There can only be one king of the mountain!
Did you ever play "king of the mountain" as a kid?
Simple, you choose a random pile of dirt, or elevated area as the "mountain" and someone steps in as king. Others try to knock that player off the mountain, thus becoming king.
You can only stay on top of the bot votes for so long.
They are inherently limited, even as their power grows, so too do the number of users, watering down the power they have. Each bot can only vote so many times in a 24 hour period, and you must be the first, or the biggest bid, or hit the target exactly, in the case of some, in order to get the votes.
Not only this, but your window is very limited. It's almost impossible to bring a post that is not fresh, up in the trending standings.
It's much like trying to be the biggest bully on the block. Eventually, someone gets bigger than you, and knocks you off the mountain. How will your audience respond? Some of them will stay, guess who? YOUR ORGANIC FOLLOWERS! The ones who like you for you, who enjoy your content and have developed community. But:
- The curation guilds will quickly shift their votes to earn higher profits
- The speculators will abandon you immediately.
- If you don't have enough active followers, you're on the way down.
And here's an important principle.
I learned this teaching theater and directing for almost twenty years.
It's not hard to get attention, any fool can stand in a crowd and look up at the sky to gain attention. Once you have it, you'd better keep it, because once you lose it, it's very difficult to get it back.
That's why many "top earners" that were on the top of trending six months ago, are nowhere to be seen now. Someone else is a better version of them. They've burned out, or dropped back. Some have checked out altogether, and earn money renting their vote power, or running bots.
So, since, in the end, the organic followers are the only ones you can truly depend on, why not just aim to develop them from the very beginning?
So, there you have it, ten reasons I think organic beats bot votes every single time. Tell me what you think? Got a better idea? I'm all ears.
It all depends why you are here. Are you in it for the money or is the money a nice side effect. For me it is the second.
I believe in interaction with the commentors on my post. I do believe in placing genuine comments on other peoples posts. But this takes time and sometimes I do loose confidence to see shit posts get a lot of votes.
But I did have chosen my path and will follow it!
I also like the power. It feels good to have my vote worth something and I think this community is better than Facebook. The Facebook platform is WAY more user friendly but this has way better content and is worth the trouble.
I agree, there is some good content here. Not sure if it's way better than Facebook, that's a pretty subjective measure, since it entirely depends on who you follow and what groups you are in, etc. There's also a truck ton of spam over here and unfortunately, due to bots, a lot of it makes a lot of money.
I guess you're groups and people must be a lot better than mine on Facebook. I was into politics and Facebook turned into an almost complete waste of time. Steemit seems a lot more cutting edge with much more useful information plus you can even make money.
Well, I'd guess the ratio of good content is about the same. It's all in who you follow.
bullshit, I'm here for the money and I've made a lot of it. It will bring both. but it takes a bit longer.
Being an active member of the community and staying consistent with trying to build a network is so important in terms of your success here. Sometimes it can be difficult, especially at the start, but persistence is key.
Keep on it and keep going is what I have tried to do lately and it has seemed to be working more and more as people begin to click on my moniker to see what sort of content I am putting out there.
I do have to say though, I have used voting bots to help boosts some of my posts and this has honestly been a huge player in some of my recent success with my content. You are right on though, as sooner or later this will begin to become washed up and head down the drain.
Thanks for sharing @markrmorrisjr good bit of learning I still have yet to do.
~Respect
Thanks, check out @dolphinschool. I'll be starting a new bootcamp soon. Lots of great ways to get ahead, without buying votes.
Okay, most definitely will. Thanks for sharing!
I want to organically grow as you mentioned, as I know this will be a great way to see success start to pile up & hopefully I will reach the top of the mountain lol
Cheers!
That's the goal, we'll climb together my friend!
Yes, steem on, lets climb the mountain and STAY there !!
See you around
There’s nothing wrong with being here for the money. I’m a principal because of love education, kids and a challenge, BUT I wouldn’t do it for free. I do it for the money too. I do think that organic real growth with people who share mutual commonalities is more sustainable.
Yep, I had my one go-round with doing things for love over money, fifteen years running a theater, before I finally realized, it wasn't that I was doing it wrong, there wasn't any money in it! LOL I'm too old to work for free anymore.
Who owns steemit voting Bots or the community??
Well the bots cannot be separated from the community, since each account has identical standing and their power is entirely governed by SP levels.
Very informative post. It is disturbing to see such a great platform becoming in some peoples' minds just a way to make money. Steemit is a social network and interaction is the grease that keeps social media moving. I look forward to your dolphin training.
I think the money, not the social aspect, was the main intent, the social aspect was a way to get wide spread acceptance of the currency faster.
Mark. I'm thinking of doing another physical book giveaway. Do you have one and would you like to go in with me? Random drawing of all commenters wins 2 books. 1 from you, 1 from me. signed, of course. interested?
@Lahvista
Well, I don't have any printed copies of anything currently. But, let me know when you put it up and I'll resteem it for you. I'm thinking of offering a paperback edition of the stories from this contest for sale. Trying to figure out how to do for SBD, without having to handle the shipping. LOL
Who do you use for printing? I have used Createspace which is now merged with Amazon which includes shipping if you are a prime member. But this book has a publisher I have to go through, except with this kind of contest I have copies on hand so, I'll only be out the shipping. Anyway... I'll take you up on the resteem when I get the contest worked out. And gladly do one with you when you get ready to print. More authors, bigger prize, more contestants....
Are you on discord yet?
I'll likely go back with Lulu. I don't really like Amazon. I'm on there, but it's a lousy platform, except for the volume of traffic they get. Otherwise, it's all pay to play and you don't even get to know your readers, unless they leave a review. I'd love to find a better way to do print books, but LULU is the best and cheapest. You might take a look there. I've had books with them for almost ten years and they always do a great job.
Also, too many of these followers are international. That's expensive to ship. I found that in my Ebay business. Even with the media rate for books, it's a lot.
Continental US only because of shipping.
I will be working toward having one the next time you do this. Thanks for offering. I'm interested, just not the right time.
Let there be a contest!!!! Will you look it over and tell me if I screwed it up or forgot something? Please? Thank you? :)
https://steemit.com/steemit/@lahvista/win-a-copy-of-the-anchor-is-the-key-you-don-t-even-have-to-pay-postage
I am one of your organic followers! It's been only a month since I've joined steemit. You're the first person to upvote a post of mine, if I remember correctly. And you were very kind to leave a comment about the quality of my writing and pointed out to stick with quality writing! I still remember the joy of that upvote!! It takes several minutes to hours to put up a decent post and then the wait begins!! Only to realize after a couple of days that no one bothered to upvote! It's so disheartening. It's even worse when you see garbage posts in trending page with huge payouts. The paid bots thing is demotivating for a huge chunk of the community. I'm so happy to see you addressing this issue boldly. Please continue to do your good work and know that followers like myself are with you in this!
You need to find a markdown editor, like markdownpad2. It will make the time it takes to build a post shorter. Also, save things like your end content, links, etc to use again. One way to shorten the time is to write in series. That way you can create a longer piece, break it up and share it. Like this one.
Thank you so much for the reply! I'd like some advice on increasing the outreach of my posts too! I would love to see more upvotes! But I think I'll be just happy to see at least more views/reads ATM!
Study the categories and choose the ones that fit best, with the least competition (number of posts) and higher payouts. It takes a bit of study. What kind of content do you want to write?
Interesting ! I write fiction and on travel 😊.. I'd really appreciate it if you could spare some time to check out my blog and let me know your opinion!
happy to. Are you following @dolphinschool yet? I do most of my training stuff there. Been a little slow with it lately. Picking up there again starting tomorrow.
Just did! 😊 Will stay tuned for content.
WOW, this is the best post ever. I think you convinced me. I was in an internal battle, bots or no bots. Since I'm new I felt my post where totally unnoticed even though I would spend a whole week preparing one post, I saw everyone using bots, so I felt like I had to join the dark side! I've read tons of posts about this and I thin you just nailed it.
If you spend a week prepping, break it into 5-10 sections and post it all back to back in five minute increments, like the series this post is part of. It will get you attention. If you only do it sparingly, you won't overwhelm people and you'll attract a lot of new followers. What kind of content are you writing? Category is super important as well.
I'm more into photography. Maybe some tutorials on photography, don't know yet? Being part of contests has really helped though.
Have you used steepshot.io? I've done okay on a couple of pictures I shared there, with some text under it. If you use it, you can share into 20 categories at a time.