Hi Steemians and Busyists and eSteemians and Utopians,
We are lucky that while billions of people are wasting time of Facebook and Twitter etc, we are on Steemit or Busy.org or Utopian.io or eSteem; making contributions to the community and earning cryptocurrency due to the benevolent nature of Steem's economy.
PS: I mostly post from Steemit.com or eSteem app by @good-karma but I recently had my first contribution approved on @uopian-io. This post is my first one on @busy.org and I am pleased to be here.
I am on Steemit for 6 months now. I have observed and shared a lot of personal insights and experiences. I have created many guides and tutorials as well, which have since helped literally thousands of people to do better on Steemit. I am going to combine my experience in these 7 lessons that I hope will help you do better on Steemit.
1. Seek First to Learn, Then to Earn
The phrase is inspired by the habits number five in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People which says:-
Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
Seeking first to learn how Steemit works and why successful people are successful translates to seeking first to understand. You're on a new platform which is based on a blockchain and rewards in cryptocurrency. Please understand its system first.
Don't learn so that you can manipulate the system (you can't do that), but learn so that you can offer what the community expects from you; value, contribution and engagement.
To learn about Steemit, do check the Steem.guide by @jerrybanfield and its future editions. Some of my guides will feature too, hopefully.
2. There are NO Shortcuts!
There are simply zero shortcuts that work. You'll either be frustrated and leave or be caught and punished with flags. Many people think they'll collude with friends and make a group who vote each other all the time. They do not realize that even a group of 100 people will only give you $0.10 at max if they all have no Steem Power.
Upvote for upvote does not work even if you get 100 votes because these people who are voting on your posts have zero vote value.
Follow for follow is another shortcut most rookies are mistaken about. You cannot get any support from such followers because most, I'd say all, of them are losers just like you. Harsh but true.
The only way to success is the way in which you do some valuable work and people reward you for providing that value. Avoid the shortcut thinking.
3. Consistently Contribute
If there's one word to summarize all the advice that experienced Steemians will give to you, it's contribute. What is a contribution? Anything that is valuable to the community. A thing which helps people know you, take a decision, make an improvement, enhance their knowledge, or do anything that people deem valuable.
And you have to do that on a consistent basis. People should know you for doing valuable things on Steemit for a long time.
4. Prioritize Relationships over Rewards
Take any account. Let's take @kus-knee. Visit his profile and open his latest post. Read it and then write a detailed commentary on that post. Also follow him. Then visit his profile every other day to see if he has posted something new. Read and comment. Repeat.
You'll slowly become familiar to him and you'll be able to know him better too from his posts and writing style. It will become a relationship of its own. Whenever he will see your post in his feed or comment on his post, he will be inclined to reply and even upvote it. Because you put in effort to make that connection.
I cannot talk enough about how relationships have helped me on Steemit. I have a genuine desire to make good connections from the day one and I have hundreds of them now on Steemit. So many people have made an undeclared connection with me too by consistently appearing in my comments. I try to upvote and reply to them on priority.
If you focus on building relationships, rewards will multiply. Try it.
5. Always Reply to Comments
That's one thing I have been doing regularly. I may have missed some due to commitments but I come back to replies tab and reply them all. The person who comments on your posts is a reader; not necessarily keen to be your follower. But when you reply and keep the conversation going, he or she tends to check you out and follow you if you fit the expectations.
You will see an amazing increase in the number of your followers when you make an earnest effort to reply to all comments in a way that is seen as valuable. I resteemed a @jerrybanfield post on the subject. Check that out for further evidence.
PS:- Upvoting valuable comments on your posts is a habit that you can borrow from me and you will see amazing effects of it too.
6. Do Not Spam, Beg or Plagiarize
Short comments like 'good post' are spam. Comments saying 'I followed you. You follow me and upvote my posts' are spam. Comments not relevant to the topic of the post are spam. Comments containing links, and that too irrelevant to to the post, are spam. Do not spam.
Do not beg. Just because you're new or struggling to understand how to get rewards, you should not resort to begging as a way to get some rewards for no work. Work hard. Learn. Put in effort. Show patience. You will get rewards.
What's not yours is not yours. What others wrote is theirs. Do not post content that is stolen from another author. Do not try to scam the system by spinning. You will be caught and you will be punished.
Note:- All gifs are from Giphy and are used to make the post interesting.
7. Participate in Steem Blockchain by Choosing Your Witnesses
Witnesses are responsible for maintenance of Steem blockchain and producing blocks. They run heavy nodes and RPCs to keep the blockchain transactions happening. We are not talking about their technical expertise though. We are interested in choosing the best people to run the Steem blockchain and make decisions about it.
These people are called Steem Witnesses. By clicking the link, you'll go the Witnesse page and see a list of witnesses there. While I just voted for @busy.witness as my 15th witness, I still have 15 more votes to give.
I would like to mention people or accounts that I have voted for witnesses because of their amazing services (which need some explaining and not the subject of this post). I voted for @ausbitbank, @steemgigs, @timcliff, @good-karma, @jerrybanfield, @aggroed, @pharesim, @curie, @lukestokes.mhth, @blocktrades, @utopian-io, @blueorgy, @sircork, and @dragosroua for witness. I would encourage you to see all of them and vote for them if they seem appropriate people to you to handle Steem blockchain.
I'm pretty sure these are not Steem witnesses.
After you vote for a witness, always see their witness updates so that you can truly appreciate their efforts for Steem blockchain. Also, let them know that you voted for them and support their efforts. They will support your efforts too, if of good quality.
Conclusion
Steemit works but only if you are ready to make it work. I have spent 6 months and I am so happy. I wish I had joined in July 2016 rather than June 2017 but I am thankful that I joined. There are millions who are still wasting time of Facebook like I used to do before.
On completion of half an year, I wanted to share something to inspire Steemians and guide them to success. I hope you found this post to be useful.
Please consider upvoting and resteeming.
Thanks for your vote and the shout out. :)
Would you mind updating
@lukestokes.mthtto @lukestokes.mhth ?Thanks!
My bad. I double checked it and still managed to mess up. I updated it. Thank you!
Hah! I couldn't help myself from being amused for that destroyed spam can 😆 "Yeah, that's what happens to SPAM!"
Some great advice I agree with. I've come to very similar conclusions on how Steemit should be navigated.
Thank you so much for your comnent. I'll surely visit your profile after I reply to all the comments left unanswered.
When I see these...
I can only smile and move on. Yeah... not cool at all
Harsh but true... As I said. Thanks for your comment. And I try to educate a little. May be they realize.
Ahaaa. Another feather in the cap.. good work mate.. and yes you have achieved some marvellous milestones here on steemit. But thats not the best thing about you.. the best thing about you is that you are a giver and believe in giving back to community..
Keep steeming on..
See you soon on utopian.io
I am making another contribution real soon..
Thank you very much. If any of my efforts benefit Steemit or Steemians, I would be glad. One of my contributions to Steemit was inviting you to the platform. 😉
Steemit is love and there's so much to learn. When I learn something, I wish to share it with the community.
Thank you so much for sharing these golden tips bro @ilyastarar which are really helpful not for all news and old users. All the points are explained in a very easy and impressive way to guide all steemians.
Constantly contributing, commenting, reply,up voting, resteeming valuable posts, are a right way to success.
The names of witnesses mentioned in your post, are also great personalities of encouragement for me due to their incredible services.
Thank you very much for such a wonderful comment. Always a pleasure get a detailed feedback such as this one.
Good advice! Particularly the "No shortcuts". It takes dedication and consistency as well as time. But it's worth it!
Oh, and a nice busy.org upvote you got there!
Thanks a lot! I wanted to know how busy.org works before posting from there. That's how I came to your post about it.
And yeah, it works exactly like you explained. I got vote of a considerable amount from busy bot.
Once again, very useful post.
I will be checking busy.org and utopian.io in order to know what is this all about. And also will check your suggestions for witnesses, I know some of them but only have made 1 vote.
I'm just completing my first month in Steemit and I've learned and enjoyed a lot. And I feel happy with my 15-dollar account value in the first month :) but the real value of this is the everyday learning about crypto and blockchain.
Thanks again Ilyas!
It is my pleasure to of some value to you, Fernando. You are new here and I am glad that you're knowing the right kind of things.
You're making nice progress as well. Keep being consistent and everyday will be full of rewards. Account value will be in hundreds soon the way you are learning.
Steem on!
With the rewards received today, I'm just reaching 23 USD account value, yeeaaahh!!
And I don't have any plans of STEEM withdrawal although the 7USD/SBD rate, I'm converting all my SBD into STEEM in the internal market :)
The rates are still highly favorable and unimaginable a few weeks ago. Amazing! People are able to buy Christmas gifts for family with a few SBDs.
These are more than simple advises, these are the way the platform should and is working. I would add: Always be positive and have a constructive engage with the others :)
Thanks for adding to the discussion. Being positive and engaging constructively are great things to do indeed.
8 rule from my experience
DON'T MESS WITH WHALES. they could ban you. You can easily lose your carma after brawl.
A fight is not a wise thing to do with a whale. I don't think people with heavy stake in the platform want anything negative. I have found people very supportive of good content and initiatives.
Thanks for your contribution to the steemit platform, this was an inspiration for young steemians like me.
Thanks a lot. Happy to contribute :)
Excellent post brother. Very informative & comprehensive. Thanks brother @ilyastarar.
Thank you very much.
Bhot achi post apki 😊
Thank you. Aap bhi kia karo achi post :)
Nice post
Thanks. Please try to write longer comments. Shorter comments may get you flagged and you'll lose reputation.
Good tips! Thank for your article @ilyastarar!
Thanks for your feedback @dimarss. I'll visit your blog after replying to all the comments.
I do agree with consistently contributing !!
Thanks for feedback! :)
This post is sponsored by @appreciator in collaboration with #steemitbloggers. Keep up the good work
Thanks for sharing such valuable advice by way of your own experiences here. It's easy to come in and just learn the basics, then think "that's it, I've got it." There are so many more layers though, like the witnesses, that I need to learn about. :)
Very good advice.. I wrote similar guide for newcomers and strongly believe that it's important to help them.
Thanks. Some good tips here. My first day on Steem so just reading as much as I can !
Great advice and congrats on your recognition by @appreciator . 🆙 #steemitbloggers
Good advice and yes 'it takes time to earn' is something everyone needs to understand especially the newbies who believe one would earn hundreds of dollars from each post within a few days. It takes to settle in, build connections and sow seeds. Once you have done the ground work, results start pouring in and this takes time and patience.
Great work @ilyastarar! 😀 Congrats! 😀
in my opinion wise advices are the most needed things on steemit when you are a minnow. i find these advices useful especially the one about prioritizing the relationship .well done @ilyastarar
Nice post. I'm still trying to learn and find my way around. But I don't spam. I think Most spammers know they are spamming. I'm glad you told them 'it won't work here'. That's one of the big positives of steemit to me. Reward quality. Not click bait. Thanks for the links to other good providers.