Two weeks ago, I rejoined this community with a brand new account, abandoning my previous "steem life" as ziogio.
I got a warm welcome to the Hive discord channel, and many users were super happy to chat with me and share their experiences on the Hive network.
The first thing one of them suggested me was to join a community. Joining a community seems to be vital to gain more tractions to articles, and that's clearly the goal of every new user.
So I tried to contact Powerhouse Creatives on Discord.
I posted the link to my last article, as requested, and no one answered. I then decided to ask for feedback to a moderator, and they banned me.
This experience taught me a lot about the quality, and participation needed to join and engage with the communities on Hive.
Let me share the 5 lessons I learned thanks to their rejection:
1) Thank you PHC
I'm sorry the first impression of my profile was negative to this community, but I'm not discouraged or offended. I get that having a single post on Hive is not enough to join a community of active members, and I respect their decision to refuse me as of now (I wish they can consider me again in the future!).
So, please don't take this post as a criticism towards PHC. I respect their work, their communities and I support the decision method they used with me.
2) I was thinking about me too much
Like every new user, I started with 0 followers and 0 views on my introduction post. It's very discouraging, but it's the beginning of every great adventure.
I had 0 followers on Instagram too, before I learned how it works.
I Had 0 subscribers on Youtube, 0 readers to my blog, 0 invoices to my clients.
I was thinking about joining a community to have a boost, kinda like you have boosts if you spend money on Facebook and Instagram, but this is not how Hive communities work - and I should have known this.
Every great community focus on sharing value within the community itself. My profile with 1 post saying how grateful I am to the witnesses brings nothing valuable to the community, hence they rejected me.
3) I used the word "I" too many times
When I write, I use the word "I" too much. It's not because my goal is to feel special, it's because my lexic is not advanced enough to use complex syntaxes.
My english level is around B2/C1, but that's because I write, speak and listen to english talks and people all day long.
Earing talks and work meetings is not going to help me learn new words, though. English people, especially Americans, always use the same set of common words.
That's why I used the "I" pronoun a lot in my application to PHC. But, since it's a community, I should have been more broad in my pronoun usage, in order to let them understand I wasn't trying to get more views and that's it - I was actually interested in joining the community.
4) I have a consistency issue
I'm not in a shining period of my life.
I'm stuck in the UK due to the coronavirus (I'll talk about this in my next post), my biggest client is a company I don't like at all, I'm far away from my husband and I have to live in a small room in my brother's house.
Even though I have my home + office + equipment in my city (Alessandria, Italy). It feels very bad to rent a house, office and professional software and be forced to come back to live with your dad and brother in a small room.
This got me into a mild depressive state for quite a long time (about 1 month), but my husband started his instagram profile and decided to join Hive next week and this positive vibe really helped me get out of that zone.
This new energy will likely get me out of the constant procrastination. More articles = more chance of proving the Hive community I'm seriously interested in knowing more and engaging with interesting content.
5) I worry about my english too much
My italian essays about marketing and communication are complex, filled with technical details and terms. It makes me feel very inadequate when I write about the same topic in english.
I'm trying to improve my English, and I will always get better, but I know my italian articles are more interesting than my english one at the moment.
This should not stop me, though. A lot of my english friends told me my posts and videos are absolutely comprehensible, and that's the only thing I should care about for now.
I promise you, and it's a promise to myself as well, I won't use this as an excuse anymore.
Conclusion
My new rule for Hive will be to write at least 1 new post per week. This will help me improve my english and bring consistency and value to the community.
Also, I will interact and read Hivers posts daily. I think reading other people's work is a great way to improve my lexic.
Have an amazing day,
I hope this article inspired you!