First let me say welcome to the Steemit platform, you have made a wise decision joining. Not only does Steemit pay you for the content that you create, IE Blog entries, photos, videos (Join DTube https://d.tube/), etc. But they also pay you to Curate, meaning voting on content. The better the content you create or vote for, the more money you will make and the better content will exist on this site, making Steemit's content better, thus making the Steem token and Steem Dollar token more valuable therefor making us all more money. It is a wonderful system that rewards the users for contributing to the product. Holding Steem and powering that steem up will give you more steem power to start with. That all being said, it can be a bit much to take in for a new user, so I will make a quick guide to get you on the right track. Also let me also point out that Steemit has a build in guide that will tell you about how to, and I would like to show you how to do it well.
This Guide will be for the desktop version, the App works very similar to the desktop version and if you can navigate one you will be able to navigate the other, without further delay...
Steemit Beginners Guide
From the main page the first thing to do is click on the empty space between the magnified glass in the top right corner and the 3 horizontal lines, this is your account options (side note, the 3 horizontal lines if clicked bring up the FAQ info and other options). See image below.
After clicking your account options first thing to do is select settings. From here, choose your language, Display name, a few things about yourself, location, any website you want to associate with this account and then your profile and background picture. What you have to do here is go to an image online that you would like to use, like maybe your Social Networking site profile picture, then right click on it and select the option "Copy Image Location", than paste this image location, click update and you all set, please note it may take a few minutes to update. Next Open your account menu again and choose the wallet option, I included a picture to explain what all of this means.
Okay now here is a list of tips to help you build Steem Power and gain popularity on the network:
You catch more bees with honey then you do with vinegar (My mother used to tell me that, but I don't know why anyone would want to catch bees)- Be polite and respond to anyone who was nice enough to leave you a comment on your blog, and if you follow people and let them know, they may follow you back.
Persistence is key- Be consistent, try to make at least one Blog entry a day.
The Cover helps sell the Book- Make sure to use all of your Tags and use them well, if you are posing about sports use the sports tag. You can also promote your posts by spending Steem Dollars, its a gamble, if your post is truly great and you have many followers already this it will return good Steem Dollars, if your post flops it is a waste.
Pictures can say a thousand words people have been saying it for years and for good reason, add pictures to your blog by simply dragging them in where you want them. You can also format your text by adding symbols, this is covered in the Steemit FAQ under Post Markdown.
Your Vote Counts- Each time you vote, you are not only using up some of your voting power, you are also basically investing into whatever you voted on. If you vote on garbage and that garbage gets no other votes, you basically wasted a percentage of your voting power. But if you vote on something great and it gets many votes, this will help increase your Steem Power and you will be given a portion of the money that the content creator gets for creating this great content. I am going to paste below the exact explanation of how voting power works because it's so important. But the take away from what I am saying is use your voting power on things that are awesome.
"Every 100% vote you cast will use 2% of your remaining voting power. Your voting power will recharge by 20% each day. You can vote more than 10 times per day, but each vote will be worth less, and it will take longer to reach full voting power again.
Every 100% vote you cast will use 2% of your remaining voting power. Your voting power will recharge by 20% each day. You can vote more than 10 times per day, but each vote will be worth less, and it will take longer to reach full voting power again". -Steem FAQ
You can check how much voting power you have here. https://steemd.com/@"YourUserNameHereNoSpaces"
Don't damage your Rep- You will notice a number next to your name, this is your reputation, it starts decent and will go up or down based on your content. Basically it looks to see if your content is good and you are voted for a lot and to see if you plagiarize or post original content. This is not a competition to see who can post the coolest meme, this community needs you, your thoughts, your experience and expertise dressed up with pictures and videos of course.
Bots-, the @OriginalWorks bot, by simply typing just that on all of my posts, however there are other bots that you can look up that may or may not help you build up your account power.
Posting- right before you click post you have the option to take 100% Power up or 50-50 SBD and Power, I suggest in the beginning to build up your Steem Power, this will lead to bigger Steem Dollar earnings later on.
9.Recruiting- Get your friends and families involved in this, show them how they can earn money for basically doing what they do for free on other Social Media Platforms and insist that they Follow and Up you.
10.*Cliche as it may sound Have Fun, Blogging on things that you are passionate about should come just as natural as speaking to you so it should be fun. This is exactly what the internet is for, sharing ideas and information only now you are a professional, because you are being paid for it!
Bonus- Right now it is not cost effective to convert your Steem Dollar Coins to Steem Coin, it is better to Send your Steem Dollars to an exchange, sell them, then buy Steem coins with your profits. 1 SBD is worth $7.17 USD at the moment and this may go up further!
Some other notes:
- Do not ask people for upvotes, you can get flagged for this, flagging is bad and once you go down that path you and the person who flags you will just keep flagging each other and hurt both of your accounts.
- Use tags properly and well. Don't use tag that do have nothing to do with your post and do your best to choose the best tags to help your article get noticed.
- Leave people comments and engage other peoples blogs, this will lead more people to visit you.
- Steemit also has a Chat https://steemit.chat/.
- ** Be consistent, not only on how often you post, but what you blog about. If your blog is all over the place it will not get as much attention. Another thing to note is people will not be too interested in your blog if it is not helpful to them, people do not go on Steemit to look at pictures of other peoples kids and pets, leave that on Facebook. People come to Steemit to learn about things and get peoples well though out expert opinions on things.
I would like to thank all of you for reading my article and I if you have any questions I will do my best to answer them as quickly as possible. Please Re-Steem this to help the new people in the community build their blogs, follows are appreciated and if you follow me, I will follow you. I would be glad to answer any questions so leave me a comment, thanks again everyone and have a great night.