I wrote my first blogpost on March 22, 2013. I had just purchased one year hosting and a domain name 'readandgetrich.com'. What was I thinking?
I was probably too damn absorbed by my recently discovered passion and habit of book reading. I couldn't see that my domain name would appear like a 'get-rich-quick' scheme to someone who didn't know me - that is 99.99% of internet users.
Unsurprisingly, nobody came...
My first blog post was about my passion for books. I grew that passion ever since. In 2015 alone I read 86 books and I'm about to break that record this year. I mostly read non fiction and I don't speed read.
Anyway, I don't want to get off track. At the suggestion of a few online friends, I purchased another domain name a couple of months after realizing that very few people were visiting my blog (no wonder!). The new domain name was in accordance to self-branding principles: 'cristivlad.com'.
More months went by. I started building my email list. Very slowly, but gradually, the list grew ever since. A couple of readers here, a couple there...
My growth has been modest. But I am okay with that. I want to have good subscribers who actually read and reply to my emails; not a list of inactive users. I currently have ~2,400 friends in my list.
Introducing Steemit
I joined Steemit at the end of this July. I posted every single day since then. I'm curious to see how long it will take until I break the chain...
I gathered some experience with the platform, which is why, a few days ago, I decided to share my experience with my readers. I wrote an introductory post on my blog and I sent an email to my subscribers.
To read the post, go here.
If you do not want to read it, here's what I told them, in brief:
- how I found out about Steemit (thanks
)
- the difference between Steemit and other social media platforms
- my frustration with Steemit
- link to steem.io, the white paper, and the introductory video
- example of Steemit rewards (with one of my posts)
- brief explanation of SP and SD
- how I feel about the future of Steemit
- user hierarchy on Steemit
- current user stats
- some of my most voted posts
- my confidence in its open-sourceness
- current problems with the platform
- and others.
Repeating, to read my blogpost, go here.
Here's how I built and sent my email to the 2,400 readers. I use mailchimp as email service.
.
1. The Campaign Info
2. Editing/preparing the email
3. Making the final touches
4. Preparing for launch
5. Sent!
You can see the exact look of my email at its campaign url here.
Roughly 30 minutes after the email was sent, I got a FB message from one of my high-school colleagues. He's a programmer and he was at work. He said he read my post and he was excited to write his first post as soon as he gets home.
A few hours later I received the first reply from one of my readers:
And my reply was:
I hope I didn't say anything stupid. If any of you guys think I did, please correct me!
I sent my email at about 9 A.M. Eastern Europe. My readers are from all over the world, but most of them are from the U.S. I am hopeful to receive more interactions by the time they see it when they get up. We have to grow; period.
To stay in touch, follow 
Cristi Vlad, Self-Experimenter and Author