Yes, you read it right! But first, let me explain what I mean by that and who "I'm not going to upvote, follow, and resteem," as well as why.
Image 01
The thing is that in last few months Steemit members users base grew a lot. Many new fishes are swimming now in this Steemit sea which every day more becomes a real ocean.
(If you are following @penguinpablo and his daily reports or @elyaque and his daily reports you already, probably know that.)
Only in past seven days, over 12,000 new accounts have been created on Steemit, what makes it an approximate average of over 1,800 new accounts daily. OK - some of them are fake or duplicate accounts or bots, but still.
No matter how those new members find about Steemit or by whom have been invited and encouraged to join, I'm sure, besides a bit feeling like Alice in the Wonderland, they are all very excited to start posting, gaining new followers and earning, as valuable as possible, upvotes and resteems that would fill their Steemit wallets. Congrats to that! We are all on the same page regarding that one.
In other words, I can assure you, my dear new fellow Steemians that even the oldest Steemit members are still excited about that and every day is a new challenge to succeed in that direction as for you, same for them too.
But there is a good and a bad way to achieve that, to all of us common, goal!
Image 02
I don't know why, but as it seems, many likes to take or at least to chose as first that 'bad way,' wrongly thinking how they found the shortcut to success. And then, as most often, that first article doesn't attract thousands of people, they figure out there is something else they should do. Comments! Bingo! Then it starts this comment foray and crusade on other member's posts with comments like:
- Nice!
- Like!
- Good!
- Upvoted!
- Resteemed!
- Amazing!
- Cute!
- etc.
Nothing happens again! - The one-word comment apparently wasn't enough, so here it goes the two-word comment foray crusade.
- Nice post! (photo, shot, image, article or what so ever)
- Good post! (photo, shot, image, article or what so ever)
- Upvoted & resteemed! (or reverse order)
- Nice tips!
- Good tips!
- Looking cute!
- Amazing post!
- Nice photo!
- Good shot!
- etc.
More or less, nothing happens again! Still ZERO in the wallet, some eventually strayed upvote and same scammy-spammy comment back. Then they would try three-word combination.
- Nice post! Upvoted!
- Good post! Resteemed!
- Nice tips! Upvoted!
- Good tips! Restemed!
- Amazing photo! Upvoted!
- Shocking news! Resteemed!
- etc. combinations
It seems like they still don't get it they are not on Face Book, neither on Twitter nor Pinterest or... so, it comes more brutal ones, straight to the point like:
- follow4follow
- vote4vote
- upvote4upvote
- resteem4resteem
- etc. similar BS
By then some of them would realize that Steemians basically ignore such comments finding them as pure scam and spam, so they tweaks. Advanced versions of all the above scammy-spammy comments would arrive in the following or similar to them compilations.
Image 03
In their self-marketing attempts, some would go even one step further and to such comments even add their post's featured image, so the comment would look something like this.
Not much success again!
Can you imagine on this "stupid" Steemit nothing works? Good old scammy-spammy methods that would perfectly work, e.g., on FB Groups or other network's similar places here don't apply. Can you imagine?! There must be the other way! And yes, there is!
Image 06
By that point they usually discover Steemit.chat. Woohoo! Here it is! They just found the secret door to instant fame! But, did they? No, of course not!
But someone "smart," told them: "Go there, post your links all over the place and tell the community you arrived!" - Yeah! Right!
Back on task and here starts another commenting, link dropping (no matter in which channel, as of course in every), and private message bullying foray crusade of every single member they came across or could find.
I am "especially fond of" those last ones that usually starts like innocent "Hi!" or "Hellos!" immediately after to be followed by the promotional link to their newest posted article.
What follows next?
Image 07
Yeah! Right! - My dear, you just get BLOCKED!
Yes, the person you just tried to terrorize with your post links promotion, blocked you. And most likely every next one would do the same!
Do you know, what else?
All those users who blocked you, in most cases, wouldn't see your posts never and ever after, no matter in which channel you are going to promote them!
Woohoo! What a great marketing achievement?! Haa? - All in one!
Then, some of them (especially, if they already didn't) would try to approach and solve the problem from the opposite side.
Image 08
Now, they would follow (or even resteem) everyone and everything.
You know how it is! If they don't want to come to you, then you would go to them. 😜
That's how the new episode of building an enormous list of following accounts would starts. Many and especially newcomers would bite that 'being followed bait' and would follow back, not realizing that this person is not interested at all in their writings even less in upvoting that content.
Likeminded individuals of that kind would have no problem to jump in that 'follow4follow' circle. That's why we can see many new accounts with several thousand following user base and almost the same amount or a bit fewer followers user base. But when you take a look at their posts you would also see that the earnings still averages around few cents.
Image 09
Sooner or later they will discover that this clowny puppet-monkey-following-automation scheme business doesn't work on Steemit.
Therefore, for those, for some reason, maybe still tempted with that option I would like to throw some pure logic through the following questions.
Do you really want to follow a member who is already following several thousand other accounts?
What are your chances, that your post would pop-up among first (visible ones) on that member's feed?
How likely is that this user would pick and upvote your post (between all the other several thousand of them)?
How likely that is, especially if we know that we have about 10 votes available per day at 100% power, or 20 votes at 50% power, or 40 votes at 25% power, and so on up to at the most of about the 850 votes at the minimum available of 1% power?
All of these in case that member doesn't want to drain its voting power down to zero.
But even if such member wouldn't care to deplete its voting power (in which case it wouldn't be able to vote for some time at all) and cast out the whole amount of available votes it wouldn't be able to cover with it the whole following base.
So, again - what would be your chances in that case scenario?
The other aspect of the same example comes out with the following question.
How much would that vote worth?
If all of this still didn't convince you, and you still think my mathematical logic is fuzzy, let me draw for you another picture through another very vivid example.
About a month and a half ago, I came across the member who has been on the platform (at that time) something less than two months and already managed to follow (as you can see from above screenshot) 55,555 other users. That's over 900 following clicks per day. Quite a job! I have to admit that.
Keeping that same click-collect-following ratio, these days it's approaching to the number of 90K following user base.
On that whole collecting journey, this member manages to gain about 10% follow back (what would be pretty good percentage in marketing terms).
However, about 9,000 members out there bite that bait at some point. Unfortunately (for that member) over 30% of them became dead followers in the meantime. So, we can say the member still has about 6,000 somewhat active followers.
Great! Isn't it? Who doesn't want that? Right?
But, as almost always, here comes one big BUT!
Despite all these big numbers as from the 'following side' (90K) same as from the 'followers side' (9K total or 6K active), the posts of that member hardly reach the earning of $2 or $3 at most.
As this is one of the most extreme examples that I came across, I think it wouldn't be wrong to conclude that on Steemit aggressive methods of any kind don't work. It might still not be enough for some.
After some while, some of them would, however, start scratching their heads, asking themselves how it's possible that so much marketing, hard & heavy self-promotional efforts ended up with almost no results. Their posts are still earning a cent or two, or at the best few more than that (excluding above extreme case).
Most of them wouldn't realize that the answer and cause lie in them and their previous actions. They would rather blame everyone else even Steemit platform itself and especially its "such a stupid" configuration.
Some would even rather believe that there must be some conspiracy behind where the "secret society" of 'big Steemit fishes' spread the wealth of their high valuable upvotes only among themselves. Yeah! Sure!
And here becomes another story, where those strongly believing in such possibility would come to the following brilliant idea.
Image 12
Let's join the forces and show all the rest we are better than this!
In this case scenario, we would see such kind of like-minded individuals forming teams and different groups on all kinds of chat platforms available out there in the effort to support each other.
By that, another exchange-votes (more or less) closed circle would be formed, members of which would upvote each other like crazy. But again, as this crazy Steemit, can you imagine, really sucks, without some big or even bigger success.
Posts of the members of such groups would earn 10 or 20 cents more, at most a dollar or two and the whole story ends with that.
How could this be possible?
Well, if the group is mainly formed by newcomers (what mostly is) who are all just a small Red Fishes (not Minnows) whose vote at 100% power is worth $0.01, and by significantly increased voting actions decreased to $0.0who-knows-how-many-zeros-01 amount, that's the expected outcome (at least to those who understand some mathematics essentials).
In case you don't know who the Red Fishes are, please feel free to find out through the following post created by @arcange.
The question that remains still is:
Why some Whales, Orcas, Dolphins or even bigger Minnows don't vote on those posts?
If upon your arrival to Steemit, you have read Steem WhitePaper or at least Steemit FAQ, you would know that copy pasted content (no matter if text, photos, images or all of that together) is not something that would be evaluated here. Quite in contrary! But plagiarism same as all the other sorts of copyright infringements are one big topic for another complete post.
However, and to summarize, Steemians tend to support originally-created content and especially if such content brings additional value as to Steemit network and community itself same as to a broader community audience too.
Therefore, for all those Steemit members who tend or plan to start or continue with above (more or less detailed) described scammy-spammy actions, same or similar, as well as to all upvote, follow and resteem beggars out there, my message is:
I'm NOT Going To Upvote, Follow, And Resteem You!
Image 13
In the past year, I have been helping everyone and anyone who approached me this way or another asking for help, advice or what so ever. Some of them became quite successful or even much bigger fishes in this Steemit sea than I am currently. And I'm glad, even proud of them! Despite the fact, that it would be much wiser for my own pocket if I invested that time in the creation of my own posts, I don't regret.
I'm also not saying I wouldn't do the same, for some others in the future. But, for those of you who have recognized yourselves in above descriptions and who are planning to continue to act the same way in the future, I can say upfront you are pure time wasters and complete fake and don't even bother to contact me. No use! I'm not going to spend a single second anymore on any such one.
Posted on Friday, September 8, 2017
Sources:
Image 01 - own derivative work with illustration and photo from Pixabay. Credits to annegordon for Piazza Navona photo and HypnoArt for Fake News Illustration, both used in creation of this image under the CC0 Creative Commons license.
Image 02 - own derivative work with the image from Pixabay. Credits to geralt for meadow image used in creation of this image under the CC0 Creative Commons license.
Image 03 - screenshot
Image 04 - screenshot
Image 05 - own derivative work with screenshot and the image from Pixabay. Credits to stux for carnival image used in creation of this image under the CC0 Creative Commons license.
Image 06 - own derivative work with the illustrations, images and photos from Pixabay. Credits to geralt for the startup and speakers announcement illustrations, to 472301 for social networking keyboard image, and to Javier-Rodriguez for marketing-advertising-propaganda image, all used in creation of this image under the CC0 Creative Commons license.
Image 07 - own work
Image 08 - illustration from Pixabay. Credits to Clker-Free-Vector-Images for the animals illustration used under the CC0 Creative Commons license.
Image 09 - illustration from Pixabay. Credits to OpenClipart-Vectors for the following orders illustration used under the CC0 Creative Commons license.
Image 10 - screenshot
Image 11 - illustration from Pixabay. Credits to Clker-Free-Vector-Images for the chimp illustration used under the CC0 Creative Commons license.
Image 12 - own derivative work with the illustration and photo from Pixabay. Credits to StockSnap for the people photo and to toyztechworld for the group think big idea, both used in creation of this image under the CC0 Creative Commons license.
Image 13 - adaptation for Steemit network of own derivative work with photo from Pixabay, previously posted on another platform. Credits to annegordon for Piazza Navona photo used in creation of this image under the CC0 Creative Commons license.
Divider image - own work
Hello @ana-maria
We at @adsactly closely monitor your activity and welcome this post. Please accept this small token of our gratitude and be welcomed to our ranks here: ADSactly
Your post was upvoted by Keyholder North, rewarding you with 8.4$
Keep up your awesome work!
WOW! 😲 This is certainly something totally unexpected and very pleasant! Thank you very much! 🙂
@ana-maria got you a $1.46 @minnowbooster upgoat, nice! (Image: pixabay.com)
Want a boost? Click here to read more!
Hear hear. I am here in hopes of finding a new social media platform where people actually engage in a community-oriented manner. If I want a bunch of "likes" and little genuine engagement I've got instagram for that. Though it seems that people everywhere are obsessed with "followers". The human ego is a hungry hungry beast.
Yeah, agree - human ego and human greed - deadly combo.
You spelled guarantee wrong in your last image. How are you planning on getting upvotes, follows and resteems like this!
Thanks for spotting my spelling error! Corrected it! 🙂
To answer your question...
Well, I apparently don't crave to get new followers with this post. - LOL - Or at least not those ones who would fit into description given in the article.
But, if this article would attract only one quality follower who minds about something different, I would call it a success.
More over, if I manage to put only one new Steemit member (regardless of if he/she is going to follow me or not) onto the right path that would bring him/her some future success on this platform and better earnings, I would call it as an even bigger success.
Upvoted on behalf of the dropAhead Curation Team!
Your post will be Resteemed by @dropahead witness account of the dropAhead curation team!
Watch out for the #xx-votesplus tag!
By doing the above you will give us more STEEM POWER (SP) to give YOU more earnings next time.
Keep up the good work!
Thank you!
Awesomely well said... It's exactly what's in my mind... Just that I can never put down in better words and sentences as yours... This is exactly what everyone in the Steemit Land should and must know... I upvote and resteem posts I like... Our upvote is very precious if we wanna help others... This is not FB or IG, where we can like and share whatever we like or love... Each and every of our upvote has value... Just like how you have said it in your post... Our upvote is just like tips... We only give tips when we receive good/great/awesome services... So here in Steemit, the service we get is good quality post and comment...
Thank you very much, Eliza! 🙂
You are most welcome!
When i first joined i followed everyone back who followed me, then after a month i realised it was stupid, not because i had tons of followers but because when i posted a one month thank you post no one out of my 100 followers responded at all. What happened to those nice people who was interested in my blog?
Thats when i realised the best way to get quality followers is to follow quality Steemians. I can't control who follows me or comments in my posts, but I can go through my followings and weed out people based in certain criterias to get it down to a manageable and quality level.
I think almost every one of us has been in that phase (more or less) at the beginning, but if nothing after some while you realize that even if you want to you can't follow some enormous amount of people especially if they blog daily or even less if they blog several times per day.
I mean, we can't follow them in a quality way by upvoting and comment something meaningful.
However, thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts and experience! 🙂
What a piece of news. I have been for a long time in different webs of photography and you are absolutely right with respect to cometarios, well, nice, I like and ......., there are few comments with a more serious content where you really notice that you have reached the goal of a photographer that is to achieve an emotion, greetings friend and thanks for this reflection. @ana-maria
Thank you very much for the comment, understanding, and support, @oscarps! Appreciate it a lot!
I agree with everything You said. But I think we just need to get used to it. It is something that happen in every social network nowadays so I don't see why it would be different in here. That type of users invaded the internet a while ago and I think they are here to stay. :S The difference is that here the majority of them won't stay long because they will see that the money is not coming in and that was the only reason they have joined in. To get rich by uploading their pictures and so on. That will leave everyone with a bunch of "dead" followers :(
Thank you, Sergio! Sometimes it's hard to get used to it, especially when they became annoying and aggressively bullying.
But at the end of the day, I think you are right! We have to leave them to their own failures and disasters. Ignoring them and leaving them among like-minded selfish individuals and a 'quick buck hunters' might be the worst punishment for them.
Although I agree with you that majority of them won't stay long around here, I also think we can't just wait for some others (like Cheetah Bot, SteamCleaners Team, Sherlock Holmes or some others of the kind) to do the whole job for us. We have to "reward" those fakers, other people's work thieves and similar with our own downvotes, here and there, when we come across such abusers and violators. As soon as we get rid of them or at best as soon as they realize and understand the actions they performed are not praised and evaluated here the better would be for all the rest.
It would be a sad thing though if many would be left with a bunch of dead followers. On the other hand, personally, it wouldn't bother me that much as long as there are quality and active ones, as those that became "dead" ones in the meantime didn't bring us any value either when they were somewhat active. In fact, quite in contrary - just draining the reward pool.
I'm also pretty tired of all the spammy comments and self promotion around here. Why can't people just write the way they normally talk? It's not that hard...
I agree with you completely. I was thinking about it the same way. It shouldn't be so hard. But then it hit me. Maybe, in fact, it is if they pretend to be something they are not and if normally they don't talk normally.
You know how they say for people who swear a lot. In their speech, the curses are left and right, almost every third or even second word. Even most often not aware, they are suffering in fact of lack of eloquence. Their vocabularies are so small that they have to fill the sentence with something, to leave the impression of importance and knowledge. That's why (mostly in real life even not so rear anymore on some other networks) we got something like:
Many thanks Ana-maria for this wonderful post and an eye opener for most of us. Regards Nainaz.
Thank you for the comment, @nainaztengra! Hope it would really help! 😉😊