So. You finally got your notification email and you've copy-pasted your password to half a dozen different places so you don't lose it. You are now officially a Steemian.
Now What?
Well, if you're me, these are the things that out of ignorance, you WON'T do. If you're not me, you will read this post and get a sweet jump-start on things. New Nigerian Steemians, take note.
SOME DAY, I'M GOING TO MAKE THE NOPICTURES TAG TREND. UNTIL THEN, I AIN'T GOT NO DATA. DEAL WITH IT.
Get Telegram: If you have both phone and laptop, download and set up Telegram for both. Right now. If only phone, get Telegram anyway. You will see why in a bit.
Get ESteem App: it's really great for a variety of reasons. No, I won't tell you why. Let it be a nice surprise when you do.
Get Markdown Pad: if you are using a laptop, go download the latest version of Markdown Pad immediately. It is so useful for learning Markdown and it will save you so much data because you can type and format your posts, save them and then copy-paste the finished product directly to Steemit.
3b) Telegram-plus-Esteem Protip: To maximize the benefits of both, create posts in Markdown Pad, Telegram them to yourself from laptop, retreive it from Telegram on mobile and then paste it to Esteem app. Ta-da!
Learn to love steemdb.com: it is absolutely indispensable for tracking follows, resteems, incoming upvotes and pretty much every stat you could possibly want (except mentions -- but if you're a redfish, that probably doesn't matter yet anyway)
Join Discord: seriously do it. Join ALL THE DISCORDS. It's a bit like hacking all the internets.
Bonus: here's three things I did do that you had better do too!
- Comment. Comments. Comments: the single fastest and most efficient way to grow as a redfish/minnow is to make good comments and lots of them. It's really not that hard. All you have to do is read the damn post and write a comment that shows you actually read the damn post.
As for why, you will get more upvotes for your awesome high-quality comments than your non-introduceyourself posts (that no one will read coughcough) AND you will get noticed by people you want to notice you AND you will find yourself engaged in fun intelligent conversations with like minds and interestingly different minds alike.
So yeah, definitely do that.
Do Lots of Research: there's a really good self-help saying floating around the internet lately: "Everything you need to succeed can be learned*. Most motivational quotes are annoying as hell but this one is both non-annoying and true, especially in the age of Google. For every question you could possibly have about Steemit, someone has written a 3000-word tutorial (or a 300-word tutorial) or made a video. Thank them by reading it and learning it. If it's less than 7 days old, upvote it (yes, even yours helps)
Keep Posting Your Best: yes, even when your last three meticulously-researched exquisitely-formated posts made $0.11 each. Yes, even when they made $0.00. Why? I'm not going to give you the usual trite crap about never quittig; look, sometimes failing at something means you need to go do something else.
No, it's because a backlog of good posts is like your CV (aka curriculum vitae aka resumé to any Americans in the audience) When your great comments finally get you noticed by @steemstem or by @jerrybanfield or @infovore, you don't want them to come to your profile and see a barren wasteland of ancient posts. They came there to upvote you, make sure there's something for them to find.
However, even that is not the only reason. More important is this: do not make the mistake of trying to save your best material for when you're a whale.
I repeat, do NOT do this. It is a trap.
Instead, cultivate an abundance mentality with your mind. Writing makes you a better writer, a faster writer, a smarter writer. Ideas will breed ideas, new thoughts will occur, short comments will turn into lengthy posts. Trust that your best material is still in the Future, waiting like gold to be seized by your now-more-practiced ever-more-ready hands.
Yup, that's it. If I had done those 5 things in my first week, I'd be considerably further along. If I hadn't done the three things below that, I'd still be flailing around and getting nowhere. As is, I am doing them in my sixth and seventh week and seeing more growth than than I did in the first five. Don't be me; get a jump-start on this amazing platform.
You a great guy and a true steemian @edumurphy very nice post and I learnt quite some tricks...so I should download markdownpad... Can telegram be used on laptop... Thought it's only on mobapp
Yup, Telegram is both. I think you have to have it on moble FIRST though
Ok...tks and do find time also to check my blog posts
Great post, thanks Ed. I'm pretty new to the platform (like a week or so). I will join the discord and jump telegram. It's funny how accurate Steemit's ocean wildlife ranks are. It is an ocean and it is easy to get lost, eaten or ignored by the larger fish. Either way and regardless if you're a minnow or an orca it's good to be in the water. I'll be trying out your tips. You have my follow.
Great comment (except for me being "Edu" as in "Edu Murphy" rather than "Ed Umurphy" lol)
Yeah, the aquatic classification schema fits really well. Although successful minnows generally end up adopting a remora strategy so ... 😁
Haha gotcha edu. Cheers man. Thanks again for sharing
It is my 3rd day and I am very thankful for your helpful hints. Some I don't understand completely but most of it. All the best
Excellent 👍 follow as many of those hints as you can and you'll be okay. Welcome to Steemit: it'll eat up all your data -- and pay for it too! 😁
Great advice, straight up. Love it. Thank you. Putting it into practice right now. Peace.
Generally, I like your post and would want to promote this content and other good ones which you'll produce. However, I have a problem with your use of swear words ''fuck that''. I think this is not acceptable in steemit and you might turn people away with swear words, even those whose names you have mentioned like @infovore. I hope you take the correction in good faith. Thank you.
@maryfavour for @redfishpillar project
I appreciate your candour in explaining the part of my content you find objectionable. I suppose I should censor it to better suit your standards?
And thanks for the upvote 👍
"...do not make the mistake of trying to save your best material for when you're a whale.
Fuck that."
exactly. bring the quality each and every time and you'll cultivate an audience worth interacting with. "build it and they will come," to quote "Field of Dreams."
Yeah, that was one thing I figured real quick lol
I read it :)
I am glad you did, smart guy 😀
Thank a lot from posts...
This post recieved an upvote from minnowpond. If you would like to recieve upvotes from minnowpond on all your posts, simply FOLLOW @minnowpond
This post recieved an upvote from minnowpond. If you would like to recieve upvotes from minnowpond on all your posts, simply FOLLOW @minnowpond
thanks for the tipps!! just installed ESteem, looks good.. and telegram is awesome, using it for 4 years now..
I've tried following the commenting advice, but it's often a bit discouraging when over 250 people see a post & not one person thought it upvote worthy...oof, stab straight to the ego!
I'm still trying to get the courage to post anything though.
It's awesome to see people hitting the ground running & doing so well.
Get discouraged. Embrace that feeling, suck it deep down into your guts, feel how much it sucks -- then post again.
But this time, as soon as you're done posting, grab the link to your brand-spanking new post and paste it to:
Then refer back to Comments Comments Comments above and do what it says. Dolphins and Wlwhales get dozens, even hundreds of comments per post. Out of those, maybe ten are actually quality engaging comments.
Be
onetwo of those ten.Oh and stop Resteeming so much. Seriously not a good look. You don't have the followership for your resteem to be worth much to the person you're resteeming AND it makes your page look not so good.
Same here, I don´t understand everything as I am still quiet new but I can do what I understand and test the rest. Thank you.
That's all any of us can do. Keep going, it gets better as you learn more ☺
Very nice and informative post @edumurphy. Thank you so much for sharing this. I see your upvote on this (your own) post. Sorry to say, but this makes me sad, and I see this activity a lot on steemit.
You took away the curation awards from us upvoters (or curators). We are not going to get anything from this post. I have also tried to address this concern with one of my posts here: Should you upvote your own posts or not?
While I agree in sentiment, I don't know about that; given my upvote is worth about 1 cent, my curation reward on this post (as opposed to that of someone with more SP) is going to be worth jack and shit. Much like yours.
Basically, to my understanding, curation itself is valuable to the platform at all levels Curation rewards though? Nothing you or I need to care about until we have more power. Personally, I will stop upvoting my own posts once I start earning a minimum of $10 per post without it. Powerful upvotes are better saved for worthy minnows than for whales who will get them anyway.
There is totally nothing wrong with anyone upvoting their posts. It is wrong to upvote comments though.
It is only people who has been given huge delegation for community projects that will have to consider their voting habits.
@ogochukwu
Hey brother, what a helpful post! I have been going through your list here and getting myself set up on your action points.
I have been using Telegram quite a bit, similarly to how you've described, but I hadn't gotten onto eSteem til now and can see how much easier this is going to make everything now that I'll be editing from Markpad.
Super tips! I'm on my 5th day here now and really excited to have a smoother flow with these tools here.
So much appreciated! Happily upvoted and followed!
Glad I could help 👍
Thank you for this post setting out such useful tips for us new comers.
And thank you to the people who resteem it so more people can see it.
And thank you for reading and commenting, yes 👍
I've been blessed by the good people of Steemit again! I'm not sure how to repay anyone except by putting all I know to use and sharing it.. Letting off steem is gonna easier than ever now. Didn't know about Telegram though, excited to start using it... thanks Ed!
Telegram is a surprisingly useful tool and not always as its creators intended lol
And it's Edu! 😁
Ed Murphy comes to mind. Pardon the dude for thinking you are Ed. Lol
Oh, I know hahaha. It's just Edu Murphy makes more sense than Ed Umurphy lol
But I suppose I am being provincial and assuming non-Nigerian non-Igbos will parse it as Edu.
As for my post being undervalued, hahahaha guy you sabi whales pass me na -- if you carry dem come dis side, I no go vex oooooo 😁
I guess my lucky streak is continuing. It's something I can't really explain. Wish I could push them your way. There's lot to go around.
I saw the name as Edu Murphy, never really realised you can do Ed U Murphy with it. Lol
Thus proving my point. You be Naija so you see am straight.
On the other hand, I never thought of Ed U. Murphy hahahaha
Our brains are hardwired that way. To see things as we usually see or associate with.
Can anyone tell me why this post is undervalued like this? Someone make me a whale, for 3 seconds,that's all I need to upvote this post. Dang!
Hello @edumurphy
This is one of the best articles on Steemit personal branding I have read from a Minnow in a while.
All the points you listed above are solid but let me talk about the commenting and quality post.
Like you said saving your content will not do you any good, post quality content and build your reputation over time.
I always comment on posts while posting quality content and it has always gotten me more Author rewards.
Last month, I commented on a Whales post and she visited my blog and voted my most recent posts, giving me a total of $44. If my content was not of high quality then I would have not gotten any votes.
Thanks for posting this, it will be of great help to many.
@ogochukwu
That is immensely flattering coming from you 🙏😊
$44 eh? Choi, whales fall on me ooooooo - when will it be my turn oooooo 😁