The most annoying thing you can do on Steemit is begging people to follow you, upvote your post, or resteem your content. The next most annoying thing is to leave a one or two-word comment on someone's post and upvote your own comment.
This is happening so much recently that a plethora of posts have sprung up explaining to newbies why they should not beg for followers and still people do it.
If you do these two things often you will literally become invisible to the whales and dolphins swimming around here and they will not follow or upvote your content and avoid you like the pond scum you are. Nobody likes to swim around pond scum. Forgive me for sounding so harsh but that is what you are if you self-vote a one-word comment on someone's post or beg people to follow you.
Why Is It Bad To Ask People To Follow You
Steemit is like a big party that you as a new person were invited to. You're new to this community and don't know anyone yet. You arrive at the party and the first time you meet someone you ask them to do you a favor.
"Please follow me and check out my blog.", you say. This doesn't work here. Even if they follow you it will not mean anything or help you get upvotes.
Have you ever been to a party where someone was 'networking" by handing everyone in the room a business card? "Do you know how many people actually called them back?*" Zero.
Why is that? Because they don't know you at all and only remember you were that annoying person at the party.
What are you doing on your blog that would make them want to follow you? People only follow people who are going somewhere. Where are you going? If all you are doing is begging for followers then you're doing it all wrong and you won't get the results you are hoping for.
It's forgivable when someone with a rep in the 20's makes this common mistake unless they keep doing it. For people who have been here longer and should know better, there is no excuse. It's much more effective to really engage with the author, the other people commenting on the subject, and the topic they are talking about.
If you want to get followers on Steemit you have to bring something to the party. The more you bring and share your generosity the more people will follow you. Simple, right?
Here is a post about a guy who has thousands of followers and he got them by asking people to follow him in exchange for a follow back (called f4f on Steemit) and his posts still earn pennies.
Why are his posts making so little? Because real followers are people that choose to follow you without being asked to. Something about your content, writing style, or personality resonated with them so "they chose to follow you". You didn't have to ask them.
Because they chose the follow you and like the content you write they will read your posts and are more likely to upvote, resteem, and have something to say about the topic you write about. Someone who just followed you for a follow back will never read your content, upvote it, or resteem it.
Why? Because they never cared about what you were writing about, to begin with. They just wanted a follow back and have no real interest in anything you have to say. They are not real followers
How Do I Get Followers If I Don't Ask Anyone To Follow Me?
Real followers come from real people who really like your content. You're not going to get everyone to like your content enough to want to follow you but it doesn't matter. All you need is a small group of loyal fans of your content who look forward to reading your posts because they really want to.
When I was a professional, touring musician I had a publicist who taught me about the 25/25/50 rule of publicity.
He explained that in anything you promote publicly in any media, be it print, television, or online:
- 25% of the people will absolutely love everything you do, say, or stand for.
- 25% of the people will dislike everything you do, say, or stand for just as passionately as the people who love you.
- and 50% will have no idea you even exist and will go on about their lives.
A publicist job is to concentrate on growing the 25% of people that love everything about you and ignore the rest.
Easy for a publicist to say because they don't have to live with the 25% that hate them. The celebrity does and that's why they get paid the big bucks.
Now, let me ask you. "Which group of people do you want following you on Steemit?"
Obviously, the group that loves everything about your blog, right?
So why would you ask everyone to follow you? Let the ones that love your content come to you and forget about the rest.
How do you do that exactly? Produce content you really love and do it well. If you don't love your content no one else will. So, pour your passion into content you're truly passionate about.
There's only one place where it is OK to "suggest" people follow you and that is at the bottom of your post. But there's a right way and wrong way to do that.
The wrong way is to beg them to follow you. For example:
Please help me by following and upvoting my blog
The right way is to suggest like this:
If you like my content please consider following me for more great posts about...
See the difference? I only want them to consider following me IF they like my content. If they don't, we're wasting each other's time.
Experienced bloggers and whales know this so when you beg them to follow or upvote you, you're just revealing that you have no idea what you're doing and you'll actually repel people away from you.
If your content was interesting, engaging, and really good, you won't need to ask anyone ever. The content will compel the right people to follow you. But a "call to action" prompting someone who just read your post, placed right at the bottom of your post is acceptable. Asking someone to follow you in a comment on their post is not.
Is It OK To Tell People I'm Following Them
It is perfectly acceptable to leave a comment on someone's post letting them know that you are following them, have upvoted/resteemed their post but don't ask them to return the favor.
Instead, leave a meaningful comment that is relevant to the post's topic and tells them why you followed/upvoted/resteemed their post.
They may or may not return the favor but that really doesn't matter and should never be expected.
I personally only want real followers so if you followed me just because you want me to follow you back and not because you really like my content and want more of it than please unfollow me right now. I won't take it personally.
Why? Because I only want the 25% of people who love what I'm posting to follow me. The rest don't really matter and won't read or engage with my content anyways.
Why I Don't Always Follow People Back Who Follow Me
It would be physically impossible for me to read, comment, and upvote posts from every one of my followers. There are just not enough hours in the day to do this.
I post about music, traveling, gardening, and various other topics. These are topics that a wide audience is interested in.
Some of my followers write about things I don't even understand like Python, programming, or technical stuff. It's so over my head that I can't digest it let alone comment in a meaningful way about it. *Why should I follow them if I can't contribute to the conversation?"
Have you ever been in a room of people who are talking about some topic you know nothing about? What can you add to the conversation? Nothing really.
If you want to know more about that topic fine. Shut up and listen, but don't add a comment that highlights your ignorance on the topic and then ask them to follow you. That's just annoying and you'll be ignored.
Or even worst. Don't leave a one-word comment like, "Interesting.", or "Thanks" and then upvote your own comment.
Which brings me to my next bit if advice to newbies doing Steemit all wrong.
Don't Upvote Your Own Comment
Leaving a one-word comment that adds nothing to the conversation of the post you left the comment on and then upvoting your worthless comment tells people you are a taker on Steemit and not a giver. You did it only because you want the rewards and you don't give a damn about giving to the community. If you did care you would have actually read the post and added something meaningful to the conversation and add to it in some way.
Self-upvoting is frowned upon and repels rather than attracts followers
People are doing this a lot since the newfound power of their upvotes after hard fork 19 and it hurts their long-term success on Steemit. If you're one of them you may get away with this for awhile but eventually, you will be shunned, disliked, and called out on it.
How much do you want to bet that even on a post like this one that is about not asking people for follow for follows and not upvoting your own post someone will leave a comment that makes it obvious they did not read the post. They will either ask for a follow for follow or self-vote their own comment. It's so obvious they don't give a damn about giving anything to this platform.
People with influence in the community will write posts with bad reviews about your behavior like Partial Solution To Self Upvote Stampede --- by
After reading 
This will not help you succeed and you will lose in the end. Just like someone who always takes is not invited back to parties you will be ignored. This place is a real community of people who care about the quality of the content and interactions that take place on Steemit. If you can't see that because you're so blinded by making money on Steemit than you really don't belong here.
Is it worth damaging your reputation for a few measly cents? I don't think so.
Have you ever been to a party where someone hogs all the pizza, guacamole, beer, or conversation? Do you invite those people back? No.
Those who bring something to the party like a bottle of wine, good conversation, help cleaning up or to pitch in for pizza, they get invited back. Same on Steemit.
Always upvoting your comment that you placed on a good paying post without adding a thing to the conversation only makes you look like a freeloader. Even if you add your expert advice in a comment to someone's post, by upvoting your own comment you are taking from the community for yourself.
If your comment is really valuable to the topic of the post and the conversation people will upvote it.
Instead, try adding thoughtful comments that really expand on the topic without regard to the potential payout and people will more than likely upvote your comment. Maybe even a whale will upvote it or write a post about your comment.
Conclusions
It's tempting for newbies to be lured into making money on Steemit and seeing it as a get-rich-quick scheme, but building a genuine, loyal following takes time and is work.
Slow down and get to know people in a genuine way here and write posts that share your true passion, attracting real followers that care about what your write.
In short, stop begging, mooching, and annoying the hell out of people and start adding, giving, and engaging with authenticity and you'll do just fine on Steemit.
Remember, there is only one place on Steemit that it is alright to ask people to follow you but only if they really like your content and that is right here at the end of your post, not on someone else's.
If you found this post helpful you can read more by following me. I write about music, gardening, traveling, and Steemit tips
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