Surprisingly, the power of networking is something I was terribly unaware off when I made my entrance to the decentralized world and blogging in particular. When I started to publish my articles on Publish0x back in spring, I would just write what I had to say, publish the article, and move on. I did not read other articles, I didn't comment, and, to tell the truth, I sometimes didn't even really read the comments I got to my articles. In a way, I was pretty ignorant back then. I still got my votes, the algorithm liked (and likes) my content and I went to Popular more often than not.
When I moved on to Hive, I did the same initially and boy did I have a bad experience. I was rather frustrated about it and it took me a while to figure out what was going on. Why did nobody care for my content? It probably took me longer than it should have but in the end it became rather obvious to me. Why would anybody care for what I have to say if I don't care for what they have to say? Ever since I've came to that realization, things have become a lot better for me and they are still improving more and more.
I've had to learn this the hard way, but you don't have to! In this article I'll go over why building your network is so important, especially in our decentralized world, and give you some ideas how to start building it.
So why is it so important to build your network? The simple answer is, without a network you'll earn less money than you would if you had one. You scratch my back and I willll scratch yours is a universally understood concept throughout different cultures and times. If you help other people they are a lot more willing to help you in return. In the social crypto world this translates to You help me to increase my income and I'll help you increase yours.
To be clear here, a good network will be about more than just increasing your earnings, but let's be honest for once, we are all here because we want to make money, maybe even making a living from it. It might not be the only reason, it might not be our first priority, but it's always a part of our motive. Did you ever wonder how some of the heavy hitters on LeoFinance end up with hundreds of votes within minutes of releasing their new article? Why they earn more LEO in the first 15 minutes of publishing something than others do with five posts combined?
For one, it's usually because they are great authors. But other than that, it's because they built up their network! Guys like taskmaster4450 are basically known by anybody even remotely active on the platform. He's everywhere, writing great articles, leaving meaningful comments, engaging, interacting, building his network. I could write an article with the same quality level than what he does (well, maybe if it's on crypto gaming at least) and chances are I wouldn't get half the votes he gets.
Now you can call that unfair, wrong, what ever. Some people refer to it as circle jerking and worse. But no matter what you call it, it's the name of the game. If people know you, they are more likely to interact with you. And if they even like you, they will be a lot more motivated to regularly vote your content, leave comments, and interact with you in other ways. Building your network has a huge compound effect. At first things will be really insignificant, some of your actions will be ignored, you'll get an occasional vote here and there. But over time, the effects get bigger and bigger.
I've made it a habit to casually put ref-links into my articles wherever I feel they make sense. In my early blogging days, this would net me a single referral every few articles. By now, if I do an article on a new service I've found, chances are I'll end up with a dozen or more referrals afterwards. Because some people know me and seemingly trust in my recommendations.
That's my current referral count on Torum, basically Crypto Facebook, a service I started to promote a mere 9 days ago. That's 127.5$ in XTM just for bringing parts of my network over to that site as well. Take note how I in turn was referred by beviher, an author I follow on LeoFinance. So again, having me in his network payed off for him.
So now that we've talked about why you should build your network, let's take a look at the how next. The most obvious way is also the most simple one: Interact with other people! Don't just vote on an article and move on. Take a moment to think about whether you have something to contribute to the topic or not. If you have something meaningful to say, go ahead and leave a comment. But, and that's maybe even more important, if you have nothing to say, don't! Nice article won't get you very far on it's own. Nice article, if you are interested there's another cool article on the topic hereandthere. Also, in my opinion, doing whateveryoubelieve is a viable option as well, though, is most likely going to get you the attention of the author. Not just him, though. Other readers interested in the article might find your comment helpful as well. If they do, chances are they will not only leave you a vote, they might also check out your other content.
That brings me to another important point. Especially when you start to build your network, try to stay consistent. Pick a topic you are knowledgeable about. That doesn't mean you won't be allowed to write about anything else, but make it your goal to have at least half of your articles cover a certain topic. This way, once people land on your profile because they found something you wrote to be interesting, chances are they'll find more content that's also relevant to them.
Once you decided what your focus is going to be in the beginning, try to get into pre-existing communities. For me, the topic of choice is crypto gaming. So by doing articles about different crypto games on Hive, I would tap into these existing communities and automatically generate some interaction with their members. That's not to say that all of them became my followers, but still, some found my content interesting enough and while they initially only cared for eXode, they'll now also read an article I do on Cryptobrewmaster and vice versa.
Another great way to boost your network is by building it across different services. The banner above is from the LeoFinance clan on Torum. Joining these sub-communities on other services is a great way to get in contact with some of the more dedicated users of your core site faster. On LeoFinance, we are obviously all members of the LeoFinance community. While that's nice, it won't help you much to get in concat with anybody. On another site, though, the sub community is a lot smaller and thus more intimate. Getting in contact with people that share the same interest as you is a lot easier there. Across Publish0x, LeoFinance, Torum, and noise.cash I sometimes follow and am followed by the same person 4 times. Obviously, these are the most valuable members of my network as we are able help each other across a multitude of different sites.
One last great option I want to mention is Discord. It certainly feels like nowadays every single dAPP has it's own Discord and while things can get a little confusing if you join too many, it's still a great way to get in touch with people interested in the same topics as yourself. Just as with the comments, don't storm in there spamming your article link and asking for a follow. This is most likely to simply get you kicked or muted.
There are obviously many other ways to build your own network but I feel like the above is a good starting point. Ultimately, everybody has to find what works best for him. The most important advise I can give is probably to be honest in what you are doing. Don't try to build yourself an army of voting bots. Instead, see how you can help other people first and chances are great they'll help you in return eventually!
And that's all from me today, thank you all for reading and see you next time!