Five Months on Steemit: Writing "for Yourself" vs. Writing "for Steemit"

Sitting here, sipping my morning coffee, I realized that today-- June 30th-- is my "5-month anniversary" of joining Steemit. 

Woo-hoo!

I'll start by saying I'm super grateful I came across this community. It came at an opportune and almost time.

Social Media Exhaustion

On the "social" side, I was getting to the point of "maximum saturation" on Facebook's (and other platforms') eternal rehashing and gnashing of teeth over the outcome of the US Presidential election. Trump won the election-- GET OVER IT! 

If you like it, stop rubbing it in everyone's face like a trophy and get on with your life. "Make America Great Again?" Don't just wave banners and stand there talking about it, get out there and make it happen!

If you hate it, stop whining and whimpering, and put your energy into creating meaningful change that will help support your views, and get on with your life. Giant pity parties don't change the world, action does!

I was at a point of feeling ready to just turn off social media, completely.

Blogging Fatigue

Elsewhere-- in spite of the fact that I love to write-- my several well circulated niche blogs were suffering from a sincere lack of inspiration. 

For about a year, I'd been questioning why I was even bothering... in spite of the fact that many of my posts were read by 500, 1000... sometimes even 10,000 unique readers I felt like it was all sort of meaningless; I felt very disconnected from my ostensible "readers." Three very "formal" comments on a blog post "does not a dialogue make."

I was also getting super tired of the "monetization game." Trying to write things with the "right" keywords, that "Google would like," so my Adsense revenue would remain solid... was just never my style. In my world, that's "putting the cart before the horse." Writing, to me, is finding inspiration and exploring it... independently of whether or not it's "popular." 

I guess I'm just not that mercenary. Or whatever...

Welcome to the World of Steemit!

The timing for Steemit to show up was perfect because of what the platform offered: Social Blogging.

It was a place to share and explore actual ideas at some length-- and then explore those ideas further in very active and generally quite intelligent discussions. It was something I really hadn't seen in more than a decade.

So my sincere thanks to Steemit, and to our awesome community... which I credit with having rekindled and jump started my old love of exploratory writing! 

But WHAT Shall We Write About Today?

So, five months and some 220-odd original blog posts in-- and don't get me wrong, I still love creating content on Steemit-- I am noticing here a bit of the same duality that dominates the external web landscape, as well.

There is no doubt that a lot of people here-- and this is NOT a criticism-- are engaged in the business of creating content specifically for "popularity." Over and over, they write about Steemit tips and Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and Steemit apps... and build generally generous followings and rewards. They are, in essence, "writing FOR Steemit." That is, their content would have no particular value, were it published somewhere other than Steemit.

Others-- and I would include myself in that group-- write for the enjoyment of it; to share and explore ideas; perhaps to teach and enlighten, maybe to develop their art or creativity... sometimes in niche topics, sometimes not. They are more "writing ON Steemit," and their content would "have value" no matter where it might be published, otherwise. Sadly-- with a few notable exceptions-- it seems harder to to build a following and gain "traction" with such an approach. 

Again, these are simply observations... not criticisms. 

Anyway-- it's great to be here!

How about YOU? What is your approach to publishing on Steemit? Writing specifically "for popularity," or writing "what interests you," with popularity a secondary consideration? How did you FIND Steemit? There are lots of interesting stories about that, so DO share? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- start the conversation!

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Posted 20170620 22:18PST