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Last week I wrote a post about how not to Steem, in reference to a serial plagiarist I have encountered. As I seem to be getting a lot of new followers who have freshly arrived to Steem, I wanted to share my opinion on how TO Steem.
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Security
It is very important that you keep your account keys safe. Should they fall into the wrong hands you could lose money from your account or irreparable damage could be done to it. Someone else with your private keys could change them, locking you out of your account. Write them down somewhere safe, and copy them into a document. Using something like Winrar, Winzip or another archiving tool, compress the file and password protect it before emailing it to yourself, making sure you don't forget this password. NEVER give your keys to anybody else. It may be possible to wrestle back control of your account, but really, save yourself the hassle.
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Introduce yourself
One of the best ways of getting your foot in the door, so to speak, is by writing a post introducing yourself to the community. Use the #introduceyourself and the #introducemyself tags. WARNING! only use these tags for introductions. Tag abuse is frowned upon and could incur the wrath of @steemcleaners and possibly other users, attracting flags to your post. In your post tell the community a little about yourself and what you plan on blogging about, your interests etc. Be sure to include a photograph of yourself holding up a piece of paper with your username and the date. You do not have to show your face.
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Following
You should seek out those users with whom you share interests and follow their blogs. This will populate your feed with interesting content for yourself, and give you an idea of how to and what to post. Do not blindly follow hundreds of users, or your feed will quickly become unmanageable. By all means follow some of the bigger accounts as their content will give further indications of how and what to post, but don't do so in the attempt of securing upvotes. This rarely happens.
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Commenting
In your early days you are an unknown entity. One great way of getting noticed is by commenting on other blogs. When you comment, make sure it is insightful - first be sure that you actually read the post, it is very telling when you receive a comment from somebody who has not done so. Add something worthwhile to the discussion, explain what interested you in the post, your viewpoint etc. Be polite and not antagonistic.
As an early user, most of your upvotes will come from comments you make, and you could possibly earn a follow or two. DO NOT ever just click on a post, scroll down to the bottom and write 'nice post'. Make your words count. Commenting should be your main focus early in your Steem journey, so do it well.
BONUS TIPS: Do not spam comments with links to your own posts. This is also frowned upon and likely to attract flags. Do not beg for follows or upvotes. This will have the exact opposite effect and again, may attract flags.
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Posting
It is almost unknown for anybody new to arrive on Steem, start posting and receive large upvotes on their content. Curb your expectations early on and focus on commenting. This does not mean you should not post however. Use your early weeks as a way of finding your voice on Steem, perfecting how you post. As you gain followers you can then start putting work out there.
Do not use photographs you do not own the copyright to, unless you clearly indicate their source. Make sure your post is 100% original and not copied from elsewhere on the internet. Plagiarism will get your posts flagged, ruining your reputation on Steem.
Try to make sure your post is free from spelling mistakes and poor grammar. This may be difficult if you are posting in English and it is not your first language. Use services like the english-spelling-grammar channel at MinnowSupport or the english-language channel at The Writers' Block to get help with this. Make sure your post is formatted in a pleasant way to make it easier to read, using things like headings, quoted text, relevant images - with sources indicated. Encourage discussion in the replies to your post by asking a question at the end.
DO NOT just post a photograph and expect upvotes. Add something to the post, explain why you are posting it perhaps, why you like the photograph etc. Always be thinking of adding value to your posts to attract new readers.
Don't just post for the sake of posting. If you have nothing to say, don't say it. Make every post count and be sure it's the very best post it can be.
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Replies
When you get replies beneath your posts, be sure to read them and reply to them. Engage with your audience. If a particularly insightful reply is added, think about upvoting it to reward the poster. By the same token, if somebody simply drops a link to one of their posts in your replies, kindly point out that is unwanted behaviour on the platform. As you grow in power you may flag these replies. Be careful early on with flagging. People can become unreasonable when flags are involved and you might get drawn into a flagging war where all your posts and comments are flagged. Avoid this unnecessary drama, especially as a new user.
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Rewards and Voting
Seven days after you post, you will receive rewards based on the upvotes you received. This is split 75% to you and 25% to the curators - those who upvoted your post. When you click on your wallet you will see something similar to this at the top of the page. Click 'Redeem Rewards' for them to be added to your wallet.
The SP portion will be added to increase your account power, slowly increasing the strength of your vote. On Steemit, once you reach 500 SP - Steem Power - you will get a slider with which to dial in a percentage of voting strength to use. This, coupled with the time at which you upvote a post, and dependent on who votes after you, determines any curation rewards. Before you reach 500 SP, you will always be voting at 100%. Be careful not to run down your voting power - you only get 10 x 100% upvotes to use within a 24 hour period. As your power dips, so does the strength of that 100% upvote. Check your current voting power at https://steemnow.com or http://steemforthe.win. NEVER ask for an upvote. This will likely draw flags.
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Witnesses
The blockchain, upon which Steem is built, is tended to by witnesses. They play an important part in the Steem ecosystem, ensuring it runs smoothly. Each witness is given a rank determined by a number of votes. Once you have been on the platform and seen what some of the witnesses do to add value either through development work or community involvement, support them by voting.
At the top of the Steemit page you will see your avatar on the right. Next to that are three horizontal lines. Click on these to reveal a sidebar and look for 'Vote For Witnesses'. Click on that and you will be forwarded to https://steemit.com/~witnesses. You will be presented with a list of the top 50 witnesses. If your choice for witness is not in the top 50, scroll below the list until you see this.
Enter the username of the person you wish to vote for - excluding the @ - and click vote. Each user has 30 votes and is encouraged to vote for witnesses. Your vote hasn't come through yet. Remember you need to use your ACTIVE key when voting for witnesses. If you're only logged in with your posting key, it won't actually send a vote.
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Communities
It can feel daunting and intimidating trying to learn all the ins and outs of this platform. There are many Discord communities through which you can get help and support. One of the largest is the @minnowsupport project. Their Discord server is call PALnet - standing for Peace, Abundance & Liberty - and can be found at https://discord.gg/7r8T4N4. At nearly 8,000 members, they offer great opportunities for learning, networking and guidance.
If you are a writer or a poet, consider joining The Writers' Block https://discord.gg/8EgU8Dv. This is a community I help administrate which offers writing support, advice, editing services and networking.
Consider becoming an active part of a community, helping others. This will help to get you on the map and noticed through your interactions.
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Is there anything you would like to ask or to add? Reply below.
Like what I do? Vote for my witness https://steemit.com/~witnesses - scroll below top the 50 witnesses and enter my name in the text box, then click vote. Thanks for your support.
One more thing I would add is.....
Try to be original, offer something you don't see many people doing, I see so many 'Bitcoin went up today' or 'Steem went down' type posts. Only a select few are going to do well with that kind of post.
Try to educate, entertain or excite with your posts. Not everyone gets the huge financial rewards that Steemit offers but stick with it as the rewards aren't always financial they are just a bonus. The community here is amazingly supportive to those who are offering something worthy so stick around if you are struggling as overnight success here is rare and many bloggers who started slowly have gone on to do really well.
It's a long game not a get rich quick scheme.
Great points. Originality is key, as is perseverance.
Dead right mate, you have to keep on grinding even when the votes aren't coming, they will eventually.
Adding on to the Security section:
Add your keys into a password manager like Lastpass and be sure to have some kind of true multi-factor authentication on that password manager account. This was you don't have the keys stored in plaintext anywhere on the net, but you still have quick and easy access to it.
I would be a bit more cautious about emailing a password protected zipped version of the keys to yourself, because if you email ever gets popped, it is very easy to crack a password protected file locally.
Great advice. I use Lastpass myself.
Have you changed the password you got from Steemit or did you leave it?
I left mine as is.
Nice post (couldn't resist)
But indeed it was. A clear guideline for new (or any) user.
Steemit is a community, with lots of little communities nestled inside it.
You wouldn't move into a new neighbourhood and say to the first person you see nice grass, I need your lawnmower.
Get to know the people around you and everyone is happy.
Haha >.<
What a great summary of all the important things that go into a productive and fulfilling steemit career. This exact post (or something very similar) should be shown to all new users. I wish I had had this when I first started out.
Thank you dude.
This post needs to be resteemed by everyone who reads it. It's a pack load of useful information. Thanks for this post and thanks for the discord channel links you shared as well. They will indeed go along way to assist minnows and good content writers.
You've earned my vote as a witness. Thumbs up @gmuxx
Thank you. I hope it helps newcomers.
Your vote hasn't come through yet. Feel free to DM me on Discord if you need me to talk you through the voting process. Remember you need to use your ACTIVE key when voting for witnesses. If you're only logged in with your posting key, it won't actually send a vote.
Nice post!
Why I oughta....
"One of these days, Alice...Pow! Straight to the moon" (Jackie Gleason) :)
hahaha a lot of comediennes here at steemit.
This is very informative and should serve as guild for newbies, I love the way you took your time to spell out everything. I believe if followed one will have a great time on steemit.
^^^ One of the best witnesses is @gmuxx!
What he is telling you in this article is the gospel of making it here at steemit!
Lots of GREAT advice in this post. I think this is one that needs to get steemed and resteemed and bookmarked all over to help newbies make sense of the platform. Great work, as usual, Muxx!
Thank you. Added it to our steem-stuff channel.
Another great write-up, Muxxy.
There's not much I can add... Great job.
Thanks Tiny.
nice post.... kidding! hahaha! But no really, this is such a great post! Thank you so much for explaining each section in a simplified manner, I learned so much, especially about the voting power and SP. This would be a great guideline for those who are new on steemit like me :D upvoted and resteemed!
I am happy you found it useful. Thanks for the vote and share.
This is such wonderful information and so well written, which of course does not surprise me. It serves as a great best practices guide, and I was thankful to check off most of the items. Whew!
One thing I would add is to use an app such as Steemify that gives you more visibility into your Steemit activity. You can list people whose posts you want to be sure to see, and get notifications on upvotes and comments so you can be timely in responding.
Thank you for all the great info, @gmuxx, and for all you do for the Steemit and TWB communities!
Thank you for this. I'm barely a month here and still learning the ropes. I've been reading and reading posts and picked up a few things here and there. I just love how everyone is helpful. Just like you. Again, thank you.
Most newbies who use the “Nice post, sir, I follow for follow, upvote for upvote!” approach to commenting don’t last long that way. They either never understand why their brilliant strategy doesn’t work and simply give up and leave the site, or the penny drops, they learn from their mistake, and start being good members of the Steem ecosystem.
Because it is NEVER a successful strategy.
This is very informative and helpful to All fresh fish such as myself that just joined! It is very overwhelming at first and full of confushion until you actually have individuals break it down step by step which is awesome. Thank you i will keep All of theses key points in mind! Keep up the amazing work ( very helpful).
Very clear and easy to understand, especially for this 7-day old newbie, thank you!
I think another thing to remember is to just have fun. I love the laid-back feel of Steem. At first the lack of notifications bugged me but now I love it, cause I can browse the whole website as much as I want without being pestered or interrupted by "Bobby liked your post" or "Cathy also commented on a post that you commented on", etc. It's actually quite relaxing being on Steem. (And I just LOVE night mode! :D )
Write them down somewhere safe, and copy them into a document.
This is critical advice! We want to plan for unexpected catastrophe when dealing with keys. Backup files on machines is not enough. Best to print them out and put them in a safe or other fire-proof box. There is nothing like a hard copy.
Great article with tons of great info, @gmuxx. Passing it on.
And remembering where that hard copy is :)
It's hopefully wherever you put it! In a fireproof box.
Thank you for this- as a newbie it really helps to have guidance written down. I joined discord @thewritersblock . Is there a way to post on the discussions or get approved?
You need to talk to us in general, if this isn't taken care of already. I didn't look you up. But basically come on in, join in in general--especially look for a purple or blue to introduce yourself--and let us get to know you a little. Then we give you permission that lets you join in the workshops.
Being a minnow, these posts are gold for helping to understand this platform, navigation of it and how to move forward. I see you around in different areas, where you are helping to build community in many different ways. I have decided to vote for you as a witness, but want to wait until I have more people I wish to vote for. I have always been a bundler. Is there a timeline where votes need to be in by? One thing I would add to these advice posts are some of the common tags, which help minnows and other's specifically, like @originalworks. Another is tagging. It's easy to find the trending tags, but not all the tags. Do these need to be specifically searched for? Thank you for all your efforts. You have an honorable character and are exactly the type I am looking for to align with. Please don't change, my friend and good luck with your ambitions.
There is no timeline for witness votes. Vote when you like.
If you want to search for a specific tag under the 'New' tab, use the following format.
https://steemit.com/created/ians where ians is the tag I use for my introduce a new steemian posts. Do the same for trending https://steemit.com/trending/ians and https://steemit.com/hot/ians
Thank you my friend.
Hi @gmuxx, I just stopped back to let you know your post was one of my favourite reads and I included it in my Steemit Ramble. You can read what I wrote about your post here.
If you’d like to nominate someone’s post just visit the Steemit Ramble Discord
Thank you very much.
Good advice and worth a reread or three. I agree with @negativer and others, wishing I had gotten to read this at the beginning. But never to late to learn and continue in this process. You are right. It is a lot to take in and overwhelming at times, especially if you suffer from online shyness (am I the only one? :) Anyhow, thank you for your gracious article, gmuxx.
This is a really great guide to get started. I find it specially important that you explained Witnesses and voting power. I've explained the Witness system to friends several times because you can very well spend months in Steemit without knowing you have a right to vote.
Also, I really didn't know how to manage % of upvotes, because I'm not yet at 500SP and didn't know about the slider. I didn't know how many 100% could be done daily. That really took me out of a constant confusion about how I was managing my upvotes.
I'll resteem it for my friends to see and to have it around as a resource I can send.
Wow, thanks so much @gmuxx for sharing this, wish I had seen this before writing my introductory post,but I have still learnt a lot from it, especially about comments and replies. Upvoted and resteemed, every newbie like myself has to know this, will share the link in the Ghana whatsapp group since newbies are joining everyday, it's really going to help us
Wow, this is really an amazing post, there are most of the things you wrote about of which I never knew as newbie. This post I actually well executed, I have to also also share with my fellow newbies. Thanks @gmuxx for this post.
I do see lots of questionable content, or, at least it's originality is questionable. Glad to have found a few guides like this a few weeks ago that gave me a better idea about the etiquette on here. At first I was seeing lots of "follow me I followed you please upvote" type comments, I figured that was how to do it. Turns out, it's not.. lol At least I have no shortage of original content to share, having been painting for 6 years now! lol
Thank you for this. I am new to Steemit and although I’m loving it, I find it tricky to learn the ins and outs. I love that you use Gifs in your post. Is that at all considered copyright? I would love to be a part of a Steemit Community that collectively helps others. Just need to find the right one 👍🏿
As you can see, I added links to the source of the gifs. As long as you attribute the original source, you are good.
Wow, i didn't know about Winrar or winzip as ways to secure my account, i only just saved my password as a draft.
Thanks for the enlightenment. Keep up with the good work
Absolutely think that something like this should be on the faq or emailed to new Steemian accounts. I would suggest we pin it to the nooby-nook for sure.
What a long article but informative, thanks for explaining in details, I too is a newbie and still struggling what to do but this gives me a clear idea. Thanks so much.
Thanks @gmuxx. I’m pretty new to Steemit and struggling. I resolved to do a post every day for 30 days about my experiences with the Whole30, a clean food regimen, the idea being to do storytelling about the experience. I’m fine with the limited financial rewards starting out, I’m in for the long haul. It’s the quality question. I can’t do my best best writing if it is every day, there just isn’t time. And quality drops if I meet the daily commitment. I guess that is a post in and of itself. Anyway, thanks for your post. I feel like it validates my growing feeling that quality has got to come before quantity, or what’s the point?
It is a struggle to put out daily posts and your quality can suffer. I would prioritize this over quantity.
These lines have guided me throughout my writing career, and are good life advice, too:
“Don't just post for the sake of posting. If you have nothing to say, don't say it.”
Silence is golden and a capital of riches where all good ideas, eventually, come from (after they are quietly refined, over time).
Thank you, @gmuxx for taking the time to write this helpful and comprehensive guide.
Thank you so much for this post! It really helpes me to understand how to use steemit. And I'm sure I am not the only one.
That's why I will vote for your witness!
Thanks, I appreciate the support.
Helpful as usual @gmuxx)
Nice overview of basic points for newcomers and a starting point for Steemit exploration.
Thanks, I hope some find this useful.
Great tips here for new steemit users!
Nice work @gmuxx ... added to the Reference Section on the Steemit Ramble discord
Thank you, much appreciated.
Thank you for these tips. resteeming it for other newbies to see. And just voted you as witness too.
Your vote hasn't come through yet. Feel free to DM me on Discord if you need me to talk you through the voting process. Remember you need to use your ACTIVE key when voting for witnesses. If you're only logged in with your posting key, it won't actually send a vote.
I discovered that if you put the @ symbol in it doesn’t work and gives you no error or other indication. I am a somewhat intelligent human and did this wrong several times before the witness and I figured out my user error.
Let me check @gmuxx and thanks for informing me. Will definitely check you in the discord. thank you so much.
I hope you got my vote now.
I do, thank you.
you're welcome. You really do what you preach. (",
Of course ;-)
Thank you so much. I see it now.
Thank you @gmuxx. I have been following you for a while and really appreciate the guidelines. They are a great reminder to keep the community running smoothly.
nice post
I'm guessing you missed this part...
This is a very key point. Thank you
Thanks for this.