Ultimately I think most of us want our posts here to be of value - which means to be seen and to be of use. This is measured through comments and votes. When I first heard about STEEM I was so excited by the idea. Like a child I couldn't sit still and I couldn’t wait to get my account. The days it took for approval dragged on for an eternity. Then I got in! And I sat there, for hours, wondering how am I going to do this. This went on for days and weeks as I spent so many hours researching the platform and trying to find the gems of answers hidden within the mass of information.
This post was actually started as a comment to this great post by @paulag. Check out her blog as she does a lot of great analyses and she also shares the how to behind it in case you want to learn how to do it yourself. Her post is about bid bots and for this post I'll try not using any.
The main issue I was facing as I thought things through was that the time and effort I put into posting (my posts take hours and days to write depending on the research etc) looked like it was going to go to waste. That no-one would read them. So why spend my time on that instead of other more productive things. But the platform itself is so ingenious. So groundbreaking that I wanted to do something. I had so many ideas. Different business ideas that could be implemented on this platform. But none of them would work because only a few people, if that, were viewing my posts. And I couldn't see how to get over that hump. I wasn't going to suck up and pander to whales. And I don't know how to market in other ways.
As I read and read I saw other great posts with extremely useful information and they earned a few cents. And I saw stuff that I considered of little value that was getting ridiculous amounts of return.
Obviously no-one wants to waste their time. It's precious.
I saw some bring their following with them. Eg @jerrybanfield. This is possibly the best way it's done, from STEEM's perspective as it builds the community. But I don’t have that kind of following. As a meditation teacher my following is people of all walks of life just getting on with business in a more efficient and effective way. I teach them, they are self sufficient and I’m there if they have questions or need support. I’m not the kind of meditation teacher that needs adoring listeners as I wax on with spiritual knowledge.
This of course is the same issue that all steemians face. Nothing new there. Some crack it but I didn't know how.
I tried competitions but that didn't build an interested following and at 0.001 return the ROI was not worth it. I played some fun poker through @spl and that was great. I actually got more SBD out of that than anything so far and they are a great community! I recommend you check them out. The games are free due to the donations of @curie, @inthenow and others.
I don’t have a lot of money to invest but I did ponder getting some investors together. However, their investment might be worth nothing in 1 year so I’m cautious on that front.
I looked into bringing money into the system as STEEM. Tokens kept as STEEM diminish in value due to the inherent inflation in the system. Converting that STEEM to vests (powering up) mitigates that loss. There is a return on having invested your own money as vests but voting on your own stuff too much is frowned upon so mostly you're "hoping" that the value of steem will go up so that you can get some return on your investment. But at the same time STEEM might be worthless in a year or 2 as well. We don't know what's going to happen in this space. IMO STEEM is one of the best cryptos as it has implicit value as a blogging platform and a base to run a business but that doesn't mean it'll be successful necessarily. And reality is few exchanges list it.
So I dabbled with bid bots on some test posts and I saw that if I timed it right (didn’t partake in an overbid) I could actually get some return. So I spent a bunch of hours writing posts and went hard core buying votes. I was getting more and more followers and an immeasurable amount more engagement (though the quality of those followers and engagement is varied). The process was very satisfying and I was moving forward, even if it was very time consuming.
The reality is that I've mostly timed my vote purchases with a crash in the market so have lost a lot more than I've gained in terms of SBD but I've gained many more followers and engagement than I think would otherwise have happened. And I’ve learned much too :)
Your services are no longer required, thank you.
I like certain aspects of blockchain techs. One is that the rules are set and policing is automatic. You can or you can't, there's no politician and corruption getting in the way. Trust is enforced by the system and not by a small group of people. And whether certain rules take hold is a more democratic process. A regular Jo can add to or change the system and if good it will be adopted “by the people”. Plenty have forked BTC but only a couple of those forks have really been picked up. And when that system no longer serves its purpose – buh bye. Imagine being able to say that to a bunch of corrupt politicians! ;)
One thing I think about a lot is why would investors come into STEEM.
One view is that there seem to be roughly 2 groups. Those who are into the idea of a community and those who are into the idea of STEEM becoming a huge thing that includes “whatever” happens to happen. An open ended approach where bots exist and whatever else wants to exist.
I think keeping it a “community” mitigates its potential to be particularly “yuge”. But the other alternative is a wild jungle. And if investors are going to bring the kind of money in that will add substantial value to STEEM then it’s not going to be a community. Those investors don’t care about community. They care about returns. And if bots give them the return that’s what they’ll put their money into.
There is another possibility with STEEM. And that is that it becomes its own ecosystem. A place where people can work together and transfer value within the system without needing to exchange it for fiat. But that is beyond the scope of this post.
So your strategy is using bid bots?
I don't think Jerrybanfield is a great example. Unless you think you will be able to sell new Steemit accounts for $50 each 😆😂😜
@crypto-econom1st thank you for taking the time to read and comment on my post. I appreciate it.
Yes I've been trying the strategy of using bid bots. So far it has been the most successful for me in terms of building things. (In terms of increasing SBD it has actually been the @spl games as noted above!!!).
I've seen haters and lovers of Jerry lol. I don't have an opinion on that. However, I did benefit from his videos as I was learning. And it is my understanding that he brought his followers from other platforms onto steem. I have not verified if this is true.
In any case my referring to him was not about how great/bad he is but rather that bringing followers from another platform is probably the best way to build engaged followers plus it helps the steem community.
You could be right that Jerry brought lots of followers from different platforms to Steemit. As it seems he receives lots of very small upvotes.
I wonder how much you earned via @spl? And any profit via bid bots?
I don't really believe in the promotion via bid bots. At least not in the long term. The minute you stop the engagement will decrease hugely.
I am 100% certain that you can make nice profits via bid bots. I started with about 50 SP this month. And next week I will have about 75 SP. Imagine what that could be of I'm able to upscale....
😁
Something like 17 SBD from @spl. Don't recommend it for the money lol. It's a fun community and a fun game of poker. I just happened to get lucky. I put it in the post for perspective. As a comparison, because one would think that I'd make more from my posts but that has not been the case.
In terms of bid bots, as noted in the post I've actually made a net loss. Even my most recent post https://steemit.com/meditation/@petervroom/violence-versus-hate-and-violence is looking like breaking even. I bought the votes then the value of steem dropped so my return went from positive to negative. Then the price went up but somehow I'm only just breaking even. Not sure why that is happening.
As far as making nice profits with the bid bots I don't think it's that easy. Market fluctuations impact it including the steem price as well as the sbd/steem fluctuations.
Your balance is below $0.028. @dustsweeper is now disabled for your account until you transfer new funds. Check out the Dustsweeper FAQ here: https://steemit.com/dustsweeper/@dustsweeper/dustsweeper-faq
One thing I did learn about his videos that in hindsight I think is not so good for the long run is the emphasis on financial reward. Yes people want to earn money on this platform however an expectation was created that did not reflect just how hard it is for most people who start out, who were not early adopters. More power to the early adopters, but I think setting the expectations of new users is important so they don't come excited then bail because they're not making hundreds per post.
I fully agree!
On average most people will earn probably 10-100 Steem per annum.
In my experience not even close to that. At first impression you join STEEM and vote and money comes rolling in. But reality is you have to work hard at it.
0.2 Steem per week must be doable for everyone. Unless you write less than 1 post and 25 comments per week.
Actually yes, at the lower end toward 10 would be quite doable.
I read this post and resteemed it yesterday, was hoping to see better results on the post before I left a comment. I guess you experiments tells a lot.
Hi @paulag, I'm honored by your interactions. Thank you for the resteem and the engagement. I do appreciate it.
What is actually mind blowing about the votes on this post (for which I haven't bought votes) is how many there are! And the value has come to $1.50 which is many many times higher than any other "organic" post. Having said that, I've not been producing on here long enough to expect anything better. Early days.
I noticed a lot of votes came through in chunks all at the same time. I don't know if they are from a "community service" such as steem basic income or what. I think someone may have generously enrolled me in that. Plus there are some other great communities that support noobs.
@o07 is building such a community too. So, not sure where it's coming from but am of course delighted and appreciative of it.
I try to play in @spl. Buy nobody approve me to play. It is weired.
Contact @bethalea. She's pretty good at helping people in. There are a few steps you have to go through. Also go to @spl and look for their discord channel. They are active in there.
Great Post...It is an unusual area this of Steemit...But from what I have seen being consistent is the key. Who knows how much steem will be worth in the future, and it does have its pitfalls. But I think if we work at it we can all succeed in the future. Keep it up!
Thank you @gungadin for taking the time to comment. I appreciate the engagement. Yes I think the platform is just incredible. Limitations galore certainly but what doesn't have it's imperfections. I'm excited to discover just what great ideas people have with this platform.