that because I actually have had a strange experience on Steem compared to the average user, and I'd like to hear more about how you got started on Steem and how you now are getting consistent earnings on your posts especially when you consider the Steem dollars?
You are getting like $50 a post yourself and you are invested in the community.
Would you share some more of your experience because I think what you have got to say might be more helpful than me on that subject?
Jake:
How I got started was just finding out about it through people on YouTube talking about it. I found my way over here and basically just started blogging about things I was interested in, my photography and things like that, and then when I discovered this MSP Waves radio station that had been created, I started doing this show every week and what I wanted to do was to bring people on to the platform or onto the show to talk about what they are doing with Steemit.
The idea behind that is to put a voice to the profile. It's one thing to read people's words all the time, their comments and their posts, but it's another thing to hear their voice and kind of get to know their personality a little bit more.
That was the goal of this show and it seems to have been interesting for people. They are enjoying it. We are getting more guests on every week and now we have you on the show this week. Hopefully, that will help get the show out there to more people and that's basically what I've been doing, trying to network.
You can always write a blog and hope that you will get followers and things like that, but you really almost kind of need to take the next step and to get out into these different communities like the Minnow Support Project. Steemit seems to have a community aspect of it where it's like, what can you do to help others also, not just help yourself?
I've tried to feature people on this show and I do a lot of curating. I'm a curator for multiple different curator groups including the OCD group and I do also curate for the Minnow Support Project. Another thing people can do out there besides just posting content is to become a curator, and that's what I did.
I'm out into the community every day looking for posts to share with the other curators and so through that process, I've gained more visibility and things like that. I think that has trickled down and helped my blog because now people are following me. I went over a little over 1,000 followers, which is great for me. That's more than I would have on any other social media.
I'm grateful that many people are interested in what I'm doing on the platform and, of course, everyone's experience is going to be different on Steemit. I can't give you any specific thing to do to be successful on Steemit. These are just my opinions and my experience, but getting out into the community, curating, commenting, joining Discord channels, chatting on Steemit.chat, these types of things go a long way to getting you noticed on the platform.
It's no different really than any other social media. You got to be out there, active if you want to be seen, but Steemit certainly has a different feel to it. I've enjoyed my time here and I'm hoping more people will join the platform and join us with that.
Jerry:
Well, Jake, I appreciate you sharing your experience here. That's what I love about Steem too, it's the community, it's to really get in and be known, and participate in just being a human being on Steem instead of it being all these pretentious things.
I had a strange experience on Steem starting off making hundreds of dollars on the first posts and all that. I feel like anyone can just sign up and get rewarded well, keep posting and being excited about it, but that's not the normal experience.
If you see other people making a bunch of money on posts, and then you make your own post and you just get a few cents, a lot of people have quit on Steem after that.
Steem really stinks for that, the comparison being the thief of happiness. I got like $400 on my intro post, and then most of us we go make our intro post and we get 10 cents or something. Our reaction is, "Well, this just sucks. That's nice other people can get good money for this, but you know, it doesn't work for me."
I think it promotes a lot of great expectations that aren't in line with reality. Like what you said, you make way more than you would blog somewhere else and from the very beginning you have made a lot more just because most other places you would have got nothing, and you got at least a few cents right away when you started even on your very first post.
Then you took about a month or so to get at least ten dollars on one post even though you made posts almost every single day, even though you were in the community talking with people, sharing, and I think that it is a key thing.
If you want to be successful on Steem, it is to stick with it when it's hard and disappointing. I'm really excited about some of my posts, and then I get a $70 downvote for no reason because someone doesn't like me I guess, or someone is having a bad day and wants me to pray for them or whatever.
The key is to stick with it when it's not profitable, when you get three cents on a post, or stick with it when you got a lot of money on the last post, and then your next post comes back down to earth and you get a few cents or a few dollars, and to just keep with it because especially with the value of Steem going up and all that, getting twenty dollars in rewards today could be two hundred or two thousand in a few months or a year or two if we reinvest that.
I applaud you for sticking with it, Steem has a brutal dip on it. Seth Godin has a book called "The Dip" and the dip on Steem is brutal.
There is this initial excitement, "Oh, my God. I'm going to post. I'm going to actually do something," and what's worse is if you actually do something. I saw one girl who got like $1,000 for her intro post, and then her next post is getting like $5 or $10. The relative comparison is just horribly disappointing, and then she stops posting for months.
I applaud you for your consistency of sticking with Steem when you got just a few cents and now you are essentially getting like $50 to sometimes even $100 a post and that's awesome.
That's something not most people are able to do, but when you see that other people are doing it and that's what works really well, then I think that's motivating to say, "Okay. I'm going to sign up and do what @ma1neEvent did. I'm just going to post and keep posting, just keep sharing and get connected in the community, and have faith that over time, I will get rewarded for what I have contributed even if it takes six months or a year, or two years to fully realize it."
Jake:
Yes, absolutely, and again that was just my experience. I am grateful for it. It may not go the same for everybody, but you certainly got at least to try, right?
That's what I would say.
People should certainly look at a community like Steemit not just for the rewards, but for that friendship and community aspect that is out there. I've made so many friends now through the Minnow Support Project and just all the other different groups that I'm in, that I know that if I go to SteemFest next year, I'm going to hopefully know a lot of people there.
That's really amazing and that goes far beyond any rewards that I ever would get or have got. If Steem went to zero tomorrow, I'd be a little sad and upset, but at the same time I would look back and say, "Well, you know that was a pretty amazing experience everything that I've done in these seven months or so that I've been on the platform."
It certainly goes far beyond just the rewards, so don't just look at it for the rewards. Of course, it is a big aspect of it, but like you were saying, don't get discouraged if you know you are not getting a lot of post rewards. Look at it in the aspect of evaluating the reasons maybe why you are not getting those rewards.
Are you using the right tags on your post?
What time of day are you posting?
You kind of look at when your followers may be online and things like that. There are lots of things you can do to just look at your own blog and maybe evaluate why you may or may not be getting the views and the votes on your content, or ask people in these communities.
You could say, "Hey, do you mind just taking a look at my blog? Give me any positive or constructive feedback that you could give me," and things like that.
@poeticsnake, I know you have been on the platform longer than I have. You have been on almost a year and a half now. Do you want to talk about your process or how you have grown on Steemit or what you thought of it when you first joined and things like that?
Bianca:
Yes, sure.
When I just joined, I was pulled in by the money like many others. Honestly, I got in at the right time because I was picked up by whales right away and I made a good start. Not on the first 10 or 20 posts, but after that it started to roll and I made posts about $500 or $600 and that was amazing.
Obviously, that made me kind of greedy because you want more and more money and then I learned a lesson. Something happened in my offline life, I had to stop blogging and I lost a lot of my followers.
My dip in Steemit was when I returned after my hiatus for three months and I had to start all over. While my Steem Power was high enough to not be a minnow anymore, I had to fight to get that same attention again as a minnow, and I'm just getting back into it again.
I think that my posts are normally doing well. I'm happy and I realized that there is more to Steemit than just making the rewards on the post. The connecting on Discord and making friends is what I value way more now than the payouts on my posts.
Jake:
Yes, and that's one thing we both agree on that people should evaluate Steemit that way. Don't only look at it for the rewards. Yes, they are a huge reason why you are going to want to join Steemit, but there's so much more to it.
When I'm on other social media, I haven't been able to make those same levels of connections with people like I have on Steemit. The people here just seem to be more friendly. Of course, you are always going to have trolls. You are always going to have people who are just there to cause an issue. That's just inevitable on any Internet platform, but the overwhelming number of people who are helpful, friendly, who seem very genuine, that type of thing is amazing on Steemit.
It's really been incredible to interact with all of them, to read their content and to see them progress too because I've been on the platform now for about seven months, so it's always interesting when new members join the Minnow Support Project, to see them come in, to see them at their very beginning stages from their intro post through their first couple of months, it's always amazing to watch them progress and to see them go out into these communities and grow and become better minnows, as we call them.
Yes, that aspect is fascinating. I know Jerry when you joined Steem you had a lot of followers and things like that, so you brought quite a presence with you, but these new users, I think some of them do maybe get frustrated sometimes, but try to stick with it if you are listening out there and you are a new member of the Steemit community, just keep blogging and post original content.
We definitely don't support plagiarism and things like that on the platform, in the community and through curation we do check for that stuff.
What we like to tell people is, "Just post the things that you are passionate about, try to just be genuine. Be yourself and the right people will find your content eventually."
This is my opinion, everything on here is always just our opinion, but those are the things we would recommend to new users or to people who may be interested in Steemit that might be hearing this on your YouTube channel Jerry.
Jerry:
Well, Jake and Bianca, I appreciate you both sharing your journeys because Bianca, I just looked through all your posts and I love the rant you posted.
Basically, "This is stupid! Other people are getting a bunch of money for crap and I'm getting nothing."
You made twenty or thirty posts without hardly getting like a dollar or so on them, then you had one that made $300, and then shortly after that, one that made $500 and you stuck with it after you felt like giving up.
Bianca:
Yes.
Jerry:
I just love to see that and I think it's easy to sell a lot of us on joining because of the money as a lot of us are just attracted by money, and there's an amazing chance on Steem for the transformation from self-interest to collective interest.
I've been through a lot of that on Steem and realizing that if I want to make more money, I need to be of service to the community whereas a lot of the other things we do in business we can just set up schemes. I've run lots of good ones that you know, I'm going to set this up and essentially trick people into paying me money and make lots of it.
But on Steem, we get in for our self-interest of, "I want to make some money" and at some point, there's this transformation of, "You know what, if I contribute to the community, I will get what I need."
This is the beauty of Steem, in my opinion, that transformation from self-centered, "I want to make money" to group or community-centered, "How do we make this a great place for others?"
Now sure, there are lots of us on Steem who have not made that transformation, who just purely every viewpoint expressed is self-interest, everything done is self-interest to maximize the individual’s income, and it's nice to kind of just be loving and let that transformation happen too.
Jake:
Yes, absolutely. Go ahead @poeticsnake.
Bianca:
I just wanted to say that it's the best transformation I made on the social platform. I'm rather happy to have learned that lesson.
Jake:
Yes, I think each person is going to have a different story when it comes to Steemit. They are all going to join at a different point in their life with a different attitude and it will be interesting to see how they use the Steemit platform and how they grow and change because of it.
Like you said, they may come in all gung-ho, "Hey, I'm going to make money here and it's all about me," and that type of thing, and then as time progresses they realize that really isn't the best approach.
Going out into the community, curating and commenting, and really trying to give people feedback on their content, I feel like it will eventually come back to you. It comes back to that whole, "Treat others how you want to be treated" type of thought process.
I feel like if you want people to comment and vote on your posts, you kind of need to be out there doing the same thing and keep that in mind if you are joining Steemit. You have the right to do whatever you want with your blog and your Steem Power.
That's the other thing about Steemit, you don't have to do or not do anything, it's totally up to you, but it is a community aspect here and people may downvote you if they don't agree with what you are doing. They may upvote you, if they agree with what you are doing, and you have the right to do the same thing. Just always keep that in mind as well.
It seems though that joining these communities, getting out there and doing things for others tends to get rewarded more on the platform, from my own observations. Like you were saying that growth and change that happens after you join Steem, is a good thing, it's positive for everybody.
Jerry:
Exactly.
That's why I am so excited about Steem, to essentially help all of us go through this change on earth from all of us that need it, from self-interest to more human interest.
The whole time I've been with my wife, she thinks about other people. She's not in self-interest mode, but most of my life I've been personally in self-interest mode and my wife's helped me to come out of that some more, and Steem has also been instrumental to helping me do that.
A lot of us separate things in our head like, "For my marriage and family I'll think about my wife and kids," but when it comes to business, "It's all about me and my family and it doesn't matter about other people and their families."
Steem was really powerful to make me realizing, "Well, you know, I'd like to have enough money to eat, but I'd like for everyone else to have enough money to eat as well."
In my opinion, Steem seems like an amazing system that really has the basic income potential built-in that each of us could simply just make some posts, and then sharing our lives, have the opportunity to earn a basic minimum income that would allow us to eat all over the world.
That's my big vision for Steem.
Jake:
Yes, it will hopefully continue on and continue to be a platform for people to use for whatever they see fit that they want to use it for, whether it will be for blogging or other things. I see a lot of artists posting their artwork on theirs, writers doing poems and just all kinds of different content out there.
Really, the sky's the limit when it comes to the content. If you are a person who is already a content creator, it's probably worth looking into Steemit in our humble opinion. It's a great community for people to at least network and chat with like-minded individuals if anything.
Well, Jerry, we have been chatting here for a good hour now so we might as well start to wind this down. Are there any parting words you want to just give to the Minnow Support audience who might be listening here on MSP Waves?
Jerry:
Thank you very much for being here with us today. We are honored to have a chance to appear in your world wherever you are at, and we are excited to make this journey together with you on Steem.
Jake:
@poeticsnake, are there any parting words you want to give here at the end of the show?
Bianca:
I just want to say thank you to Jerry. It was really amazing to get to know you a little bit better during the interview.
It was amazing.
Jerry:
Thank you, Bianca and Jake, for having me today.
I hope this is helpful for everyone.
Jake:
Absolutely, and again this show airs on MSP Waves Radio, which is part of the Minnow Support Project.
You can find the Minnow Support Project on Discord in the Peace, Abundance and Liberty server.
You are visiting with Jerry Banfield today.
Thank you so much, Jerry, for joining us on the show this week.
Jerry:
Well, thank you, Jake. I appreciate you having me.
I love you.
You're awesome and we hope this has been helpful today.
Final words
Thank you for reading this blog post, which was part 2 of the radio show and was originally filmed as the video below.
If you found this post helpful on Steem, would you please upvote it and follow me because you will then be able to see more posts like this in your home feed?
Love,
Jerry Banfield with edits by @gmichelbkk on the transcript from @deniskj
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