We're using Steemit as our blogging platform. We give our feedback, what we see as pros and cons etc.

Updated 12 December 2017 v1.0.

Disclaimer: we are not affiliated to any of these Companies, this article is 100 % our own findings and there is no affiliate marketing in place through the links provided below for your convenience.

This is a guide for:

• Pros and cons of using Steemit as a blogging platform for a business.
• Setting up a Steemit account.
• Sharing editor rights on Steemit.
• Editing posts using markdowns on Steemit.

1. Pros and Cons of Steemit.

Pros:

• Steemit is the only social media platform that pays its users for posting and upvoting comments.
• The community has 200+ members with about 2000 new members signing up everyday.
• The site is easy to navigate.
• Steemit’s code is open sourced and decentralized.
• The website is Ad free.

Cons:

• The site is in beta phase for now, it is still under construction.
• There are features still missing.
• There is no private messaging system.
• To open an account takes about 7 days.
• Normal html tags can’t be used.

2. Setting Up An Account.

Step 1: Sign up.

• Enter https://www.steemit.com/ in your url.
• Click on Sign up.

Step 2: Enter your account name.

• Enter an account name that has not being taken and click on continue. Beware: You won’t be able to change it later.

Step 3: Enter your email.

• Enter your email address and click on continue. This email address will be used during the registration process and for their newsletters, but won’t be used for password recovery.

Step 4: Country and phone.

• Enter your country code by selecting your country from the drop down menu.
• Enter your phone number and click continue.

• Enter the confirmation code sent and click continue.

Note: It takes Steemit about 7 days (sometimes more) for a Steemit account to be activated.

3. Sharing editing rights:

How to Share Editor Rights on Steemit.

Lost password: It is important to note that password security is paramount as Steemit doesn’t recover lost passwords, once a password is lost or compromised, there’s nothing Steemit can do about it.

Posting key: Sharing editor rights on Steemit is quite easy, all a user needs to post and edit articles for a business/user account is to have the username and a posting key. Posting keys are used for voting and posting on Steemit, they are different from the active and owner keys. The posting key is what should be given to team members or editors.

4. Editing Posts using markdowns on Steemit:

Editing posts on Steemit is a little different from other blogging platforms. Steemit uses Markdowns which is a little different from what most users and businesses are used to. Markdown is a way to style text on the web, it is lightweight and has a quite easy to use syntax that can be used to style various forms of writing on Steemit.

Markdown is simply regular text with an addition of a few non alphabetic characters used in styling like (#) or (*).

Here’s a list of hacks you can use for editing on Steemit.

Headers:

Adding the (#) with a space in the beginning of a word or sentence changes the text to a header.

#H1.

##H2.

###H3.

####H4.

#####H5.

######H6.

Result:

H1.

H2.

H3.

H4.

H5.

H6.

Emphasis:

Adding the (*) or the (_) at the beginning and end of a text changes the text to either Italics or bold.

• This text will be italic. *

_ This will also be italic. _

** This text will be bold. **

__ This will also be bold. __

Result:

This text will be italic.

This will also be italic.

This text will be bold.

This will also be bold.

Lists.

To create lists we can use numbers, (*), (-), (+);

First ordered list item.
Another item.
⋅⋅* Unordered sub-list.

Actual numbers don’t matter, just that it’s a number.
⋅⋅1. Ordered sub-list.

And another item.

• Unordered list can use asterisks.

– Or minuses.

• Or pluses.

Links.

This are the ways to create links on markdown.

Note: The link must start with https:// not www without which it wouldn’t work.

[I’m an inline-style link] (https://www.love4aviation.blog)

[I’m an inline-style link with title] (https://www.love4aviation.blog “Love4aviation’s Homepage”)

Result.

I’m an inline-style link.

I’m an inline-style link with title.

Images.

Steemit has a dedicated hosting website which allows you to post images, gifs in a central location, It is called SteemIMG. It has a user friendly and easy to use interface and it comes with a very reliable service. With SteemIMG you can easily take pictures with a phone and upload them directly into Steemit.

Here are a few ways to upload, link, organize and publish your images on Steemit;

Step 1: Upload the images to SteemIMG.com.

• Right click on the image you want to upload.
• Select copy image address.
• Enter https://steemimg.com, then click upload.
• You can also drag and drop images into SteemIMG, browse from your computer or add the image url.

• Next, paste the copied url image address.
• Click on submit, you will be required to choose a category (it’s not compulsory.
• Click upload.

To upload an image on a computer, a live picture or on a picture on a mobile phone, simply do the following;

1. Enter https://steemimg.com on your browser.
2. Either browse the location of the image from your computer or drag and drop onto SteemIMG.
3. Choose a category or not, then click upload.
4. If you’re using a mobile phone, select start uploading.
5. Choose either to take a photo, from your photo library or iCloud drive.

1. Click on upload.

• Enter https://steemitimg.com.
• With the image you want to use, select Navigate to Embed Codes.
• Select the Image url you wish to use below the image.
• Paste the url within the position you want it within your article.

Should you find yourself needing help of any kind, you can get solutions or answers to whatever questions you need answered from https://www.steemithelp.net/, they have various topics ranging from basics about Steemit, to how to navigate the site, posting and curation, etc. It will go a long way in easing your Steemit journey.

References.

GitHub. (2017). adam-p/markdown-here. [online] Available at: https://github.com/adam-p/markdown-here/wiki/Markdown-Cheatsheet [Accessed 9 Dec. 2017].