I've been reading my comments and I am amazed by how many people are new to steemit. Because of this, I decided to change my content strategy a little bit and cater more to the demand of those who need direction at the beginning of their quest.
I have a special request at the end of this article, for those who can help me, I will give a generous upvote in the comment section.
Welcome Newcomers!
For those of you who have been here for less than a month, let me extend a big WELCOME to you. Steemit is fascinating and can be difficult to grasp at time for some people. It's a completely different approach to social media...one where you can actually make a lot of money by producing value for other members.
I will take for granted that you have read the Welcome Page. Most if not all the technical questions you have can be answered there. What I am about to share with you is what I think you should be doing to make the most out of your experience here.
First - Define Why You Are Here
So why are you here? Are you here just to have a place to write? Are you here to build a large following? Are you here to make money enough to have a retirement fund?
Your aim will define the type of activity you should engage in. I will take for granted in this post that you are here to maximize the amount of visibility and income you can make on steemit.
Second - Establish Your Core Competence
As I said above, you are paid on steemit for providing value...not necessarily for writing content. Content is a vehicle for value.
So don't get caught in the dream that if you spend 2 hours writing a piece of content, no matter how great it is, without a following, without SteemPower and without connections that it will go to the moon...it won't.
Find out in what way you could serve other people, make friends and add value.
Casestudies:
@lemouth:
I didn't coach or said anything to my brother in law about how to go about building his account. At the moment he has accumulate 13,736 SteemPower and he is partially responsable of a project that has 26,000 SteemPower to curate content related to STEM.
How did he do it?
He is a scientist...a really good one. What he did was first to find other people like him. He found other scientists who were a part of his niche. Then he created a project with them called @SteemStem which is a "Community Project to Promote Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics Postings on Steemit". Then he kept writing about his particular topic. His community supports him as he is support his community. He is doing really well because of that.
@elear:
This is the guy behind the Utopian project (check utopian.io). He is a brilliant visionary and has created a giant community of people who share his vision. More than 4 Million SteemPower has been delegated to his project so far. Not only that...the people who help him along the way are also benefiting from his creation. Many newcomers interested into the world of open-source have been making much more rewards via his project than they were on steemit.com
@dontstopmenow
I like this guy a lot. He was the number #1 curator on the whole platform for a long time. Even though he had a very small account (something like 50 SteemPower), he diligently worked at figuring out how to make the biggest ROI possible with curation. Since I wanted to reliably be able to follow his votes, I connected with him. Got www.steemauto.com created via a bounty of 1000 STEEM I've put out (Thanks @mahdiyari).
Since then I've been following his trail. He made my curation rewards go up by 75% and I am happy to upvote his post with 100% power whenever he writes something. (He's got to make money after all...curation is mostly profitable for big holders)
Third - Accumulate as Much SteemPower as Possible
SteemPower is unique. When you invest STEEM into SteemPower(SP), your vote define a bigger and bigger portion of the daily reward pool. Not only that, you also gain the ability to make your article trend in the hot section for a while, from there, you gain visibility, followers and more rewards coming from people who like your article or project.
Finally, you start making more and more curation rewards. This, I consider almost like a passive income at this point.
There is nothing like SteemPower and unless you are a pro-trader, accumulating SP is the best crypto move I can think of in the long term.
What's Most Difficult is to Get Off the Ground
The most crowded place is at the bottom. It's difficult to get out of there to be honest and I understand those who get discouraged. There is a cumulative advantage for those who stick it out but most don't have the fortitude to figure how to do it.
If you have no money to spend in buying SP, there are bloggers like me who upvote good, thoughful and helpful comments. Find them out and follow them. Add value to their blog by writing good comments and you'll be rewarded.
THIS IS A SPECIAL TIME FOR YOU.
Right now, because of the ridiculous price of SBD, if you earn anything you are getting a 7X to 10X more STEEM than you think. If you only have 10 SBD right now via comments or authors reward, you can exchange them on the internal market(https://steemit.com/market) for 68 STEEM! So even if you get 1SBD via my upvote on your comment. Consider that you are making at least 7X that amount in STEEM.
There as never been a better time to accumulate SteemPower...EVER!
Conclusion - My Request to You Readers
Most of all, I'm trying to be helpful to my readers. Please write the topic you would like me to cover in my future article. I'll make sure to upvote your suggestions.
Getting more power (whenever you can) is important in every aspect of daily life
Getting more STEEMPOWER is even more so !
@onealfa your words could not be more right for @cryptoctopus post! Upvoted your comment. @gold84
I think society is doomed if everybody would act like that. The community thought will get lost and we become mere individual soldiers on a lonely quest for power(and everyone else is just plotting to take it from you)
Sometimes it necessary to retreat. Anyways, it seems impossible to make something happen without it so its hard to make decisions. U got me thinking now :D thanks!
You suggest buying STEEM on the internal market with SBD. My question is: what benefit does gain STEEM have? I thought that's main purpose was to be transferred to either SP or SBD. Could you clarify what you would do with STEEM once you have it?
For most people, I would suggest to turn STEEM into STEEMPOWER(SP) as much as possible. STEEM doesn't do anything on the steem blockchain. It's good to transfer around, send to exchanges, etc. But it doesn't get you more influence and reward on the platform. I suggest to turn SBD to STEEM because the price of SBD has went crazy and I don't see that situation lasting forever...so while the getting is good, it's the perfect time to get STEEM (to then turn it into SP) at $0.14 each on the internal market while it's at $1.75 on the regular market. Make sense?
Got it.
Do you know how much SP someone needs before there upvote is worth something?
Is there a formula shat shows how much your upvote is worth per SP held?
And one more question: is there anything keeping me from using the "Sell" function under STEEM and converting it to bitcoin? Would that be a bad idea for some reason.
Thanks btw.
At current market price($1.75 per steem), 1000 SP is ~$0.17 by upvote(at 100%). You can look at the value of your upvote here: www.steemworld.org/@jrue
Thanks, just what I needed.
I've got to say SteemWorld by @steemchiller the best things I have used as a noob.
If you don't know what it is, stop reading this now and go check it out.
Put this in your browser https://steemworld.org/@yoursteemnamehere obviously replace @yoursteemnamehere with your steem name.
It has a Voting power adjusting tool, voting history, vote for witnesses, account balance, delegation start stop tool, list of followers and much more.
It is THE
swisssteem army tool everyone should have!I always have it open in another tab.
There really isn't a formula... or rather, it is quite lengthy and involves things like the number of people who voted that day.
There are some websites that calculate vote amount.
But, generally, at 488 SP, at todays current prices, the upvote is worth about 10¢ at 100%/100%. 100% voting power and 100% vote allocation. (at 488SP you get to have a slider that allows you to change your vote %)
The "Sell" function under STEEM is ... mislabeled, it would be more appropriate to say "Send to someone else".
Steemit has an internal market where you can trade STEEM and SBD, but that is it.
If you want to trade STEEM of SBD for bitcoin, litecoin, BitShares and such, you can either transfer your steem to an exchange like Bittrex or you can use Blocktrades.us to transform them (it trades them for you, and deposits the outcome in your wallet).
There are many articles about this on steemit.
This is a great topic! Thanks for opening up the discussion!
One of the things I find very interesting and would like to know more about is the engagement level of whales. I know you personally read every comment on your threads, unfortunately, this seems to be more the exception than the rule. And I am not going to blame the whales, as they can easily get hundreds of comments each time they post.
So asking as someone who likes to get out of his own blog as much as possible and engage with people in their space, what kind of comments draw you to a person in such a way that you feel compelled to visit their blog and see what they are writing about?
To put it another way. How can minnows stand out in the comment section of a post that could have hundreds of other people vying for the OP's attention?
Of course I have my own parameters of engagement in my posts. Things like Showing you actually read what I wrote, contributed something worthwhile to the discussion, and come back to respond if someone chooses to continue the conversation by responding to your comment, are all indicators to me of someone who is looking to engage in the community.
Interested to hear what draws you out of your own blog to look at someone and see what they are doing? Or is your primary method of curating to take care of people in your comments, and stick with the list of people you are already following for your feed?
Thanks for the opportunity to pick your brain! Very interested in how this thread develops!!!
I will write about this for sure. Thanks man. You are truly one of my favorite user here.
Awww.. flattery will get you everywhere! LOL
Thanks! Very much appreciate the opportunity!
I have only been on steemit for almost five months; so I am still a newcomer in most aspects.
What brought me here? The opportunity to have a platform for my writing, blogging and to share my passion for gardening. It is a destination that I can post to my heart's content without having to maintain the site and behind the scenes issues.
I have made some great "friends", joined some wonderful communities and have learned a wealth of information I had not found anywhere else online.
I would love to read a future article about your daily routine from the time you started steemit until now; how it progressed and maybe how you learned from errors along the way. I like to see organization and schedules. Maybe your followers can learn from your dedication.
I also like the idea of the daily routine post!
I have an OCD thing going on in my head and it keeps me on track. I like to see how others work their magic and how I could possibly add some new ideas to my routine.
Yes, great idea @goldendawne!
I will write about this for sure. Thanks!
That would be awesome and appreciated!
i want to read about your experience in cryptocurrency overall, not only steemit, but all your portfolio and what you bought for 2018 and why and what you think about next year
That's a great suggestion @investwarrior
Hi @cryptoctopus, i see thet you are here since the very beginning of Steemit community.. so i would like to read a your article about how things have changed here in steemit from the beginning until now.
This really is a good topic! The old wild west days are pretty interesting to hear about! of course next year people will be looking at right now as the old wild west too with the current price of SBD!
Yes @mikepm74, i'm curious to know how steemit was in a start-up period.
That's a good idea. I will
Dear @cryptoctopus, great insights! I'm also one of the newcomers, just started in the summer, did not invest, but tried all kinds of things here on Steemit. It's been really fun, I tried coding for the first time in my life, I tried photo-shopping, now I'm trying song-writing... What a great way to step out of the box, with sometimes success and sometimes not so much :) So yeah, I haven't really been establishing a core competence, still working on that..
But, if you could touch on one subject in a next post: Getting upvotes is one thing, but how to drive more engagement, views and comments to your blog, that is really something I would really like to learn more about.
That's a good one. I will write about this and keep trying new things!
Thanks for highlighting these other steemians, went and followed them, seem like valuable members and great for the community. A topic that might be useful for new members is learning about the different communities within the steemit ecosystem. Most people know about PAL, or minnow support, but I'm talking about some of the smaller groups. learning how to join @curie, getting involved with @steemsports or working alongside @ecotrain. those could be valuable groups to new members trying to find their place
That's a very good idea. I will look into that.
If you need any help fleshing out information about Curie I may be of service there as a Curie Curator. Steemsports is looking for writers, though they don't really advertise as such, but if anyone wants to write about sports for them, I know a guy who knows a guy as it were. ;-)
Hey @mikepm74 I have a friend that writes in the motorsports arena I have been trying to get him to come to steem and start bloging about his racing career and told him we could support his racing by getting STEEM out there on his car and so he can talk to other drivers about sharing there driving experience here. I think the sports community is one of the tight groups that are the real driving force behind the actual sponsorship of a racing team. It is the fans that buy all the products that allow the team to keep racing. So the idea that we could sponsor a team with our upvotes is very exciting as an idea. Thanks for the comment it reminded me that I have some more people to invite to this platform.
Hey allowisticartist! Make sure you are checking out things like sportspodium too. They have an ICO coming up for promoting sports on the blockchain. I am not sure exactly how it works, and I think they are currently "paused" due to some hiccup in their planning, but I think there are some good people involved.
Good sports content is pretty underserved from my viewpoint, so definitely, bring them in and get them writing for us to upvote!
Thanks Mike I will let my buddy know. This is really exciting thanks for the additional info.
I would like to know from you how important the reputation is, what it affects, not for nothing that it increases. You have so clear posts and their content that I think many will be interested in this...
Great Suggestion! Thanks!
Yes, great suggestion!
I've seen people be so happy about reaching a certain reputation level, and I'm wondering why. Are there milestones hidden in those numbers or is it simply: the higher the better?
I also see some people, who have only just joined, have a quite high reputation from the beginning (or after only a few weeks). What makes your reputation grow?
And most importantly: Why is it displayed next to our name so it looks like it would be our age??? LOL
In your future article I would like to know more personal things about you, like for example how has steemit changed your day to day life?
What is your long term plan giving the fact you are very successful on steemit?
I would also like to ask you about your first days on the platform, but I am sure you already talked about that am I right?
Same with me. I like to see how advanced steemians started out. People can really learn from what others did, learn from errors made and how to perfect their own progression.
I did but I will try to tell my story a little bit more.
Amazing post. My biggest mistake was not building SteemPower, anyway experience on Steemit is great. My suggestion for topic is that you write about your success on Steemit, like beginning, challenges etc.
Why do you think that was a mistake?
Read the post :).
Thanks. Will write about that :-)
I would like to know what you think the future holds for steemit? Up? Down? The SMT's I keep hearing about?
Good. I'll write about that :-)
one of the topics that can help newcomers is introducing communities like utopian or curie, they have no barrier to enter, cost nothing and guide the new users on how to craft valuable posts.
Good one.
Minnowsupport has also really helped me in the early going.
doesn't minnowsupport require payments for upvotes?
Yes. But following them opens you up to weekly contests you can enter with your content and if you sign up for the discord channel it helps build a following and community.
The problem is, new users don't have any liquid steem or SBD, they can't afford minnowsupport. I'm more interested to see communities with no barrier for entry.
You don't need steem to enter their weekly contest. I can make up to 20 Steem off that contest along. Plus the free resteems and upvotes.
Thanks for writing all these posts lately for newcomers! It's been very helpful and I was able to point a few other newbies who didn't know (especially about the internal market) towards your posts :) so we all thank you!! shout to @dontstopmenow for being an awesome Steemian too!! So true that Steemit is about the connections. Can you write about maximizing curation rewards?? - I've been slowly learning, but not sure if I know all the different things to think of regarding that aspect yet!
I might have a post that is an interview with @dontstopmenow at this point
Oh yeah! That’s a great idea, that would be interesting for everyone I think :) look forward to it!
Thanks to be generous to new comers like me. Your post means a lot to me as it puts light on different aspects where one can get reasonable income. From this post I got the point that if one want to get benefit one should be beneficial to others as well as entire system. I would love you to have some posts on curation reward mechanism.
I will for sure :-)
Thanks. I will be waiting eagerly. Once again thanks
nice post my friend, you almost cover all the important steps which are great for new steemians and you ask us to give suggestion for your future article as far as i know you are sponsor in utopian.io and you are also one of the earliest steemian here on steemit, so i suggest you to tell us about some easy open source projects, i know there are huge amount of open source projects running but tell us a simplest of open source projects on which we work and then submit our contribution in utopian.io, i think utopian.io is amazing project and it's also great for new steemians and minnows like me, wish you all the best for all of your future endeavors! my friend, Stay blessed
Thank u so much for this sir. Your posts are always helpful especially in clarifying certain aspects of this complex platform called steemit.
You've been recommending powering up for sometime since the sbd spike and I'm seriously consisting that now.
I'm quite new, but I found the science nieche...I am a scientist too, already found the steemstem project and writing scientific stuff I really know about seems to be working well here. I would also state that a good introduceyourself post is worth a lot, it gives you your first followers, and resteems seem to increase your visibility A LOT.
What I would like to read about: There are some details of the dynamics here that are not really explained well to newbies. For example:
These are all good questions. You can learn about curation in the welcome page (steemit.com/welcome). The rule is the same across any type of post (blog or comment)
For delegating, there are several ways. Please contact us on the chat and we will help you. For witnesses, it is somehow important, but you may want to take the time to know the witnesses first. It has its own importance to ensure a good running of the platform :)
@cryptoctopus,
The day one I joined here and the very first day I started reading your posts what I feel was you are very helpful! After few months back, I am still your big fan, not becoz of the reward, but becoz of the way you help others and the way you share your experience with others!
As you said, your $1 worth upvote valuable more than 7 Steem and that also mean it valuable more than 12 USD! It might be a big reward for the new joiners and great content makers! Keep this good work up!
Cheers~
Thanks man. I'm glad you have been following all along
@cryptoctopus,
You are welcome friend!
Cheers~
Steemit has rewarded the hard work I've put into my podcast for the first time ever. I've been doing it for a few years now (off and on), and it wasn't until Steemit that I began to build listeners and "profit".
With only a small investment in myself of $50 (plus crypto profits), Steemit allows me to make a few Steem/Steem Dollars a week (which mean more with the rise in price).
For newcomers, keep hammering, do the work and try to stay in your lane a bit. There are a lot of self-sustaining communities here and they are only growing.
This is a great casestudy with some great examples. Accumulating SP now is easier, So I'm gonna work on that as well!
If I had read this article during my initial days then I would have been a better steemian .
Thanks for sharing knowledge, resteemd it
Thank you, for this useful advice. I’m fairly new to Steemit and still finding my footing.
Even though I’m the author of 7 critically-acclaimed books, with thousands of followers on other platforms, starting from scratch here.
If you know any lovers of poetry, philosophy, cultural commentary & spiritual meditations, please, send them my way :)
Here’s a profile of my work on PBS NewsHour: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/poetry/humble-one-liners-can-teach-us-times-live
Cheers, Yahia
@cryptoctopus I totally agree with you with what you said regarding trading almost at the end. After trading (when somebody is an expert), powering up to get more Steem Power is probably "the best thing" to do in crypto as a long term investment.
I don't know if I read your mind, or viceversa, but yesterday I thought, I have been writing a lot of posts with ideas to make steemit a better place, however, I thought I could also make posts to help new people make their way on steemit, from when they start. Every day, more and more people are coming to the platform, and the more help we can give them to succeed, the faster the platform will grow, and the word will spread like lightning rays.
For the next post or one of the next ones you could write targeted to creative people on steemit and also on Google (because for sure your post will be reached why lots of people outside steemit and the steem blockchain). You can show them some examples of contributions some people are making on the community, and how they are rewarded for that. You can also tell them that we are paid in SBD and steem, and that it can be converted to BTC, ETH and LTC, and afterwards into their fiat currency.
Your thoughts?
Regards, @gold84
It's a good idea. Let me think about it. :-)
@cryptoctopus sounds good.
Regards, @gold84
So interessing post , i try my best to promote steemit and this post is so helpful , i will share it with my community thank you
before I joined steemit.com I like the person who don't know another way of life in the world as to date I still owed by the more people to achieve the hundreds of millions of dollars. therefore it so, then make life for me as if it ends and continue to over. problems affecting I made my health worse and certainly very messed up. in September 2017 there is one of my friends are named account @green07 forced me to join in steemit.com and indirect denied offer him ask me directly makes me join. at the beginning - early posts I just got upvote by the number of penny worthless for me at that time. but with a spirited diligent and faithful in accompanied by the lure - lure upvote large in give @blocktrades, I continue to work hard by way of writing. I am very experienced in the field of integrated farming and I continue to discuss the problem in the posts by me. at the time week past with little by little I wrote with tag #steemstem and #steemiteducation up #homesteading I have started up from sleep far from the awareness. I continue to get upvote so on posting my last week I in upvote @blocktrades, this is something that hold me dreamed that have come true. when everyone busy memanenkan SBD them with the price was skyrocket I took a step initiative not mencairkannya, I directly buy steem in order to be able to my rent delegation that have been in a matter of me to be developed here. until now I have put together steem hampair 180 steem. I plan will collect up to reach 276 steem are likely to get 10.000 warrant to make my safe in the work here. now, steemit only one - only way to solve the problem of debt me. and steemit is hero for all a lot of people. thanks so much..i like you @cryptoctopus ... by. @boyasyie
Thanks for the recommendations, I'd never heard of @lemouth or @steemstem and now I'm following both of them!
Thanks a lot! We also have a channel on the steemit chat, if you want to come and discuss with us :)
Thank you Cryptoctopus for keeping the community informed in an easy to read format. The suggestions are very helpful. I have powered up more Steem with your SBD trading advice.
New topic: do you have any crypto trading tips, tools, etc. or can your explain other ways to earn on steemit? I heard something about providing liquidity to the internal SBD/Steem market.
Thanks for all you do!
I have been on Steemit about 5 months, so I am still a newcomer in some aspects.
Steemit has come to mean to me a wonderful special place!
I enjoy being here.
Also I believe that Steemit will help me to achieve financial freedom.
So I would love to read any your future article, for example, how you learned from your errors along the way and about your success on Steemit.
Thank you.
I've been on Steemit since June, but these kinds of posts are still helpful to me.
Do you have a goal for how many posts you publish in a week? What motivates you to keep posting?
I was really excited about Steemit at the end of the summer and was posting most every day... but life got challenging and I stopped. I've been reading, upvoting and commenting but haven't written many posts in the last couple months.
What keeps you going?
Alright. I'll write about that :-)
Hello Mr. Cryptoctopus. I loved the ideas that you captured in your recent post We are still very early in this game, I agree with you, I learn a lot of your articles and I would like to take the idea you have given to learn and make relationships with people who already have a long time I am an active and constant member of steemit, and I would love to be part of this new stage, you have many followers of the community in Spanish who, like me, learn a lot from your ideas, I would like to know if I can help you translating your posts into Spanish and that you publish them, giving all credit to you, I would only like your support according to what you consider fair, a humble request that I hope you can consider, and if you like the idea, you tell me . A big hug and thanks.
Great work and congratulations for all the succesfull steemains...I hope that i will have the chance to be a whale on steemit this is my goal in next time.
Mental fortitude and perseverance is key to getting something out of steemit. I must admit I almost quit steemit for good since I was spending hours upon hours curating and still not making any headway. After 3 months of hiatus, I'm back with new vigor to the community.
Thanks for the great insight!
please help us talk about SMT and which worth holding between SBD and steem..Thanks you
Thank you for sharing this post ! It will encourage all newbies not only on steemit but in the crypto world there re lots of opportunities and millionaires to be maid !!
Thank you very much for this article! I registered to Steemit only 2 weeks ago and I still have lots of questions in my head. Your post helped me undesrtand many things. I'm grateful for that :)
thanks to make a good post for newbies i also dont know many things in steemit and ur recomend about steem power is a good recomendation which i dont think before it make more new posts for newbies about steemit next @cryptooctopus
I agree with you. This post made me clear about Steemit. Thanks a lot.
@cryptoctopus - Very interesting post & nice nominations to refer from the community.... Useful content to new joiners & nice guidance you have provided to them....
+W+
Thanks for writing this post.
This will definitely help newcomers.
very nice article !! I think an article that talks about the topics of skills that steemers can like
The first mover advantage Steemit has is that it is a complete system for bloggers and normal people who want to make money straight off their ideas without hassle. it is a place where an audience will see what you are blogging about and has an incentive to curate your content because they will benefit with eral money.
Thanks for writing all these posts lately for newcomers! It's been very helpful
great read bro will check all this info out ,
Thank you for the right words, excellent support.
Many comments, many posts - persistent work and quality stories.
I really admire your post, you deserve appreciation from steemit.
Thank you for this post! It really gives me the force to continue and not be discouraged by the small attention we get at the beginning on Steemit.
I don't have a particular request for a post but I like the fact that you really listen to your audience.
Great work bro .just keep supporting newbies. Its always good to see new peaple around.