Welcome to Day 6!
2 Days left in this series, you've almost made it! In the past 5 days we've covered, how to identify and define your target audience, how to develop a value proposition, how to use the tools available to you in Steemit to successfully communicate your value proposition to your target audience, how to think about thumbnails, and how to draft effective blog posts. Phew!
So now you're ready to publish your post, what should you do after?
Engaging with the Steemit Community
In a small community like Steemit (kind of like how YouTube was 10 years ago) it's easier to get eyes on your blog simply by engaging with the community. For example, if you write a lot about psychology, it's simple to navigate to posts that are tagged as such (for example by sorting tags in Steemit by going to a link like this https://steemit.com/created/psychology) and read and comment on blogs that may be similar to yours! This is a great way to engage with potential followers. It's important to be sincere and genuine here. Write valuable and high quality comments like you draft valuable and high quality posts for your own blog!
Sharing your Posts with others
Marketing your own blog posts on the Internet is a little different with Steemit than it is with, say, a WordPress blog site or a YouTube channel. Generally, there's a technique called seeding where you share the link to your post all across the Internet (like in relevant Facebook groups or subreddits, for example.) It's important to note that this technique isn't about spamming a link in a bunch of different places, but adding to - or creating a - conversation about a topic that your post covers. In other words, add some commentary along with that link you share, give some valuable content to encourage others to click on your link!
This technique is fantastic for gaining views however, with Steemit, we also consider upvotes, comments, and follows, which require our readers to have Steemit accounts of their own. Unlike YouTube (which you have an account if you use most any Google product,) not many people use Steemit and - as of the time I write this post - some people still wait upwards of 2 weeks to get their account activated after signing up. So, taking the psychology example above, sharing your post about the advances of brain imagining technology in a psych-related Facebook group might be great for getting views, but not much else.
This is where sharing your content with the wide variety of Steemit communities come in.
As a long-time YouTube content creator, I am not in the habit of throwing links to my videos wherever I can, however with Steemit, I am softening up to this process in Seemit-centric Discord channels and other chat rooms.
Below are a list of places I like to share my post after publishing.
General Seeding Locations
Reddit (I wouldn't post the same link in more than one subreddit to avoid being perceived as SPAM)
Facebook Groups (relevant to the topic of your post)
Google+ Communities
Online Forums (Google forums related to your niche!)
Social Media Accounts you frequently use (like Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.)
Steemit-Centric Seeding Locations
Steemit Chat
Steemit Discord Servers
Steemit Facebook Groups
You can, of course, search for Steemit Facebook groups as you do with any other topic, but I want to mention @future24 and his great post on the various Steemit Chat channels and Facebook Groups to join (it's a bit old, but very comprehensive and will get you started.)
Using Promotional Apps/Bots/Programs
I must admit, I'm not very familiar with the use of Steemit Bots and some of these automated tools for post promotion. From what I can tell, these are more about gaining as many upvotes as possible and less about getting your content in front of someone who really enjoys it. I'm not necessarily against the use of any of these services, I just personally would rather focus on finding ways to match my content with the right audience.
That being said, I have been experimenting with a website called SteemFollower. This website essentially allows you to join a network of Steemit users and view a post feed of those who use the site. You can then read through the posts and upvote ones you like (just as if you were browsing the Steemit website.) In this way, there's no automation and you can apply the same standards of upvoting as you would normally. Your posts also show up in these feeds and if people like them, they can upvote them and click on your profile to learn more about you. I'm not necessarily endorsing this service, but it is one I am actively experimenting with due to the unique nature of Steemit.
Do this exercise now!
Comment below and tell me your favorite place to share your Steemit posts :)
That's it for Day 6! Tomorrow is the final day in the series which will essentially act as a bonus day and cover a wide variety of things that did not fit into the main categories of the previous days (like using tags for example and other SEO techniques.)
Enjoy!