I have only been on Steemit for less than 1 month, I've invested probably 100+ hours and have only managed to make $100. But, as you can probably tell from my last couple posts, the great majority of my failures on Steemit have come from decades of work of being in online marketing (who knows how to write things that people will want to read) and having a small following.
I've since seen thousands of people joining Steemit after not hearing about me with the expectation that they too can be Steem poor after making dozens of well thought out posts... and then I've seen dozens of people posting that they made all this money off a single post and are disillusioned.
I've asked a few of them to send me their posts... and when I see their post I immediately see why they made so much money.
For that reason, I am writing a list of tips I have learned in my short amount of time on the site to make sure you too receive no money on your post earnings. And many of these tips are tips that I have learned over 20 years in the internet publishing industry:
1. IMAGES
Make sure to use a lot of images. And don't just copy/paste something off the internet. Make sure to spend hours custom designing and perfecting the details so you can really feel good about yourself when you get no upvotes. I had 1 piece I probably spent 3 hours alone on just the images and got $0.31 for the entire post. So remember, if you want to be Steem Poor make sure to put a lot of sweat equity into your images.
2. FORMATTING
Similar to images the same is true to formatting; make sure to spend a shit ton of time on it. I pretty much do this for every post of mine and never make more than $1 per post. Now I might have an advantage as a web developer because I already knew how to use markdown, but I assure you if you take the time to invest & learn formatting you too can be Steem poor.
3. BUILD YOUR AUDIENCE
This this is where people make a rookie mistake. They think the key to being steem poor is to not have an audience at all but in reality the main thing is just make sure to avoid any whales. You can have hundreds of people upvote your content but as long as a whale avoids it - you'll be just fine. So I encourage anyone who's looking to be Steem poor to still work on building a audience - you'll feel even better about your content when you get 80 upvotes and only make $1.03.
4. WRITE SOMETHING INTERESTING
If you just post a video that's been on the internet since 2004 (like this one) or even worst simply post a picture of some fucking marijuna you might accidentally get upvoted the shit out of your post. We definitely don't want that.
So make sure to REALLY put time & effort into your posts. I find spending at least 5+ hours on a post (which I've done multiple times) is a sure fired way to keep any whales & upvotes away. Remember here... we're trying to stay Steem poor - god forbid you were to put your heart and soul into something and it actually got upvoted.
5. CONSISTENCY
This should be a no brainer but you definitely want to be consistent with your posting to make sure you maximize the amount of time you invest in this website with as little return as possible. The key to staying Steem poor is to avoid the tragic mistake of joining the website and making $10,000, $12,000 or even $15,000 on your first post. That's not going to help anything here.
6. WHY YOU SHOULD BE ON STEEMIT EVEN IF YOU CREATE CONTENT FOR A LIVING AND HAVE A LOT OF FRIENDS
I was a little worried when I joined Steemit that might not be able to remain Steem poor. See I create content for a living and am a natural extrovert. So I've already told a couple dozen people about the site, recruited quite a few friends & family members and already had a background in creating content. Thankfully none of that mattered as much as I feared it would and even if you write well and share your content with all your friends - you should still be in good share to remain Steem poor.
CONCLUSION
If you follow the simple tips above you should be able to remain poor from your work over time.
And, if you REALLY want to improve your chances, spend time researching every facet of how Steemit works. I've been doing it for days and it is incredibly interesting... but you'll have to spend a lot of time and effort to do so. Which is actually great, because it's less time you'll be spending at your "real job".
Nothing in life comes easy. Barry Bonds didn't just do a gargantuan amount of steroids one day and all of a sudden he was knocking balls out of the park while people threw money at him. He spent days, weeks, months and years of working on it... and doing a gargantuan amount of steroids.
Steemit has given us all a gift. It has created a platform whereby, if we work hard and hone our skills, most of us can remain poor.
But if you post some shitty recycled meme or steal a video directly from The Discovery Channel and don't worry about putting anytime into anything then see thousands of dollars coming in... you now know what not to do.
At least put up a picture of the fence!