I'm Back!
Over the last month, I took an unplanned hiatus from Steemit. Now, I wasn't completely gone. I checked in every few days to drop some upvotes. I withdrew funds from my wallet to do some trading. I checked in on my bot from time to time.
Oh yea, I should do a plug:
In case you haven't heard, I run a bot called 
. It's the pioneer "ethical bid bot." The first bidbot of its kind to guarantee a profitable upvote by ensuring that the value of bids never exceeds the value of the bot's vote. If you want to give a try, send a bid of at least 0.02 STEEM/SBD with your post link in the memo!
Plug over.
There won't be any more ads on this post. I promise!
I took a break from art and blogging because I've been so bogged down by school and other life commitments. But my semester is finally winding down so you can expect to see me around these parts a lot more!
A Review
In my time off, I had a chance to consider my experience here on Steemit and how I want to improve things going forward. In summary, I want to generally redirect my account to focus more on involvement in the Steemit community.
I am not a whale by any metric. But I've been on this platform long enough and I've earned enough power to be in a position where I can help others. I had already made some steps in this direction before the unplanned sabbatical. For example, I ran a few art contests with the goal of getting lesser-known bloggers exposure and prizes.
There's also the matter of my afore-mentioned bot. I've delegated nearly all of my SP to
My goal is to take greater initiative to involve myself in the community and provide something of value.
This is my plan going forward:
1. More comments
I'll admit that I have often been guilty of blogging selfishly. I would write my posts and hope for big returns without reading much content from the other hard-working content creators on Steemit. Now I want to read more than I write, and contribute valuable comments.
Nothing makes a blogger feel better than seeing someone else who actually read their post and gave it enough thought to leave a valuable comment. Nothing beats that feeling... except maybe an $800 payout!
2. Less shitposts
I don't think much of my content is that bad, but I will concede that I'm sometimes lazy in my writing. This is especially true when payouts are high. I blog without thinking knowing that I can expect at least a couple bucks out of that post. Going forward I intent to choose quality over quantity in my posts.
3. More contests
My audience of 2000 followers will seem meager to some and large to others. The goal of my art contests is to help minnows with a small audience to get more exposure and it also gives them a chance to win some money. Steem is hard to earn when you have a small following, so I'm glad to help out littler fish than me with these contests.
4. More giveaways
I've done a few art giveaways on my blog. I'd like to increase my output. It's another small way for me to give back to this community that's done so much for me.
5. More resteems
I know some people get annoyed by resteems. They followed me for my content. But I hope they won't begrudge me for resteeming the occasional quality post. I'll try to look for users with small audiences with great content to give them a helping hand.
There it is. Most of my ideas come down to simply doing more of the good things I've already done on the platform. But I'm open to suggestions.