Steemit... What was your reaction the first time you heard that word? Confusion right? Yeah! What more? Did they tell you it is a platform where you spend nothing but makes something? For a doubting Thomas like me, you probably asked for a proof and when shown lots of SBD's and how it can be traded, you knew you just have to be on this platform. Well, I can't blame us for doubting at first because most of us had it bad with Ponzi scheme and so we believe nothing like free money or maybe steemit is different.
Some months down the steemit journey which you started with so much enthusiasm, some of us have realised that we were told so much lies about steemit and have decided to give up. Others have become frustrated and not blogging as they used to and a good number is still questioning how the system works. So much lies right? Let's review what lies they may have told us.
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Steemit is a social media. How nice isn't it? It may just be like Facebook or other social media where I am shown people to follow and have mutual friends. The more the merrier.
You earn when someone upvotes your post. How amazing! How about going on a steemit evangelism and inviting all my colleagues, church members and family. If i can have like 200 of them, we can always upvote for upvote and in no time, we would all make so much money.
Make a great post and drop in link rooms: nice one. I'll join as many link rooms as possible and keep dropping my links and then go to sleep and wake up to see a lot of dollars on my post. Surely those in the link room must be there looking out for great posts like mine.
You can write about anything. That's so easy. How about take a picture of myself on bed in a nightie? Or I have a great idea, how about I tell a story of how I broke up with my boyfriend and post it and make so much money. They said anything right?
You can post as many times as you like: oh mama! I am soon going to buy you a nice car, just watch steemit make me rich.
We rushed in with such mindset about everything we heard not seeking to know more and then we are stuck along the way when we find out the hidden truths:-
Steemit has Steem Power. The Steem power you have determines your worth on the steemit platform or ecosystem. The more your steem power the more control you have over post payout and curation rewards. Let's just call it your shareholder's token on steemit. It doesn't matter how many upvote you, if their SP worth nothing, you make nothing.
Steemit is all about quality posts. You don't just pick up articles that are not original and post or write about anything and everything and expect to earn. You have to ensure it is of quality and have a target audience in mind while writing. Your images has to be free licence images and well sourced.
Steemit is more of a business platform than a social media: To be recognized on steemit, one has to invest. Remember the higher your SP, the higher your vote worth and the more you make. Those who understands this principle have invested and are reaping the interests. These are the people we call whales and if one of them visit our blogs, you know what that means. Not every large payout is from people liking a particular posts. People pay bots to get high upvotes on their post. That is still investment.
Steemit has flag buttons: steemit has rules and regulations which must be obeyed. It frowns at spamming and plagiarism and when one is found guilty, such a person will be flagged and it doesn't do well for your reputation. Also, not everyone is nice when you drop irrelavant comments or disagree with their posts, you could get flagged to oblivion.
Steemit is an ecosystem: you cannot survive alone on steemit. You need to be a part of a community. You don't just join link rooms and drop links to your awesome post and expect upvotes without interacting by upvoting others,making constructive comments and being active in the various groups.
Steemit has bandwidth. Bandwith is a system that ensures the steem block chain do not get unnecessarily flooded. Bandwith is allocated according to your SP. Basically, minnows have low bandwidths. Bandwith is used for voting, commenting, following others and using steem even editing. Doing too much of these activities will get your bandwith exceeded and you will have to power up or wait it out before you can continue.
It turns out there are so many things we never knew at first or we knew but misunderstood but now know better. If you had known all these, would you still be on steemit? Information is power, right association is the password. Just like every other business, hardwork, consistency and determination yields a great output on steemit. Steemit is a money making platform. Regardless of how low your payout is, go back to your drawing board and restrategize.
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It only takes just one day and the right person to make a change on steemit. Keep steeming!
In fact, after some deep reflections after joining, I came to discover that a lot more needs to be learnt by newbies than just rushing to posting stuffs anyhow.
Exactly, a lot more different from what you were told before you joined. Thanks @topcoach for finding this useful.
Good one. Every newbie need to see this.
Subbing all the newbies huh? Great! Well, I had an expectation, not too great though. The journey has been challenging even with the support I have gotten so far. I'm not complaining though, I know its the price to pay and I'm happy doing it now because in a few years from now this platform would be so huge. The stakes will be higher and the journey would be more intense. So I'm glad i started now.
Lol, nah this is not to sub the newbies but to motivate them and help them understand better. I also made these mistakes but im glad i understand better now. Im glad you are happy on steemit @nonz. Just keep doing your thing.
Well we are motivated 😏
The journey is an herculean one really. Steemit is for the smart workers not the hard workers. I like the investment part of your article. Very accurate.
I'm a newbie too and I'm glad I didn't get to know this platform any later than this.
@dklef i would say steemit is both for the hardworkers and smart workers. They go hand in hand. Im happy you are enjoying steemit.
Oh yeah. You're right. The both.
Thanks for this quick... What I call , Re-orientation/Reminder. It serves them wella.
Well said 👏👏
No one said anything about steem power to me and that is the most challenging part of steemit. As I am now my upvotes are still worth nothing but I'm not giving up. Still pushing through!
Keep pushing dear, now you have an edge, you understand better. See you breaking walls on steemit soon @membee
Of course no one tells you how things go in Steemit - it's a pretty new platform, almost no one uses it in my friends circle. It's complicated, yes, but I think steemit will only get better and better with time. I think now is the best time to join, because later on it will be even harder to be noticed.
In any case, those, who came here to only make easy money, will be disappointed no matter what platform they're on.
I think the key is patience, consistency and organic growth, no one made it overnight and that's how things should be in my opinion :) Would you agree?
Yes I definitely would agree with you. It's even getting harder now and more people keep joining cluelessly but don't be perturbed, there are so many inactive account of people who have given up.
Awwwwwn....this is so fantastic!
Thank you so much
CONGRATULATIONS....
YOUR AWESOME POST WAS SELCECTED IN THE @wafrica DAILY CURATION
COURTESY: @julietisrael
Nice Job. 👍
Thank you so much @wafrica.curators
I prefer to call these misconceptions rather than lies. The reason why so many newbies get frustrated with low payout and quit is because they never took time to study the system before joining.
I am one of the people who believe there is no free llunch anywhere. Before my account got approved, I took time out to study how the system works and I came to realize that it wasn't all about the number of upvotes you get.
Doing this made me go soft on my expectations of instant cash. Instead I began to work on making connections within the ecosystem as it is one of the fastest ways to grow
You are one of the few smart ones @korexe, I wish more people will follow your steps. Thanks for these tips.
This article speaks the truth! There is more to steemit than 'come and earn'. There is a saying that a big hook catches a big fish and holds it.. a small hook may catch it and it escapes!
Keep posting quality and increase your interactions... remember if you are expecting an important visitor you do alot of arrangements! Keep arranging your blog with quality! It pays out.
Steemit is all and all. Purely business.
I would say more of business than a social media.
You are very well correct, because first when i heard about steemit i was intially thinking about those ponzi scheme because i can still remember how much i loss during those ponzi schem stuff.
Oh Ponzi dealt with so many of us....didn't it? Thank God for steemit, we are recovering...lol
This sounds like me some months back when I was registering for steemit.
I was not new to the whole blogging and writing thing but definitely new to the test of quality and uniqueness. I thought it was all about upvote and money (No one told me about steempower and the various steem hustles).
Steemit is not for lazy people o.
Right now ehn..I am considering butting out. Its not easy jare!
Lol....anyways thanks for telling us the truth @zizymena.
@aksapphires I'll butt you in if you butt put. You are an amazing writer and you produce great contents.
I'm glad you came relate with this post, I also wasn't told some of the things and it made coping very hard for me initially. At some point u want blogging for almost three weeks but I'm glad I learnt during that time and here I am today.
Heheheh...Mama said she would butt my nonexistent butt in.😂😂
Thank you for the kind words Ma'am
This made my night. ONE DAY, I will be a reference point to others!
Exactly dear @eddie23, just one day
I agree with all that you said and ran into all of that confusion and incorrect thoughts. I'm still here for three reasons. I found out that Steemit is about way more than just making money that goes into my pocket. It's about helping people and learning about other people and seeing ourself as a cog in a world much bigger than yourself.
It isn't full of the unicorn sales men that clog the "other side" of the traditional internet world, all promising that if you just give them money they will hand you the magic button to internet wealth and riches.
Yeah there's some scammers here, they'll pop their ugly little heads up no matter where we go, but there aren't many.
ANd yes, my income from Steemit is less than I thought it might be, but no matter what it's still more than I would make doing the same thing on Wordpress or my own site or Medium.
And I like it here. I've met some really incredible people and every day is a new adventure. So I'm staying. For a long long time.
You know that unfortunate thing is that I've been unsuccessful in bringing a lot of people on steemit mainly because "I can't lie to them". I'm not bold to tell them all those sugar coated words you listed atop. I just don't like dissapointing people, I prefer that they come on with ample knowledge of how it works here. ALl I have at the end is that I use my own SP to open an account for them and they end up not blogging. Haha...
BTW, I love this and I've resteemeed it.
I love this!! very interesting.
hi @zizymena
I agree that steemit lures people with huge amount of misinformations available out there.
I only dont understand why you said that "Steemit is a social media" is a lie. Isnt steemit a social media platform? That's how I see it (and I work as a social media marketer).
Anyway ... piece of good work, obviously upvoted
Cheers,
Piotr