Permit me to delve a little out of science, which this page is known for, to provide a credible answer to one particular question being asked by new steemians. Being one of the leaders of @euronation subcommunity, more often than not, new steemians whom I had advised to market themselves through active commenting and upvoting of worthy contents come to me complaining that their blogs lack activity despite all their efforts. One question I usually ask is:
'Have you been actively commenting and upvoting worthy contents?'
And most would answer in the affirmative. But personally, I knew such persons must have been doing something wrong. So I would set off to pay a visit to their blog and comment pages as well as use https://steemnow.com to check their racently voted works. And most times, their faults would just be there; very clear and conspicuous, and usually include the following:
- Upvoting without commenting.*
- Outright raining of praises on the author (who in most cases is a top dolphin or a whale) without raising the substance of his work and arguing either in support or against it.*
- Spam comment and appealing for return 'follow' of their blog pages.*
- Concentrating only on top dolphins and whales without giving much attention to other Steemians.*
- Making more blog posts (most of which don't address real life issues and meaningless at best) than comments*
- Not replying comments on their articles on time.*
- Too many resteems per blog update.*
- Not following any trail.*
- Writing tweets and short articles.*
My Opinion/Solution
Now, when I discover any or all of these to be the issue, I usually will not have time to be hitting this points one after another. What I used to do is to tell the person to go and intensify effort, that he/she would certainly have a breakthrough somehow at some stage. It's as simple as that. Regrettably, instead of retracing their steps, they would keep on deviating from fair blogging etiquette.Hence, my decision to do this post to offer my opinion on what I thought to be the solution.
The first issue raised here is that of upvoting author's work without commenting. If you're new here and you keep engaging in wanton allocation of votes without actually commenting on the author's article, more especially when the author is a more established Steemian, and you're expecting him/her to return visit, you are just wasting your time. This is because most established steemians hardly take stock of those who upvoted their works.
Praising the author without touching on the issues he discussed will likely not earn you a return visit from that author. He will most likely consider you an attention seeker. So the best approach here when you don't have time to read the whole article, is read a paragraph, copy some points and quote, and then make a comment based on the quoted paragraph.
Spam comment and its ilks. Now. Be warned for the last time; doing this might likely get you terribly flagged. Some authors have great aversion for this. You don't spam or beg for votes on such blogs as those of @stellabelle and @maryfavour. Instead of not leaving reasonable comments on blogs, it is better not to comment at all. Such comments as 'nice work', 'great piece', 'thought provoking', and other two-word phrases constitute spam comment.
Following top dolphins and whales about might not help your condition. Although it is possible to attract top dolphins and whales to yourself by objectively commenting on their posts, but that's not a guarantee strategy. What attracts these top class Steemians to blogs is mainly your contribution to development of steem blockchain. What can you offer and what have you been offering? What communities are you active in? Do you communicate and contribute to community discussions? Or the essence of your membership is just to drop links and go.
One major mistakes new steemians make is abandoning their mates to go whale hunting. Most at times, you find out that when you return in the next few months, most of your mates have grown much bigger in terms of SP and rep score. You become a stranger in a place you were one of the founding members. The worst still is that no one would vote you because no one seem to know you.
So the best approach is to grow with your community. And be reaching out to whales from time to time. And when you do; don't expect anything in return. Just take it as one of your primary responsibilities in building a robust clout for future growth.
Most new steemians engage in every minute, every hour updating of their blog and then staring at it in anticipation of upvotes. In as much as there is nothing wrong with this but I guess that's a very bad strategy to apply here. This is because as a new steemian, you don't have much followers and these are people who will see your articles. So what you should do first is to build your followers list by commenting on other people's work. Comment more than you blog and watch your list grow. I suggest blogging 4 to 5 times a week and commenting a lot.
Some new steemians don't reply comments on their articles on time, and I think this is bad. Make your comments thought provoking and engaging. Ask questions while commenting to engender discussion. One Steemian who knows how to do this a lot is @greenrun.
Resteeming a lot of articles will hide your own articles. Unless you are a popular steemian, don't resteem more than 3 articles per blog update.
Following trails help you grow your followers list. So as a new steemian, visit steemauto.com, register and follow trails there. Consider following @euronation trail also.
Stop writing tweets (short articles). Expand your articles and make them more engaging by formatting and using simple understandable words. Reference your images and paragraph your works.
I have been doing all these and nothing seems to be working for me. Please, what should I do?
Hahahahahsh... If you have been following these recipes and nothing seems to be working, that's very okay. So relax. You're not having an unusual case. What you should do is to keep doing it. The light comes after this darkness. Thank you.
Newbie's Corner
Don't give up. Success is within reach only if you persevere
Starting out in any endeavor in life is always not easy. And so expecting otherwise is therefore an indirect expression of unreadiness in pursuit of any worthwhile goals. This has been the core definition of my person. So in any endeavor I find myself, I usually stayed back even when everyone has left to see if there would ever be a chance for success. Only when all indicators turn red that I would throw in the towel. I am grateful to God that I didn't give up in the face of initial challenges.
Thanks for reading.
Follow @eurogee, the Steemivangelist and the founder of @euronation Newbie's Support Team; follow @euronation
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