Attention SteemFam
I've been using Steemit as my preferred social media platform since March and in those 5 months I've made a little bit of progress and in the process learned a whole lot more. First things first no one joins Steemit not to be successful, we're suckered in by the promise of easy internet money for our contributions, we see the payouts on the trending page and think I can do that too and you probably can.
A small % of you will rise to the top eventually make no mistake not everyone will be a winner on Steemit, its the nature of economies and the nature of life. This isn't Oprah or a socialist state not everyone is getting prize or promise of their fair share of the spoils. The reason I say this is because you need to go into the platform with an open mind and understand how people think if you are going to make a success of your stay here.
I'm by no means a whale account but I've done the math and if it checks out I think I've found the shortest path to the top which I feel will work for me. You all have your own interests and agendas so I've put together this post to speak to a wider audience and help them gain some success on the platform and not to get disheartened too quickly.
Analysing the platform
As an SEO, UX and data analyst its my job to evaluate websites, how they perform, how users interact with it and how we can get the best out of the website, how we manipulate users to do what we want and how to make more money more often and this is how I've come to evaluate the steemit platform. Steemit is no Google with hummingbird and panda algorithms or Facebook with its Edge algo governing and providing consensus on content distribution. It's highly predictable and provides its users with content in chronological order and serves you content based on the highest monetary value assigned to a post. Simple as that, no 2 ways about it. Once you spot the patterns you can begin to game the system in your favour.
Additional research
I've also read a few blogs and engaged with larger accounts to get their experience and opinions which is a resoundingly positive and aspirational narrative of consistent hard work and dedication with the quality of content the key prize. This to me is a utopian view of the platform and this ideology does not really ring true when it comes to achieving those goals of making bank as your bottom line. There are plenty of tips on how to format your posts and how to engage which I will touch on and then I've got a few things people don't normally mention to noobs.
So enough chatting let's get down to it!!!!!!
Formatting cheat sheet
So first things first you gotta post! You're first 100 posts will see pretty much no returns, so collect your $0.02 while you can and try and grow your audience and attract a tribe to your vibe. Do NOT post your best content early on, just find a slow consistent grind of shit posts or mediocre content you can push out regularly to lay the foundation for your future profile. Don't spend too much time on posts that have very little chance of making you money since you have a rubbish rep and zero reach on the platform
Topics
I tend to write about topics which I feel strongly about and in this way you don't sound like a complete moron and you may attract users who share those interests and want to engage and share your content and perhaps even upvote it
Headline
As with any social media site your headlines need to be snappy and clickbaity as hell, the more enticing the better! Many users won't even bother to open your post and will simply upvote and resteem based on the headline because they are a bunch of lazy fuckers like myself hoping for a curation reward.
Image
The accompanying image is as important as the headline. We are visual beings and so any image that piques our interest will lead others to click on our article. This helps if you're a photographer have model friends or you have a pretty face yourself. Like I mentioned earlier plenty of people upvote and engage based on the headline and image alone.
Tags
Make sure that the relevant tags are used so that it is easier for people to find your articles. You are allowed to use a maximum of 5 tags and you should make use of all 5. In choosing which tags to use, head to the trending tags page so that you will have an idea which tags are trending. Do also consider using less competitive tags, so that your post will have less competition and can be found higher up on the page.
This is what I've been told and I'll share it with you but I personally don't feel it means jack shit, the exploration and curation process is flawed and very few people explore outside the 4 main feeds so tags are only really for good housekeeping purposes.
Content cheat sheet
Now that we know that formatting doesn't do shit for you, what about the content?
Pick a niche
My advice would be to pick a niche and run with it, be it travel, foodie, drawings or anything you find interesting and feel you can continue posting regularly about and do that. Oversaturate your feed and those tags with your posts and dominate those tags to make sure anyone interested in that field sees your posts. It reduces the amount of thinking and effort into creating posts as you can simply reskin your format with updated content
Be consistently mediocre
Don't try to be smart on steemit, quantity beats quality all day every day. Be sure to create a remarkably average post of 500 - 700 words with a few images to satisfy the Steem gods and try and get some upvotes and new followers in the process. These average posts will lay the groundwork for your future content to thrive so don't put your best foot forward early.
Upvote regardless of context/content
Reading peoples content is a waste of time, coming across a post that's good and you enjoy often doesn't get the rewards it deserves and that's unfortante and being noble means taking a gamble on your returns. To ensure consistent returns follow accounts with a reputation of 60 and above and say 300 or more SP their mosts are likely to be boosted by bid bots or whales. If you do see one of these guys post and no upvote or on it get in early regardless of the topic and ensure your piece of the curation reward pie.
Technical cheat sheet
Sell your votes
Look what's the point of trying to hunt down posts to curate and upvote we have shit to do like live our lives. So why not sell your votes to a bot like SmartSteem. You get paid for every vote the use and people who buy votes tend to earn some coin which gets you some curation rewards in the process without you lifting a finger
Sign up for SmartSteem here
Use upvote bots
If you do feel inspired and create an awesome post you feel really deserves to be rewarded then put some spend on it as you would with Instagram or Facebook. Find a bid bot and send them some SBD and have them upvote your content and then find a promotion bot to resteem it to as many people as possible. If your post is decent it as a good chance of catching a few dolphins or a whales eye and pushing you further up the charts
To find upvote and promo bots check out - https://steembottracker.com/
Make use of 3rd party applications
There are a host of 3rd party applications that run on the STEEM blockchain all looking to draw in users to their subset of the ecosystem. Applications like
- dLive
- dTube
- dSound
- dMania
- Memeit.lol
- Steepshot
- Busy.org
- Zappl
All provide you with new ways to engage and often reward users for using their platform as a basis for interacting since they get a kickback in steem for bringing in new users and content, and some of those kickbacks are shifted of that back to you in the form of bid bots and a gratuity upvote.
Focus on your reputation
Your reputation effectively determines the reach of your post so by improving your reputation you are adding to your chances of getting seen by bigger accounts and receiving that ever elusive whale upvote. Try to interact with larger accounts by commenting on something that's not "great post" and see if you can elicit some upvotes to boost your rep.
Outreach cheat sheet
Subscribe to communities
Steemit is by no means immune to human nature and consumer behaviour and is the poster child for what online tribalism and classism are all about. As you grow you will meet members, find new communities to join and benefit from them. Eventually, you'll find you'll need to move crowds to find more beneficial ones. These communities are helpful but are one big circle jerk where everyone upvotes and supports one another in these little echo chambers.
As your status improves in REP and SP so will the accounts that gravitate towards you and you'll eventually be getting votes from more elite accounts more often and putting you in the constant limelight regardless of the effort you put at the moment. You've paid your dues now you can shit post for high value returns all you want
Secondary advantages
These may be out of your control but they do help those who can bring it a long with them to Steemit
Have money to invest
As is the nature of the world we live in money does make things easier. If not the easiest way to get ahead is to throw money at the problem. Buy some Steem power up your account, delegate that Steem and let some dumbass work for you will you get the passive income and curation rewards bro.
Be attractive
This is a social media platform and a pretty face or a fit body or both is always going to attract attention. This is by no means as bad as Instagram where you can slap a few selfies, headshots or modelling shoots together and get paid you need to be a little more creative than that.
So all you do is combine those photos with some random post about travelling, your interests in animals, food or some aspirational nonsense or fitness goals and you're on your way to the top faster than writing a thoughtful helpful well-researched piece of content.
Have previous experience
Plenty of the more successful accounts on Steemit come from users who were blogging and vlogging way before this platform came out. Their blog didn't really take off and well they are crowded out on YouTube because it is a more competitive environment. Steemit is a small pound and a small fish in the blogging or vlogging sphere can quickly make an impression as well as bring over their existing audiences.
They also have a host of older content the produced before which they simply repurpose and repackage for steemit and boom they have constant posts each day without too much effort or thinking.
Speak to the lowest common denominator
As mentioned before Steemit is a social network and abides by many of the rules of what is popular on other mediums, why? Because that's what it seems will make this platform successful. Steem whales are large investors in the platform and for them to see a return on investment they need to attract content creators who create content that would attract more users and more creators and keep the revolutions going.
What this essentially means is that if whales reward travel posts for example, more travel bloggers will see its profitable and want to get in on the action. The more travel content moves to the site, the more travel based users and same with other common deniminator topics that flourish on social media
Travel
Foodie
Inspirational
Streamers
Vloggers
Photographer
Beauty
If you're into any of these topics you're posts are more likely to do well and be rewarded more often because of its mass appeal. Whales will continue to support these categories until there is an oversaturation of creators and then they will move on to attracting users in other topics while some will still reward the best performers in that genre. Content rewarding is effectively on a bell curve so make sure you're in it as the interest grows and be the first to benefit from it.
The name of the game
There is zero nobility in being a content purist on Steemit. You can hate the players and you can hate the game by all means, but if you want to make this venture a profitable one you'll need to fall in line and conform to these standards in order to reach those financial incentives we all hope for. The end goal is not really to spread great content or engage with the community that's secondary and yes it has its benefits but the real goal is to move as much STEEM and SBD from the wallets of others and the reward pool into your wallet.
So there you have it, what I've learned from the last 5 months, perhaps my next 5 months will be different so let's see if I keep singing this song or will I be holding a different tune in November
Have your say
What do you think of my cheat sheet? Which tip did you find helpful? Are their any tips you feel should be added to the sheet? Let me know your thoughts in the comments
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