I need your help today.
Better said, I need your input.
I have been noticing lately how the amount of upvotes on posts has decreased a lot. I would like you to tell me if you have noticed the same for your posts. I have only been gaining more followers, but it's like the more followers I get, the less votes I get. I don't do the follower for follower thing. No, I either ignore those kind of requests or I give them a (not so sweet) piece of my mind, which is why I doubt I have many of those people following me. So there are two most likely causes I can think of, but I need your help to determine the most likely one.
- Due to the growing amount of new members, everybody is having trouble keeping up with their Home feed (I know I am), so I simply fall between the cracks.
- I'm slipping and my posts are of lower quality than what my followers expect of me.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, even if it's a cold, hard truth. I can't improve if I don't get any input.
(32 views, 28 upvotes, it used to be the other way around.)
What do you think I need to do to improve my reach and upvotes? I've already been posting all throughout the day (atleast during my waking hours, I'm not getting up in the middle of the night to reach the US). However, I can't seem to find a sweet spot for timing my posts. How well they do seems completely random. I'm also not about to kiss some whale's ass, simply to get on their good side. They either like my stuff, or they don't. If they are fair, they vote for stuff they like, if they aren't, screw them. I still post about the same topics I always have, which should be why my followers started following me, right?
(My best macro picture, hardly any activity compared to past posts.)
Anyway, enough about that. I hope I get to hear your input!
In other news: The repair man is coming over to fix our dishwasher today, yay! Is it bad that we had pizza yesterday, so we didn't get any more dirty dishes? Nah! We had extra reasons. Pizza is also very tasty and my boyfriend was home late, due to some work trouble. I think he deserved pizza either way.
I transfered my zoo photo's over to my pc yesterday. Now I just need to install Photoshop and Lightroom to start editing them. I also still have some food pictures waiting for me to write a post about them though. So much to do!
The least happy news of today is that I really should be mowing the lawn again.
And that is where I leave you. Have a good day!
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I believe that with voting power so easily depleted many have turned off their bots and so they don't get around to manually upvoting everyone that they used to support.
That's an understandable problem. I miss a lot of good posts of the people I want to support aswell, simply because the home feed is filled so quickly, I just can't manually check it all!
I don't think it is just you. I have noticed my votes drop quite dramatically and the number of followers seems to have no impact on that.
In fact the followers count is almost worthless I think as lots of newbies seem to follow old timers but I don't think they vote. That's my theory anyway lol
Glad to hear it's not just me (though ofcourse I don't wish a drop in votes for you!). I guess you're right about the followers count. It has increased a lot all over, but I guess that's mainly from people who follow tons of others, so they end up not noticing your articles at all.
Yeah that would be it m if you follow two thousand folk your feed is gonna be huge!
Definitely! I already can't keep up with mine. Just think how bad it is for people that follow thousands...
I had to unfollow lots. I felt bad but realised it was better to focus on people I vote regularly for so I can see them in my feed. It's still hellish though!!
Ugh, yes I imagine it feels bad! I should really do it soon though, because it also feels bad that I miss a lot of posts from people I want to upvote more regularly.
One thing addition to this is that we may have a big number of followers, but they might not be active anymore - or they may check steemit once or twice per week, only to miss most of the posts they would've upvoted if they had seen them.
That's true. The lady time I checked my dead followers it was about 20% will have to look again
In addition to that, we should have a tool to check more facts about our followers.
What if our average follower is following 500 other people? Then it's almost as good as a dead follower, as when trying to follow 500 people (who might post 1-3 times per day), it'll become almost impossible even though they visited steemit daily.
Some people also follow only to get attention from bigger users, when skipping reading any posts of others - only writing their own posts for "easy money".
Meh, sorry for the rant, I'm just sad as Steemit is not perfect, partially because some of the users are using the site "wrong" to give false hope of big fanbase :)
I totally get you. I think the vast numbers of followers are exactly that, people who have followed old timers to get reciprocal votes it attention.
I would like lots more detail on followers and other stuff.
totally agree with you ... some of the steemian is here to just earn easy money instead of contributing to this community ...
Probably many people spend their votes faster (100% votes) and/or there is much more self voting..so less for you.
True. I understand people who don't have the voting slider yet will be reluctant to vote as much as they used to. Others, however, can simply adjust their percentage. I've been doing so and I feel like my combined votes can now add more value than before the HF. It just takes a while to find sweetspot between the right percentage and not draining my VP.
The self voting does now take away more VP than it did before though, yes! I do admit to voting my own posts 100% with the option when posting. It still doesn't drain my VP by far though.
@playfulfoodie, I have decided to keep my following list less than 100.
I have never been in I follow u u follow me game. I never even ask anyone to follow me in my blogs. Many of my followers are the ones who read my post and like it and then follow me. But I don't follow them, unless I repeatedly come across good posts from them.
I don't redeem too. I will probably start with Maxsteeming a 1 post per day aggregating all the resteem worthy blogs from my end.
I have stopped pivoting myself while posting a blog. Upvoting myself for my own blog is something I am not comfortable with. And here some steemians even upvote their own comments. Ridiculous I would say.
I saw some trending posts from HNW (high net worth) steemians and they don't even qualify as a post, just some random abrupt thoughts, a few lines or say a couple of random ordinary photos that you click dime a dozen times at home or outside. (The sort of photos that right now sitting in my bedroom I can simply point randomly out of my window and click). Now these posts ( not posts say some random thought) get huge traction and triple digit payouts. On the other hand I see a minnow put atleast a few hours of hardworking, painstakingly building a real good story something really that could add value in true context gets $0.001.
So I have learnt that the path is very steep for minnows. I am just putting down my head and put out some good posts (I put in many hours of real hardwork behind each of my blogs). I am giving myself 3 months and see where I reach and then take a call.
I am just focusing on good quality content and trying to engage my readers. Nothing more.
I am not bothered about upvote, resteem, likes, payouts etc now as you read above nothing matters much. I am just keeping it very real and grounded and simply blog.
You are already a dolphin I guess or a mini whale . I simply suggest get these statistics out of your mind and do what you do best. Publish quality blogs. Some fail, some succeed. That's how the game is played. Don't get too attached to results. It's not in your hand. You do your duty and leave the outcome to others.
Thank you so much for your elaborate reply @topdog! I really like the stance you're taking and you're right, the game of Steemit basically means it's not fair. Nothing in life is, so why should Steemit be. Great authors get passed by by bad ones who got lucky or know people in high places (or are people in high places).
I think you made a good call to be so strict about your followers list. I follow over three times as much and I'm unable to keep up with all the posts in my feed, which feels kind of unfair towards the people I want to support. I really need to slim it down immensely. I tried again today, but it's a lot harder than I thought it would be...
I'm still a minnow, because I never did catch that lucky break of getting on a whale's good side. I'm not much for boot licking and try to keep things real. That's worth more to me than a whale upvote.
The most important thing is that we enjoy what we're doing here and I do! I can't help but think about these things sometimes though and just because life's unfair, I can't always simply accept it. Seeing as I can't make a real chance, I just have to blow off some steam once in a while :-)
Besides, I do want to expand my online presence, so getting more eyes on my posts is always a good thing.
Hello @playfulfoodie,
Many are reporting the lack of votes. I think your work is still great. I think there are several factors happening.
Hang in there we are all adjusting.
Thank you so much for your input, you make some good points! Hmm I didn't really factor in summer. That might be part of it aswell :D
I have been traveling on and off and less active, so I do feel it has an impact.
I guess so! People going on vacation and such aswell. Doing day trips in the nice weather :-)
I guess it's because mostly high reputation guys take upvotes but don't upvote back... They are busy upvoting the new comers but have forgotten the contribution we mediocre make in their posts... They should not be so baised... As we too expect upvotes on our good quality posts which we usually don't get... And newcomers even on rubbish posts earn well bcz of the high reputation guys.... That's why everyone has restricted their upvoting... So that everyone knows that we all need equal attention.. This is what I think
This! I've actually written up half a post already on this exact subject. It's not completely done yet, but I'll be posting it somewhere in the near future I guess. It's nice to upvote new people, but what about all the others who have already worked their butts off here? Someone told he he's surprised I'm still a minnow. It's what I'll stay if newbies keep getting favored.
Those who raise their voices gets blacklisted... And then they say its a fair game going on...
That is sad :-(
Yes it is... I have been here since March... And the newcomer are getting better response than me...
Yup, I also feel like they are being favored a lot lately, leaving little for the rest of us. I'm glad I still have a couple of followers who stick around though :-)
I would wish to have that same feeling :)
I think it is about increasing number of posts, so we need really interesting original content to get more votes. The second - it is good to post with not so popular tags like technology, but your post should be really relevant to the tag. That is I am going to do in the nearest future )
Thank you for your input! Yes, the number of posts keeps increasing, while our filter options stay quite limited. I do hope some day they will add some extra ways of filtering. I made some suggestions in a post in the past, but it went by unnoticed, just like many other posts :-)
Since the implementation of the latest hardfork peoples voting power has dropped from 20 votes a day to 10 votes a day . So I'm guessing people are more cautious with their votes and only vote on something special or try not to use them up too soon.
Yeah, that's a good point. People who don't have the voting percentage slider yet will be more careful. For the people with enough SP though, they can just adjust their percentage to a lower level and upvote as much as they did before. Atleast that's what I'm trying to do. It takes a while to find the sweet spot, but I can still vote quite a lot like this :-)
Yes the slider is a great tool and i agree that the whales and dolphins can adjust their sliders and keep their voting numbers up :-)
I've noticed a drop in upvotes too. Don't think it's anything to do with what you are posting though. Part of it I think is the disapearence of the auto voting thing and people being more careful over their vote power. Newer steemians who don't have a vote slider have very few votes per day and so even with all your new followers they can't upvote many of the posts they see. Also I think there is a case for posts falling through the cracks, so many posts it's harder to pick out posts from people you've been following and upvoting for a while.
Well that's my thoughts anyway, could be way off or the reason you're looking for.
Who knows for sure.
I think you make good points. For newbies, it must indeed be the vote slider mainly. I guess others are still trying to find a good balance with the new voting weight and the slider.
I wish we had some extra filtering options in our Home feed, so we could more easily find posts on specific topics of our favorite authors.
I'm using the resteem feature as a sort of bookmark so I can easily find some accounts or when I come across an account I remember go to their page to upvote posts I've missed but it would be nice to have a favourites feed.
Yes, definitely! It's one thing I've been missing here since the start. I've noticed quite some posts that I wanted to read later on, but the only way to remember them so far was to just add them to my Chrome bookmarks.
I think I saw a bookmark icon on busy.org, but I kind of just want to stick with steemit.com, so I never tried it...
Try some other topic rather than just writing about steemit and your personal life. If you have little bit knowledge of cryptocurrency or science try to write on it.Best of luck for a future post.
Thank you. I do write about other topics. I post quite a lot about gaming, photography and food. Those are my main three topics and I'm sticking to them. It doesn't seem to matter too much though.
To be honest, this post with the Steemit tag has already gotten a lot more attention than my other topics usually get ;-)
Personally, I'm happy there are users who aren't posting about cryptocurrency, even though they might get high payout in their posts.
I'm not a fan of going around crypto, nice stories about life and good photography is what I'm really in for.
Yes, i also experienced the same thing with you
Thank you for sharing your experience :-)
Thank you again
I don't have much experience as I'm new here. For me, every single vote is an addition. And I don't like to compare the no. of votes I got today vs. yesterday or this week vs. past week or month etc. I believe each day and each moment is new and incomparable with the moments gone by.
But I can understand your striving for better, which you are already becoming post after post. Some fluctuations in no. of votes may be due to HF19 or change in your followers priorities due to several factors in their personal life or on Steemit platform; ...and that is not in our control. But keep some patience and continue to do your best. It's certainly in our control and will make the voters return back here. So I believe. Just keep on Steeming ahead!
P.S.:
BTW, I'd also love to know that secret recipe for not letting the volume of up-votes vanish in thin air, if you are able to decipher one. 😊
Thank you for your input and kind reply :-)
I will definitely share my strategy with you if I do manage to find a good one, besides consistent posting and comenting :D
Same here. I have 1980 followers, 110 of them are "dead", and I rarely get more than 60 upvotes. Very strange. Some may be following more than they can curate, but I also suspect there are many who went for a follow-for-follow and can't be bothered to curate at all.
Yeah, I think those are definitely some of the issues lately. Oh well, I guess we already know it's quality over quantity... even on Steemit :-)
I can say that the quality of the post affect the number of votes and the award not as much as I would like.
Probably, the trends are much more important than the content.
For example on my last posts:
Overpopulation -A full-fledged article $12.35 (with @randowhale vote) wins a bit against a short post with a photo colorchallenge-friday $5.73
You're right, quality seems to be less important than topic. I post articles about gaming or photo's that I feel deserve more than they get sometimes, but then I write something about Steemit, anything really, and suddenly, everyone reads and votes it. I still don't do it a lot though, because well... what the heck is there to write about Steemit every day. It needs to actually make sense that I write about it. If only for my own sense of fairness.
There is no way you will be able to keep up as time and membership here increase. I have been having the same type thoughts and issues... and was thinking to weed who I am following. This will allow only the better information to feed in, the new stuff I can always look at when time avails.
Yes, that has been playing around in my mind aswell. I've started on slimming down my following list, but oh my gosh it is so hard! I would be so happy if, at the very least, we could use the tags as filters in our home feed, but instead, they just point to trending... how useless is that :-(
upvoted! :p :)
Haha why thank you kindly :D
Be thankful you have a lawn to mow!
That is a very good point! It's in a crap neighbourhood though, but that'll change soon enough :-)
Some of us need an attitude change, as we are trying to follow on to everybody and maybe even people who's posts we don't enjoy (anymore?), but when we have our home feed filled, it's hard to follow on all the posts we enjoy.
I'm following only 59 people and I've removed some from my following list, since they're not posting anything I'm craving after anymore.
After most of us start to notice how hard it is to follow the posters we want to follow, we'll have to make the hard decision of who to follow and not to follow :(
That's true! I cleaned up my list a bit a little while ago, but there are still too many articles coming along. I wish we could filter out the resteems, because some people resteem way too much. I need to start checking who and unfollow them I think...
That's actually true, some people resteem a wee bit too much. Resteeming is a good tool to promote other users quality content, but it's been used a bit too much.
Some people resteem more than they post themselves and at least I'm following people for their own posts, not for their resteems.
Yes! I hardly resteem, but I make a few exceptions from time to time. I mainly use it to fill up the space if I ever slack on one of my main topics.
If I find a person resteeming more than they post themselves, I refuse to follow them, because I feel their blog doesn't have its own identity and I'd have no clue what to expect from them.
Think it is number 1. For me it is hard to keep up with my home timeline. Posting, replying and going through my home feed.
So far I did my best to follow those who follow me. But it is hard to keep up.
Trending, hot and promoted I seldomly look at. Rather had a favorites tab. Or frequent posters tab.
Attention gets spread out a lot more because Steem gets more and more popular. So it looks like time for communities.
The #NL language community is already formed, @steemspoker took the innitiative. We also have our own chatgroup at Telegram. It is a beginning.
Yeah, I find it really hard to keep up with my feed aswell. Honestly, I don't manage it anymore and I think I need to start cleaning up again.
I gave up on following everyone back a long while ago. It might be a nice thing to do, but it does disjustice to the people I follow for their content.
Yeah, communities would be nice. I would love some extra filtering options in my Home feed aswell. The tags there currently lead to Trending, instead of adding a filter to my own feed, which is very sad.
I have never used Telegram actually! It's an app, right?
Now using:
http://steemit.deadfollowers.info/
To see if there are followers that are more than 4 months without any post.
and
https://steem.makerwannabe.com
To find unfollowers and accounts that mute mine. The last I find weird if an account follows me, so then I unfollow.
Can clean up about 160 followers that way.
And you are right. The ones that I want to keep up with are left behind in the noice. So I think I have to let go of the follow me - follow you. That has almost become a dayjob...
Telegram is an App for mobile, desktop and browser.
Here is the link for the Steem Nederlands group:
https://t.me/joinchat/CEBjbkGfknhw3qPl0qXtZw
More info and a lot of downloads for all kind of systems:
https://telegram.org/
Ooh thank you very much for the links! I might check out Telegram some day, though I'll do that once my head quiets down a bit more. Can't have too many balls up in the air right now :-)
Oh I know that challenge all too well.
All in good time. ;-)
I have noticed the same, but my amount of posts is not enough to make conclusions. The drop price of Steem in the last days is also affecting the rewards value.
I do not follow you for very long, but I think the quality of your posts has not decreased in the last weeks.
You can use Streemian to schedule the post submit if you want: https://streemian.com/
That's a good point you make about the price drop of Steem. I have noticed that in my own upvotes aswell. Right after the hardfork, my 1% upvote gave $0.03, now it only gives $0.01.
Hmm Streemian might be worth a shot, thanks!
I want to believe that the main reason is the changes introduced in HF 19. Now people are more cautious when it comes to voting.
Yeah, that must be a big part of it, atleast for the newbies who don't have the voting weight slider yet.
I have little doubt that a lot of your lost upvotes comes from a packed home feed. I admit that I can't keep up with the few people I do follow. I only actively give look outs for yours and a few others posts. I don't think your content is the problem seeing as I am here still. While I can't say I've noticed a drop in upvotes (all of my posts are either boom or bust) I have noticed an increase in followers with no upvote from them. The only way I could give you advice is if you aren't enjoying yourself posting. Have fun and love what you do foodie.
(P.S. All of my big post I posted at about 11:55 California time. So about 40 minutes ago from right now.)
I have the same problem with my home feed to be fair. It's hard to keep up with so many posts and so little filtering options. I'm glad to hear you don't think it's the quality of my posts :-)
You're right though! As long as I'm enjoying myself, I'm sticking around no matter what.
This particular post is getting quite some attention, that does coincide with your findings!
Nothing to worry about my dear ! after HF19 you can vote less but for more potential payout , in other words less votes but heavier , what iv noticed is 500-5000SP voting you back if they vote them , iv also seen voting you for the same amount of money, and most of the whales are voting each other and even if you bother voting them (100% vote & comment) there is a small chance to come back with 1% vote, ofc there are exceptions but not many !
Very true! Honestly, I don't really bother too much with whales. It's too much effort for mostly topics I don't care about and I wouldn't feel genuine trying to get them to notice me like that. Minnows and dolphins are the main attraction here :-)
Good morning! I think that the decreased number of upvotes is due to changes after HF19. People can only make about 10 full-power upvotes in 24 hours, which makes them much more selective than before in choosing posts deserving their upvotes. Or voting with less than full voting power (if they have at least 500 SteemPower, that is). I’ve now changed from voting with full power to voting with 15%–20%, in order to give more upvotes in one day.
Good morning! A few people have indeed mentioned this. It makes me wonder how many of my votes previously came from smaller accounts who don't have the slider yet. I've also changed my voting percentage so I can still upvote all that I want. Thank you for your input!
Same here! A lot of comments but no votes!
Since the HF everybody seems concerned about their voting power... it's as if they want to hold on to it and simply don't vote anymore, just comment...
I read some posts warning to not vote for several days, so only then your voting power will regain full capacity... i'm still not so sure if this HF release benefits most of us...
The feed timeline is also so full, even if you don't follow too many people, it's just too much... i normally scrolled through to look at what everyone was doing, even looked up some topics i'm interested in, but all you see now is a mass of resteems...
I hope a new HF release will calm things down a bit.
So keep writing cause it's definitely not you!
😅
The thing is, bigger accounts have a slider to adjust voting percentage, so their voting power doesn't drain as fast if they simply slide it down. The upvotes still give more than they used to, so even upvoting at 15% power does wonders. I've been using the slider a lot more lately and I've been able to keep my voting power up quite nicely, without having to stop voting.
Yes, the feed is so full! I need to start unfollowing some people. Especially those who resteem a lot each day. It's just not worth it, because it really diminishes the quality of my home feed. I hope we'll get extra filtering options there one day...
Thank you so much for your input and I'm happy to hear you don't think it's me! :D
Thats true! Though i haven't been using the slider that much, i mostly leave it at 100% but i should also consider bringing it down per vote... it's true that only 15 % already does something so i'll remind myself to use it some more now!
It really helps a lot if you enjoy upvoting a lot. With the latest hardfork, the rewards your upvote gives have grown a lot, so even at half strenght, you'll probably still add more rewards than you did before the HF :-)
Hey and i also gave a pretty good upvote just now 😂 The full 100 %
Aww that is so sweet, thank you! :D
I think it is a mix of HF19 and new users. I can only vote 100%, so since HF I always read the articles I vote. Before I was like "oh a new post of somebody I like/ want to support" = upvote.
There seems to be strange trend on the other hand, that I get 5-10 followers, but the don't comment on my posts. I checked and some of them have like +5.000 "following". Not sure what these people are trying to accomplish with that.
Yeah, I keep voting that way, but that's because I already have the slider. I can imagine you being very careful with your votes now!
I guess these people just hope you'll follow them back and upvote them ;-)
I actually think the 100% vote keeps me very honest. I have read articles of friends that I did not like so I did not vote. Well, I will also miss to read some good articles, but I only got so much time in the day :D. It would be great if Steemit offered more than just the feed or "manual browsing". If I am off for a day it is hard to keep up.
I am actually thinking about keeping my vote at 100% and only upvote posts I read and liked. On long interesting conversations (mostly political) I tend to upvote one of the replies. HF19 is also great to promote discussion in comments, imo. Of course I not only upvote convos on my posts, that would be baiting as well ;).
Yeah, I would love to have some extra filters in my Home feed. Simply being able to filter on tag would already be a big help.
I like your way of looking at it. I don't think I'd have the discipline for it though, i want to upvote too much :-)
Very few people have paid any attention on how the increase cost of votes on our voting power has hurt our overall willingness to upvote or out of some crazy trickle down economics theory hey think this is a good thing. I would love to upvote you more often but I'm always waiting for my steem power to charge.
HF gave a little voice to minnows but it made some whales even richer and it did nothing to encourage the creation of quality content. I feel my shit posts are now worth the same as my quality posts which isn't really much incentive to work hard.
My solution has been to not think about it much. I write quality content when I feel like it and I shit post when I feel like it, the same as I would when I was busy on Facebook.
Sadly payout seems to have less and less to do with quality but fuck it, just be yourself and post self indulgently, sometimes that makes the best art anyway even if sometimes it doesn't. And engage on the posts about the HF or other future changes in the system
Yeah, I think the change is really hard on people who don't have the voting slider yet. I definitely understand the reluctance to vote when your voting power keeps draining that fast!
Good advice :-)
I try to read the posts about changes sometimes, but it's so hard for me to focus on the text, because it doesn't always make sense to me. Oh well, I'll try from time to time and besides that, just do what I enjoy!
It's not just about being hard on people without the slider, it's created a scarcity mindset around voting power so that we are all less likely to Upvote. There are also those with sliders who are lazy and would rather give 100% votes to their friends because it's nice to give a full dollar. Maybe they'll do it for strangers too but not as much a surprise ifhey had 40 votes a day at 100%
The only way you are unaffected by the change is if you always vote at 20-30%
Yup! I keep mine down quite a bit and if I'm lazy, I double click the upvote button, because I know it's not at 100%. I need to conciously make the decision to upvote 100%. I guess not everyone has gotten the same thought pattern :-(
Nice post....thank you so much sharing it with all steemians..GOD BLESS YOU.
Thank you :-)
This post received a 4.9% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @playfulfoodie! For more information, click here!
This post has received a 0.99 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @playfulfoodie.