The unwritten rules on how to behave on the platform
As if learning about your keys and wallet isn't complicated enough for a newbie, there are also some things that are considered a no-go on the platform. I have to admit, even though I have a good pair of brains and also have some common sense I can use, I have made some serious beginners mistakes myself on the platform as well.
Thankfully, as you can see, I'm still here, and I think I have a good reputation on the platform. Although it's good to make mistakes so you can learn from them, I think having some guidelines about what to do and especially what NOT to do on the platform is helpful to make sure you won't feel lost not knowing what just happened. At the moment there are accounts that can (and will) downvote people breaking certain Steemit etiquettes, and I hope to make newbies aware of them.
Because how can you know something if it's an unwritten rule? Especially if you are overloaded with loads of information already, it's a bit hard to consume everything. Hopefully, this part of the "guide for new Steemians" series will help you avoid at least a few beginner's mistakes. I will probably have to write a part two about this one day because I can't discuss everything in-depth in just one post. If you remember the things I will discuss today, you have learned some basic Steemit etiquette.
Your introduction post
This is something that may be normal to do, but just in case I will mention it anyway. Always make a proper introduction post to show the platform who you are. Make it look good, and try to show what you will bring to the platform. I know that you may be lost at this moment and not really sure what you will write about, and that's perfectly fine, but try to tell us about yourself. What are your hobbies and interests, do you study or work? Etc.. The ones that write a kick-ass introduction post nowadays will not regret it, because there are plenty of eyes going through the #introduceyourself #introducemyself tags.
Only use these tags on your actual introduction post! If you will abuse the tags for vote farming later on in your Steemit career this will not make you look good. People try it because there are some people automatically voting these tags. Let's make sure these rewards go to actual newbies on the platform.
Vote/follow begging
Would you beg someone in real life to give you money when you know the other person is filthy rich? Imagine you're a poor student, barely getting through the month, and there's a very wealthy businessman living nearby. You go for a walk around the park and then he greets you with a smile. Would your response be:
"Give me some money please, sir."
If your answer is "No, of course not!" then why would you command (because that's actually what most people do, not asking but command the other to do so) a totally stranger to vote for you only because that person has a huge stake?
I know often this is a language barrier, but there are 100 ways to make a good English sentence using a translator. You can easily play around with on to soon discover your comment is quite rude and not polite.
All these people commenting with some sort of vote beg or follow requests because they followed me, they won't work by most of the members on the platform. For a long time, these comments will be the reason to sometimes mute a person instantly. That is if I checked their activity and see this is all a person does. I used to educate them, sending back a message that this is not the way to go, but honestly, I already have too much to do to take that upon me.
Regarding the following request, I can tell you why that won't work.
Would you rather have 1000 followers only because you asked them to follow you without even knowing if you have the same interests? Knowing, that you may have begged hard enough for 1 vote, but after that, there was 0 engagement as you have nothing in common. OR Would you prefer having someone press the follow button after it turned out you share the same interests? And therefore actually get inspired reading each other's posts?
I can tell you, the last one should be the way to go. Engagement is key, and without interest in someone's work, there is no engagement because someone having 0 interest in what you post will not even bother clicking on your content, let alone vote it.
Plagiarism
There's so much to discuss regarding this topic that I will try to sum this up and dedicate a separate post about the matter as it's something that will probably always be a problem on every platform. Thankfully, a lot of people are stepping up to fight plagiarism and with many eyes pointed at the plagiarizers, I think it will be harder and harder to keep earning on Steemit.
It's actually very simple, only post your own writings or pictures. If you want to quote a part of someone else's post, mention the source. I will explain how you can do this in a future post. Just remember that you can't just use someone's work without their permission.
How would you feel if you worked months on a story or an artwork, and you finally can show it to the world, but then the next day, someone steals your work and says he/she is the author/artist? How would that make you feel? If the answer is bad/not good/sad/angry etc.. then please, remember this when you are even considering copying something that isn't yours.
After all, you are earning rewards on Steemit, so this is not done!
Vote buying (bid bots)
Although a lot of people have "bought" their high reputation successfully by using bid bots on their posts, it's another thing that's frowned upon. What this means is that you send a certain amount of STEEM/SBD to an account (a bid bot account) to get a vote on your post. The thing is that these bots didn't see if the content was worth the vote they received or actually a spam post (or something in between).
Nowadays (after the last HardFork) most of these accounts have started to curate manually instead of offering a bid bot service. In my opinion, this had a great impact on the platform as a whole. Just forget about bid bots after you read this, and earn your rewards the normal way.
Engagement is key
The last thing I want to mention is that you should always keep in mind that engagement is the key to success. If you are a great author or artist or maybe vlogger, you still have to put yourself on the map and make sure that you will get noticed. Although I believe that these days there are a lot more eyes pointed at new members, you still have to make an impression and make people want to return to your blog.
There are so many ways to do this, I will explain more about this in another post soon. For now, make sure you leave valuable comments on great posts and don't spam comments. Make your comments count. If someone leaves a comment below your post, try to answer this and show that you read their comment. I know sometimes you will forget to do so, which is fine, we all have a real-life as well, but make sure overall people will see you are making an effort to engage with them. This will be appreciated, I promise!
Previous parts of "A guide for new Steemians"
I will keep track of the previous parts I wrote in the "A guide for new Steemians" series. If you are interested in these as well, click on the link below.
If you found this post valuable, leave a comment and keep an eye out for future posts with guidelines for new Steemians. I have quite a few topics on my list. I think they all will be helpful for new members.
Thanks for reading!
~Anouk