The title might be a bit confusing for some, but I think it fits perfectly for this article and I will explain what I mean.. Before that though, I will just tell you that engagement is key. I know, I have said it before and you might have read it elsewhere too. I've noticed an upswing in articles regarding the importance of engagement the last few days, and even though I have talked about it too, somewhat, I will do it once again. In a different way.
I could have used a bunch of different titles for this article, and I will shortly explain what I mean by "treat everyone like a whale". We know that engagement is vital for the success of any social platform, but even though we know that, we often tend to lack in engagement. I'm not the best at it either, but I will get better at it. I will do my part.
Each time you publish something on Hive and/or any of the communities you expect something in return. The rewards might be upvotes but it could also be reblogs or comments. But whenever you post something, you expect something in return. That goes for any social media. No one would share content regularly if they never got something for the efforts they put in. It wouldn't be fun or rewarding in any way if you never got something in return.
On Hive, (Steemit) or communities like LEOFinance and Neoxian, many users are looking to score big upvotes. They are eager to earn tokens to grow or to help them financially in real life. It's okay, you are allowed to admit that. Everyone is looking for rewards in some sense.
This is where the line: "treat everyone like a whale" comes in. Ever since Steem(it) was born, people have tried to score whale-votes. Some of them succeeded in their attempts while most others gave up and quit long before that happened. The same occurred on Hive and it will continue on all the communities as well. It will always be sunshine after rain. It's logical. You just don't know when it happens, so you don't know how long it will take. Some people will always behave like that, because they don't know better.
Sure, it's obviously an amazing feeling and experience to see the pending rewards rocket if you score a whale vote. It's awesome. They can single handedly boost the pending rewards with more than you probably have earned from your 10-20 recent posts.. That's just how things are, but you should never aim for whale votes, because it's hard to catch a whale.
That being said, if you aim to engage and build your presence, if you grow your audience and treat everyone, including the smallest "fish" as if they were a whale.. You will definitely profit in the long haul.
For each whale-vote you don't get, someone else does. It's literally the same thing with every vote. Another user will get the upvote you don't receive, which will make them stronger (as long as they power up/stake the rewards).
That means that each time someone else receives a vote instead of you, chances are that their votes will be worth more which, in a perfect world, means that you will earn more when that user votes on your content.
I could easily have just said that you should ignore the rewards and that you should share content because you feel good about it, and that you should strive to share high quality content and whatever, but I know that it doesn't work like that. It doesn't matter how many times you hear it. People will always care about the rewards, because most people are eager to climb and strive towards new goals. They want to beat their own records. They want more.
It could clearly be seen when I worked to strenghten the middle class on Steem as well. Our goal was to support, motivate and reward lesser accounts. We encouraged users. We got them to stay when they wanted to give up and quit. Many of them are long gone, but some of them are still here. Some thriving. Some surviving.
The funniest part about that is probably that I was never a big or large account by any means. I was just a small fish too. The difference were that I knew things. I knew that hard work would pay off sooner or later. It was (and still is) a matter of time and consistency. Luck, timing and a bunch of other factors might be a part of everything too, but if you engage and spend time to grow your audience, rewards in various forms will come eventually.
- What's the alternative? Give up?
The smallest account you find today might be the next whale. You have no idea. It's impossible to know until you truly know that user. Are you willing to let those chances pass?
Also, you might never be that author who break records with highest paid out post, in terms of tokens.. 100 tokens at these prices are worth about 15 USD (Hive/LEO). In a month from now it might be worth 50 USD. You don't know that.. So long term is important.
It might be difficult to stay motivated and produce content regularly at these prices, especially if it seems hard to get some decent upvotes, but why wait until the pump before you start accumulating tokens? Wouldn't it be better to have a decent sized stake when it pumps?
Go out there and do better than yesterday. If you made five comments yesterday, try to beat that and do six or seven this time. The more you do now, the more you'll benefit. Stay positive and keep working. Next time, it will be you who scores that big juicy vote.. You might even be that specific vote people are longing for.
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