For those of you who are new to the VolAnarchist brand, I prefer using Minds.com as my main social media platform. I love the community there, I love the UI and aesthetics of the site, and I love the points system they use to help users to boost their content and their channel.
However, I use Steemit because I find that Minds.com's Blog feature and its interface to be inconsistent, at best. The spacing for paragraphs in Minds is all over the place, there's a limited degree to which you can alter your font, and I've had a couple of articles end up disappearing without explanation as to why. Which really sucks, given that I wouldn't have much incentive to use other social media sites if it could manage to fix all of those issues.
There are plenty of things to like about Steemit, as a site, and there are a few well-known figures from the AnCap/Libertarian scene who use Steemit to blog and publish their articles. So, upon reflecting on why I use Steemit over Minds, I thought it would be cool to share with you some of the reasons why I love Steemit so much, as well as some of the things I'm not too fond of.
The Ways Steemit Benefits Me
I prefer using Steemit to write articles and blogs due to its concentrated Anarcho-Capitalist and Right-Leaning Libertarian community, which feels larger and more like an actual community than the existing communities on Minds. Although I'm not as popular on Steemit as I am on Minds, I do feel like the few conversations I do have on here are just as intelligent and slightly more gratifying in receiving feedback and up-votes.
I also find the simplicity of Steemit's blogging interface to be challenging in a positive way. I'm the kind of person that loves to tinker with graphics, the positioning and spacing of paragraphs/words/letters, and overall look of the website or channel profile that I have. As much as that can be a good thing, it can also serve as a distraction to the actual content that I'm producing; fretting over if my page has enough aesthetic appeal to attract and retain new users to view my site. There's not much to distract me here, so I find that I'm better able to put out higher quality work.
Another big plus for me is the limitation of hashtags to target which tags my post will be featured in. When it comes to other sites like Twitter, Facebook, and sometimes even Minds, I find myself using anywhere between 7-10 hashtags on a post in an attempt to get more people to see it come up on their newsfeed or suggestions. Not only that, but with how often the trending hashtags change or the spelling/capitaliization on tags change, it can get pretty frustrating and confusing. With Steemit, I'm limited to 5 tags and I don't have to worry about if my tags are correctly capitalized, saving me a lot of time and stress.
The Things on Steemit I Don't Care For
This may seem odd, but I honestly don't care much about the Steemit rewards program or earning Steem from my articles. Given that I joined the site as an alternative to dealing with Minds' blog system, I don't place much value on what little I earn from the articles I produce, especially because I'm a "small-timer" here on the site. I value the anonymity the site allows me and I like that, if I were interested enough and ever earned enough Steem, I could potentially cash in my Steem. However, I'm not going to be buying Steem to get more pull on this site, nor am I all that interested in purchasing any cryptocurrencies at the moment until the markets calm down from the fork.
Another aspect of Steemit that really doesn't wow me is the kitschy content that other users make to try and get more up-votes, comments, and resteems. I get that this isn't unique to Steemit and that there will ALWAYS be people who put this kind of content out there. My beef with that is content that should be intellectually-stimulating end up looking like a YouTube Let's Player's channel's latest video; filled with brightly-colored, zany fonts, "clickbait-esque" titles, and with the structure of the post shrieking, "REEEEAD MEEEEE!!!!" As a marketing move and a way to generate personal capital, I say fair play to whoever does that. However, I do feel it's disingenuous and conflicts with the supposedly more intelligent message you're trying to convey when you format your content in that way.
Even though I listed this as a positive, the last thing that I don't care for on Steemit is the tagging system. I like how simple it is, but unfortunately I fail to grasp how tagging a post on Steemit helps it gain any more or less popularity. Sometimes I'll spend a lot of time carefully tagging a political or economics-based post, but I end up getting maybe a few extra views and one or two more up-votes.
In contrast, I'll put up a "Weekly Advice" with zero fucks given about the tags and it suddenly becomes one of my top articles for no discernible reason. Time of day, content, and tags don't seem to factor much into what content of mine gets seen and, to be honest, it feels very random whenever my posts get some love. I'm sure I could do some research as to how it all works and plan out a system for posting content, but as I mentioned in "I SUCK at the Interwebz!", that sucks any and all fun that I have in creating content.
The Takeaway
I'm not here with the hopes that I'll make "mad stackz" in Steem, I'm just here to write what I feel is interesting and network with others who like my work or whose work I like. Steemit, in several ways, is better than Minds when it comes to writing articles/blogs, but there's definitely room for improvement. I also get that this cuts both ways, whereas I could work more on what graphics I use, experimenting with my writing style, and find a method that works best for me.
At the end of the day, I use Steemit as a way to publish my work and then share it on other platforms of social media. My standing, be it in Steem rewards or social standing with the community, doesn't feel like it means as much on here as it does on other sites. I use Steemit as a canvas I paint on, which I then present to others in the hopes that they like it and continue on enjoying my works. And while I love talking with users on here, I couldn't (nor is there much incentive to want to) make this my main social media platform for the sake of communicating with people.
I hope to continue growing my brand, getting more familiar with Steemit and its users, and improving my work to where I can provide better content as time goes on. I enjoy Steemit for what it is and recognize the downsides of the site for my personal use and brand growth. I don't think the site is broken or manipulates what content you can post and find, but like anything else it has it's pros and cons. I won't be going back to other blog sites like Tumblr, WordPress, or trying to create my own site for a blog, not as long as Steemit stays around...or at least until Minds gets its shit together and improves its Blog feature.
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