You've been on Steemit for a little while. At first you were unsure about how to gain followers and recognition in the community. You looked in the tags you were interested in and you learned. You started making your blogs bigger, more interesting. You're putting time into them and then one day it happens. You get this huge upvote from somebody with a great amount of Steem Power. You're happy! You try to recreate that magic moment by following the same format you used for that post but it never happens. There is a reason for that. Sort of. Read on.

When you got that big upvote you obviously went to that persons blog to take a look at it. You wanted to see what kind of posts they were putting out so you could try to 'hook' that whale again. The trouble is you didn't look deep enough. You had to actually open some of their posts and see where their votes were coming from. You would have noticed that most of their posts were getting voted by the same people. That is their pack. A lot of the people in that pack came into the community at the same time. They faced the same struggles as you are facing now with one very big exception: Steemit was a much smaller community at the time. It was easier for them to see each others posts. Those Steemians played off of each other and worked together and formed their pack up. They were the first line of innovators on the platform. As they grew they started projects to help others come up. Some of those others were able to join the pack in time, either through outstanding effort or being ushered into the community by one of the pack. How can you join the pack and start earning more recognition and influence in the community?

The simple answer here is you can't. You can try and you can put forth a valiant effort and you can get behind these established Steemians but there are still no guarantees. Steemit has grown so large in terms of members that it is hard to get noticed by these big fish for your efforts because the pond is so full now. There is, however, a way for you to grow on Steemit. You become part of a new pack. Don't focus your energies on trying to get those people to notice you. If you are putting out decent, relevant content that may happen from time to time. Instead concentrate yourself to creating your own pack. There are many people who are coming up with you and there are many good ideas out there for the community. Form alliances with like minded people here on the platform. Start programs and challenges and collaborations to help the community move forward. Steemit is always evolving. Just in the past year the community has seen dMania and Dtube and DLive come into being. There are more and more Discord channels catering to the sub-communities within Steemit. This is the evolution of social media and the people coming up now are the next wave of innovators for the platform. Don't try to gain here by riding the coat tails of those who brought it to where it is. Be proactive and help to take Steemit to the next level.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I appreciate your support.