I've been on Steemit for a few months now and it has been an awesome and fun journey so far. I love writing and blogging, in fact I've been a blogger for many years. I couldn't recalled the exact date when I first started but I think it was more than 10 years ago. I quit and stopped for a while few years ago because of some new commitments added into my life and I found myself can't keep up with everything, I figured I need to slow down a bit. Then I checked my blog and there's a lot of drafts in it that I failed to complete, too many that I felt like I've lost my mojo in blogging, so I quit.
Image source: http://www.fintechist.com
I started to blog again last year after being encouraged by my other half. In fact it was her that wanted to write and have a blog but due to her heavy work commitment, it was me that was actually writing a lot in the end... LOL! My initial plan was to create a photography blog but then it become a travel blog instead. A while after that it started to have other categories as well so it has become a mixed blog. With the help of some family members, that blog now have some contributors so I don't actually owned it alone. It is more of a collective efforts.
This is my profile, feel free to follow me if you want :)
Few months after I started blogging again, I discovered Steemit on my own. I was looking for some information on cryptocurrency and I stumbled upon a few articles written on Steemit. It triggered my interest since I was looking into cryptos at that time. The fact that Steemit reward the user with cryptocurrency really got me excited. When I read all the things about it, I was literally uttering and shouting the word "wow!" so many times. That evening, I told myself that I should give it a try, I registered and waited for my account to be approved.
So here I am, 96 days later writing this post that I think might help and encourage new user to know better about this platform. I was intending to write about my journey in Steemit but I'll save that for another day or another milestone later on. Plus like the politician way, it should be reflected in the 100th day of being in the office, right? But I'm no politician so lets take a ride a little longer and further before we do that.
Anyways, what I wanted to list down here is the advantages of Steemit as compared to the normal or conventional of blogging which I have more than 10 years experience in it. This might not benefit all those who have already using this platform for a long time but my intention is to give some information about this platform to the new users, beginners, those who have been here for less than a month as well as those who wanted to join this Steemit. I've been asked a lot by some friends, family members and those I tried to introduce this platform to about this subject so here it goes.
I. Steemit is unique in its own way because it was built on blockchain technology. So the experience and they way things done here is a bit different from conventional blogging.
II. You don't have to setup or buy any hosting plan and buy domain name here. It's pretty much like when you register for your social media accounts in platform such as FB and Twitter.
III. You don't need to spend any fiat money when you're starting to use Steemit but you might need to if you're more of an crypto investors. I'll go to that later.
IV. Steemit is like a hybrid of conventional blogging platform and social media platform, conceived using blockchain technology. So you have three in 1 experience and it's more fun! You can write a post like in conventional blog, you can interact directly with others and you can trade cryptocurrency, how cool is that?
V. You can write about anything here but if you have a very specific expertise that you want to share with others and get rewarded and appreciated for it, this is your "paradise". In conventional way of blogging it might take you a long time to get all those or to even get noticed.
VI. Your effort will be rewarded based on the quality of the post you write not by the number of view, visits or unique visitors. If you write a good post, people like it they will upvote it. Their upvote is what will determined your reward.
The view of your post doesn't translate into the value of it.
VII. Your reward will not be paid by advertising company, how much you will earn will be depending on your own effort. In fact you don't have to display any adverts in your blog and hoping to earn something from people clicking it. Here, you don't ask for people to view your post just so you can get views to the adverts you displayed like in the conventional blog and hoping for them to click it. Here, you write good quality post and people will notice it, read it, upvote it and maybe resteem it to share it with their followers.
VIII. Before you expect to earn big in this platform you need to build your reputation up first. There are many ways to do it but the most important two are to write good quality post and interact with others. You cannot go on your own here, you cannot just write any post, hoping for people to read and upvote it without you have to read others post, interact with them and upvoting their post first. You have to built that reputation and earn it, it won't be given to you. Even your account level is based on a few things but not based on your ego and selfishness.
IX. The whole community of Steemit is very supportive in a lot of ways but you need to join or be part of other communities in it, for you to learn more about this platform as you go further. You will also get a lot benefits and support from that communities because most of the senior members are very experienced users and early adopters. As a newbies you need those supports if you want to stay longer here. But joining them is not as easy as you think, some might need you to register and perform some tasks before you can join them. Once you joined them you need to abide to their community rules and regulations. Most of them doesn't like vote and follow begging so you need to respect that.
X. Vote and follow begging as well as sucking up doesn't really works here in this platform. If you just started and started to go to the post of those with high account level and reputation, you commented that you've upvoted their post and asking them to upvote yours and follow you, they might be annoyed by you.
XI. Plagiarism is a big no no in Steemit. If you think that by copying popular article from other sources and post it here to get a lot of reward you might be very wrong. Most people here are very aware of this thing. In the conventional way of blogging there are lot of people steal other people's post and reap the reward from it but not here. You need to be yourself, be honest and be original here.
XII. Everything you so do in Steemit is all transparent, except for your passwords. People can check everything you do in this platform in many ways.
Even when I'm writing this post, before it is even published, people can already know. You can use this website https://steemd.com/ and put your Steemit username at the end of the url.
XIII. You can be rewarded not only by writing good post but also by your interactions with others. Not only your post will have value, your comments will be as well. Those value, based on the market price of Steem and Steem Dollars, can fluctuate. So don't freak out when you see the value of your post decreased, that's normal for something that is build on and based on blockchain technology. That value will not be the exact amount that you will get for the reward, it will be in the form of Steem Dollar and Steem Power not USD.
XIV. This platform is still in progress which means it will keep on growing and getting better. Your journey will not be only your own but you will be moving together with this platform as it progressing up.
XV. Your post and what you write will be noticed immediately or almost instantaneously by your followers or others. They doesn't have to depends solely on search engines to get your post, it will be there in their feeds or in the specific tags page. Like your social medias feed, that's how it is but instead of just OOTD or selfies you will see the awesome article they wrote.
XVI. The interface of this platform is simple and easy to navigate. It is also very fast to load because there's no other things unnecessary you can put into it. It will be growing and there will be more changes in the future but it will surely get better.
XVII. There are many bots that you can benefits from, you have to discover them. Some of them are not good but there are good ones around. You can buy or bid votes here but it might not be like by some, same like when you buy your followers in the social media. But some bots are good to help you grow in this platform just be careful of the scam.
XVIII. You don't have to pay marketers to boost your post, you can do it on your own by promoting it but you have to spend some of your Steem Dollars for it. Promoting your post will make it appear in promoted page and it might get a better visibility.
If you want to check how much your upvote worth you can use this calculator at https://www.steemnow.com/upvotecalc.html
XIX. You can even upvote your own post and comment but there's no point of doing it if you're just started although you will get the curation reward. If your vote worth something you might want to save your upvote value and upvote other people's post that have lower level than you to help them grow. It's not about how many post you upvote but how many can you contribute to the value of that post. You upvote can fluctuate and the more you vote it percentage will be decreased and so will its value. For those who are new, your vote doesn't cost anything yet, unless you're willing to spend a lot of money in increasing your Steem Power.
XX. There are three things you can get in this platform, Steem, Steem Power and Steem Dollars. Steem is the main cryptocurrency for this platform and you can only get it by buying it, trading it or earning it from other users. Steem Power is the influence tokens that will determined your vote value, it can be powered up by converting Steem to it. The higher your Steem Power the more your upvote will be worth. So don't be surprised if you saw an account registered only for a few days with a very high Steem Power. Steem Dollar or SBD is what you will be rewarded with, it can be traded and cashed out or can also be used to buy Steem.
So those are the advantages of Steemit that I discovered from my short journey here so far. You might noticed it is more like tips for newbies but if it works that way for you then take it that way. If you need more tips and guide on specific things that you are not sure about just search for it in this platform. There are many posts written by a lot of Steemians that covered almost everything you need to know. The very first thing you should do when you just started, in fact, is to read the Steem Bluepaper, SMT Whitepaper and Steem Whitepaper, even before you write your first post.
One of my post was featured in 
I hope this article will be beneficial to those of you who just started or those who plan to join but still skeptical about this platform. It's okay if you don't understand blockchain and cryptocurrency, through this platform you will learn much more easily than reading some random article you find out there because here you can ask the experts directly. Even better if you're in a community that is very supportive towards newcomers.
Good luck, have fun and Steem on!
Note: I'm hosting a mini contest called #gamingclipcontest this week for a second round. Check out the details of that contest here: https://steemit.com/gaming/@rodznocturne/gaming-clip-contest-2-the-cold-winter You can win some Steems if you're one of the winners. You can also check out the result of the first round of this contest here: https://steemit.com/gaming/@rodznocturne/gaming-clip-contest-1-the-trial-result
