The road of a newbie may not always be easy.
Not everyone can see immediate result after putting in so much effort in posting.
Recently, I have a new follower who asked me what did I do when I first started since I may look like I am quite successful now. There were so many questions posted to me and I decided to summarise some things that I did and considered as I grew and still continue to grow in this platform. We can never stop learning if growth is what you are seeking for.
The fact is that I still have a long way before I can be considered successful. I am still a little fish among many other fishes without high steem power in this challenging ocean with whales, dolphins and sharks.
My early journey in steemit
I joined steemit on 15 December 2017. I have only joined the platform for 79 days at the point of this article.
If you ever so determined to see how I was when I first started, you can find in my blog that most of my articles were only receiving miserable few cents worth of upvotes for the first few weeks.
Below is a screenshot of my first two days in steemit
I can say really miserable if we compared many members who did a good introduction of themselves and earn quite a few good dollars. I am quite an extreme of low upvotes.
I started to have occasional few dollars of upvotes for articles later on. There was no quick success for me and I struggled like most members here.
The basic fact is that I do not have high steem power to have quick and huge influence in the platform since I am not able to dump in huge cash into the platform to rise quickly as most of us do have family commitments as well as daily expenditure we need to cope with. The fact is never invest more than we can afford.
What did I do that lead me until today?
Looking at the last two articles, one may say that I have already made it and I am successful.
I took a screenshot while they were still in trending section. The value of both my articles may be slightly different if you do check them out as steem price does affect our article values.
The fact is that we can never know whether we can maintain the high value upvotes for every article for small fishes like us without high steem power.
One of the basic ingredients and the main focus that I mentioned numerous times in many of my articles is we must have quality content that appeals to steemit readers who really are more interested in building their steemit account and cryptocurrency.
One of my followers indicated to me that he felt he had attractive content in his blog but he was not getting much upvotes.
I took a look at his blog and found out certain things that he was doing that I would avoid.
What are some of the things that I avoid?
I avoid resteeming.
There is nothing really wrong in resteeming articles to help other steemit members.
I do resteem good articles once in a blue moon but I don’t do it very often.
Imagine I am your follower and my feed is full of your resteeming without much of your own original articles. I will probably unfollow you very soon.
Resteeming articles should be done discreetly and your blog should not become a resteeming generator.
There is really no point for a follower to follow a blog that does mainly resteeming only. Even if you do write an article, it may just be treated as one of the resteemed ones that would not get much upvotes.
I do not totally discard resteeming but I will resteem when there is a good quality article that I will recommend to my followers.
In simple, I only resteem good ones and I avoid doing it often.
Posting only photographs
Posting only photographs alone as a newbie may not get us very far without high steem power.
I tried a couple of times and did not work well for me.
It may not be considered rich content and there may not be useful information to help the other members.
In the end, newbies got frustrated as it seems like they have posted regularly but there isn’t much result due to lack of content to attract upvotes.
You can consider posting photographs with a good write-up to enhance it. I know of a photographer who does it and the write-up is always very reflective.
He is definitely earning great upvotes. I am his follower and I upvote almost every photograph that he posts.
Don’t beg for upvote, follow, resteem or visit
Never ever opt to promise anyone an upvote in exchange for their upvote.
Asking anyone for upvote in any article or comment is against the rule of steemit and you can get flagged.
I have mentioned this repeated in most of my recent articles.
I have decided not to ask or beg for upvote, follow, resteem or visit.
You will not see these requests in all of my latest articles.
I did make this mistake when I first started since I saw most members are doing it.
It was really the blind leading the blind.
Take a good look at Steemit FAQ on your own and you can see the whole picture of the dos and don’ts more clearly.
If you are new and reading this, I hope that you have a better start than me.
In simple, begging or asking for upvotes or visit for our articles is really not the right way. If you have great articles, upvote is a natural process. Your article should propel others to upvote it as they really want to affirm your good work.
It should not be a sympathy upvote that you end up getting a few cents worth and start to go around being despaired and angry with steemit members who seem to be not supportive and responsive.
Keep posting great articles and don’t give up. You will get your deserved reward in time to come.
Building a kingdom is never an easy task and steemit is really not a quick-to-get-rich program or platform.
All the instant rich dream should just be settled back to reality.
Take it step by step and be patient especially without high steem power and lack of research of the interest of most readers.
Learn from the established steemit members whose articles can be found in the hot section before starting to post like machine gun aimlessly and heading to nowhere.
What is quality content?
This is just some of my personal thoughts about quality content.
Some questions for reflections:-
Is your article useful to help others?
Does your article cater to the interest of most steemit members?
You should do some research at the hot section to see what is
getting good upvotes and which type of writing style you can adopt.
Don’t rush into posting but do it slow and steady.If you are a reader, would you feel compel so much that you want to upvote
the article that you have just written?
If the answer is ‘No!’, totally discard what you had planned to post.
Are you passionate about the article you have written and is it within your
expertise? Don’t just copy something from the internet and treat it as yours.
You can get flagged for plagiarism.Is your key points of your article clear or are you just talking about the same
idea over and over again?Keep your article simple to read and don’t need to use bombastic words since
English may not necessary the main language of everyone here. You should
cater your readability to the majority crowd.
Build good relationship
How have you build a relationship in this platform?
It is hard to be successful without friends in steemit.
You need support from your friends.
Do you visit the blogs of your followers or upvoters often?
This is important as you need to curate articles of your followers and upvoters more often and they may do the same for you. Remember to upvote only if they are quality articles. There is a great need to maintain high standard in the quality of articles.
Do not offer upvote for upvote as you can get flagged.
Every upvote and visit of blogs and articles should be voluntarily.
Provide advice to readers if they do have a question. It is always good to response to every comment made to your articles.
I am coming to the end of my articles.
I have shared some of the key things that I did to be where I am today.
I hope you have found it enriching to read especially if you are new to the platform.
This article should also be a good reminder to those who have been in the platform for some time but are still struggling to gain popularity.
Thank you so much for all your support and your acknowledgement is definitely value.
My next article will be about 5 days later to give more time for my followers to read this article.
Disclaimer: This is my personal reflection and I am not in any position to instruct anyone what they should do. I am not responsible for any action taken as a result of this post. My post can only be a reference for your further research and growth. By reading this post, you acknowledge and accept that.