It’s been about 3 months since I popped my steemit cherry, and I guess I’m sticking around for more!
Since I'll be here, I wanted to help other beginners learn how to succeed on steemit. I know there are tons of "steemit newb" advice posts out there. And they're good. If you're new, my first advice is the obvious- just google your questions!
A lot of them have been answered by some other helpful steemian already.
Can I tell you how to make consistent $300 payouts? No. Because I haven't done it myself (Never listen to someone who teaches something that they haven't done themselves. Not just on steemit, but in general. Keep your BS filters on high alert).
But I CAN help you avoid making a few newb mistakes like I did, which is cool, too.
There are still a few things that I didn't find on the internet, that I thought I'd share with you. So that you can avoid making some of the same newb mistakes that I did.
Maybe SOME of it is already on the internet...but I think it's ok. I think it's great that everyone shares their advice because we all have a different journey. We all have different advice and something unique to share.
I’ve been adding to this post for awhile now, but it never feels finished because every day I keep learning more and more about steemit.
I decided now’s a good time to post it, though, since my friend that I met in Thailand @persevero finally joined steemit and keeps bothering me with questions 😜 (by the way...if you like my travel stories...he has some CRAZY stories. The kind that make your mouth hang open and wonder if he's making it all up or not. He's not. It's all real.)
This is @persevero 's exact quote for this picture "When your bag sets off for bomb detector and they ask you if you have any explosives....do I look like a guy with a plan?"
Haha so yeah...definitely check his stuff out.
Let's start with the elephant in the room.
A lot of people are complaining about not getting their posts seen. Not even just new people, but people who have been grinding it out for several months. There are lots of superstsars on here, you just might not have found them yet!
How To Get Noticed On Steemit
Specifically, if you can, find someone who just started 6 months or so before you did, because their success was recent and their methods are more likely able to be copied.
If someone is at the top because they joined steemit the first month it launched, they did have a little bit of first mover advantage and got more visibility than you’ll get joining now in March, 2018.
But, I can guarantee you that even if they joined the very first day steemit started...if they were spammy and had nothing good to add to the platform, EVEN with first mover advantage, they will still be a minnow and not a whale by now.
So first mover advantage isn't everything. You still have to work hard and not shovel crap around. "The best time to start was 2 years ago. The next best time is now." Boom.
I’d also follow someone who doesn’t just rely on luck to grow. Follow someone like @stackin, who consistently hacks (growth hacks….. not the sketchy kind of hacking haha) all social media platforms, including steemit. He’s also a pretty nice guy, too.
Do you think he has lots of followers on FB, ig, and steemit because he’s lucky?! Or came early?
No.
He works for it, you guys.
And he’s consistent.
But he uses strategies to work SMARTER, not harder. And he puts out great posts to help newbs, so freaking listen to what he says.
Have you ever heard the quote "the most expensive advice is bad avice?"
It's so obvious, yet it's one of the best pieces of advice I received when I first started my e-commerce business 3 years ago.
My mentor didn't have time to teach me everything about e-comm, but he told me the people that I could learn from. He told me who the good marketers were, and who the bad ones were. He taught me how to be able to tell for myself if someone is full of BS or not.
Trust me, you don't want to try to learn how to start a business from some "business/life coach" who's only business has ever been teaching you how to run a business.
How crazy is that? Yet there are a TON of people out there offering courses full of total 💩 💩 💩 and people who don't know any better and are desperate to work online or something buy these courses and waste their money! Only to end up more disillusioned in the end.
Don't blindly trust someone who is offering a course or something like that for sale. Do your homework. Don't blindly trust someone. You don't want to be a sheep, guys. Be a lion instead. It doesn't take more than a minute to figure out who's real and who's fake, once you get the hang of it and eye for it.
You'll save yourself so much heartache if you do your homework.
Just find someone who's done what you want to do, and then do it.
If you want to succeed on steemit, I'll tell you where to find that person. Just look at @stackin.
If you search in google, there are a lot of people who post "how to succeed on steemit posts." And I hate to say this...
...but don't listen to the majority of those posts.
If you click around their steemit profiles, you'll quickly notice that THEY HAVEN'T SUCCEEDED ON STEEMIT.
So, why are they posting about how to succeed on steemit?
Nah, man. Ain't nobody got time to waste on that.
Just look at people like @stackin or @jerrybanfield also. Jerry grew by providing advice to newbs so he got a lot of people in here off of youtube. His assistant @gmichelbkk is pretty helpful, too.
If you don't want to funnel people through youtube and do what @jerrybanfield did....then do what @stackin' did, which is provide a 💩 ton of value!
That’s key.
Follow someone like him for advice. Read his articles, they're helpful (thank you, by the way). Try to figure out what he does, and then copy it.
He puts out quality content, so you should put out something of quality, too. He engages with the community. You should do that, too.
You can see right away if someone engages with the community by the number of “posts” they’ve made.
This confused me at first, because I thought that meant the number of blogs someone has posted. But this number on your profile actually includes the number of comments you’ve left for people, as well.
Look at @stackin's # of posts:
That includes blogs he wrote, but also comments he's left for other people. He has almost 15,500 posts in less than a year. I challenge you to find someone who has posted more than him in the same amount of time that he's been on the platform.
If you do find someone, I bet you they're doing pretty well on steemit.
Based on when he joined, that means he averages 46 posts/ comments per day. If you just do 1-5 posts (comments) per day...and don't know why you're not growing...start there.
So remember... Just because you're joining in 2018, two years later, doesn't mean all hope is lost! You can still succeed too, as long as you put out quality stuff into the world via great comments and great posts.
This brings me to the second thing I’ve learned. How DO you get seen on steemit?
You can't just create your stuff and hope that someone will see it, because there is a lot more noise and crowd on steemit, just like with any social media platform that's popular. Your voice will get drowned out in the crowd.
It's like when you make a website. You have to market it. There are marketers for a reason. And SEO. And PPC. These tools all help people discover the great content that you're putting out!!
If what I'm saying wasn't true...these tools wouldn't exist.
So, what steemit tools can you use to get noticed??
I'll start with the non-controversial ones first, because I hate conflict and pretty please don't yell at me 🙊.
1. Discord. Join groups on discord. Go to discordapp.com
What the heck is discord?!?? If you’ve used slack, it’s like that. It’s basically just a place where groups of people hang out to chat.
So, for example, I post a lot about my travels…so I joined a group on discord called #travelfeed. How the fudge do you find a discord group to join?
I kind of just stumbled on them throughout the month like a drunk monkey.
I honestly didn’t know what it even meant to join when I joined some of these groups. I joined not knowing what they were for, trying to figure it all out.
I didn’t understand how to even look at a “pinned post” on discord which is how you can know all of the rules of the group.
Here’s where you find a “pinned post” by the way:
That way you can read about the group rules, and sort of understand what’s going on instead of blindly jumping into a group asking lots of questions that are already answered somewhere on the channel.
Some Great Groups For Beginners
Steem School by @dobartim
He just posted a challenge you could get involved in for visibility! And to win some SBD!
Discord invite link is here: https://discord.gg/wJ5KQRH
If you're a traveler, join @travelfeed. ##### If you check out their page, click the bit.ly link on top and it'll take you to a post that tells you all about them and has an invite link to their discord.
Join @curie discord channel! ##### @curie is a great community of people trying to support undiscovered content...ahem...you! You can even make money by submitting some good work you find! (Don't submit your own, though).
Go to curiesteem.com and scroll to the bottom. You'll see the discord icon. Just click on it and you can join!
There are also groups specifically for Filipinos (@surpassinggoogle runs one I think) and Malaysians, Indonesians, etc.
@adsactly is a great one!!! ##### Find the link through their steemit page. They do a lot to support the community.
Like I said, you'll just keep stumbling across these channels like a drunk monkey the more profiles you read and come across!
There's a group for everything, and if you can't find it, create it!
Join Contests. Enough said.
Bots...To Use Or Not To Use, That Is The Question
Now, this one is super controversial…so I don’t even want to write about it, but I will. Why not? Nothin to lose except maybe my dignity, reputation score, respect, peace and tranquility....haha.
Remember we're talking about tools to help you get your stuff seen, here. Unfortunately, bots are one of those tools. (A necessary evil? hmmm). They're also very over-used.
For me, I see why people say they are bad to use, but I also understand why people say they are good to use. I agree with both people, actually, because I’m too freaking open-minded sometimes. I can just see where both sides are coming from.
If you use a bid bot at steembottracker.com, just know you’ll most likely lose money on it. Jerry Banfield has a good youtube video though about how to minimize your change of losing TOO much, so if you're a visual learner, just check it out. It should be easy to find by typing "jerry banfield bots steemit" into the youtube search engine.
But, if your goal is just wanting to get your post in front of more eyeballs, and therefore more people to know you exist in the long term…
…then you could use them for that reason.
But I repeat…you’ll most likely lose money, or at least break even.
But hey, if your posts are getting more views as a result of a bot...
...then that means the people who upvoted you and supported you will make more curation earnings as well! So it’s good for them I think. (My understanding could be wrong on this...so someone please correct me if I'm wrong...)It’s even better for them if you spread the love and upvote some of their comments on your post!
Always give back what you can and upvote other people! If your Steem Power increases because you're earning more, use it for good and give back to the community!
I always try to upvote people who leave thoughtful comments on my page. Why not? I'm super grateful that they came to support me and liked my stuff.
My introduction post, and my first few posts, I used bots so that people would know I existed. I definitely lost money, but it's ok. My intro post has over 1,000 views....so that means 1,000 people had a chance to decide if they liked my stuff or not!!!
(Ok, probably only 600 people...I bet 400 of those views were me being paranoid about if I posted things correctly haha).
Notice I said they can decide if they like your stuff or not. Just because you use a bot, it does NOT mean you will gain followers of magically succeed. If you post crap, people will SEE your stuff. But if it's crap, they'll close out of it and you'll never hear from them again.
It would be a double waste of money to promote a crap post. Also, the steemit community will get angry at you.
I only promote occasionally now. Posts like this that I think might help someone, I'd probably use a bot on (I didn't. Totally forgot). Most of my travel posts, I don't anymore. I might do a trial run of using them for a week vs. not for a week just to see how it goes, just for fun.
Only use a bot that allows only posts 3.5 days old. I used a bot for my introductory post that allowed 6 day old posts... and I got flagged by someone! I won't mention who flagged me.
But let me tell you...if I wasn't stubborn...that may have discouraged me to continue on with steemit. I mean, my first post...you're going to flag me, really?
I didn't know what was going on. I was just using a tool that I saw because it was promoted on youtube.
But, I don't like conflict, so I just stayed out of it and minded my own business. I'm not here for a war.
I just want to use my energy for positivity, and teaching people in a nice way.
So don't use a bot that allows 6 day old posts....you may get flagged, even if it's your very first post and you obviously didn't know any better!!
I'm not complaining at all. I'm just telling you so that you can avoid doing it if you're afraid. But also, that particular bot has help in place and actually reimbursed me 1 sbd for getting flagged!!! That was so cool.
In the long run, I do the right thing and I learn from my mistakes. So I'm still loving steemit. I also got a lot of really nice supportive comments on my first post, so it more than made up for the one little bump in the road. I'm so glad I stuck around!
Also, as far as old posts go, the author won't get a reward after 7 days. You also can't edit your post anymore no the 7th day. So, if you see a post you like, but it's 10 days old for example, you can still comment on it, because they're always appreciated, but no point in upvoting at that point really.
But, typically, the rule is, if you leave a comment, ALWAYS leave an upvote as well. Sometimes if I comment on an old post I find, I upvote a newer one that the same person wrote.
How To Make A Profile Picture On Steemit
Does Voting On Someone’s Post Cost Me Anything?
Nope! Upvote away, little friend! You wont lose any of your earnings… I wasn’t sure about that at first, honestly.
What it WILL do, though, is reduce your voting power for the day. You can see what percent
To check what percentage your voting power is at, go here:
You can find an entire list of tools at steemtools.com
What is steepshot.io and busy.org and zappl?
These are just front-ends based on the steem blockchain.
busy.org>>>> facebook of steemit
zappl.com= twitter version of steemit
d.tube >>>> youtube version of steemit
dlive.io >>> live video version, everyone says it’s more profitable than dtube. You can also upload vids here
steemit>> blogger of steemit
alpha.steepshot.io >>instagram of steemit
So, for example, I made a mistake that you should avoid!!
I posted on steepshot for the first time and had NO idea that it also posted to my steemit blog as well.
So, it looked super awkward viewing the post on steemit.com because I didn’t use a proper title or anything. I just posted a picture and barely wrote anything. Noob mistake #1.
Also, WARNING,** you can’t delete any posts after 7 days!! **Once it’s up there, it’s up there…and I can’t figure out how to edit a steepshot post, so it looks double dumb forever!
I JUST figured out how to edit a steepshot post...lol so yeah, the first ones are just mistaks that I had to learn so YOU could avoid making them.
So nice of me to do that for you...right?
On the steemit interface, you can at least edit posts for 6 days. After that…it’s permanently up there, forever imperfect. But that’s ok…we’re imperfect people, anyway.
How About A Follow for Follow?
How about nooooo.
That doesn’t work on Steemit and just looks spammy. It might work on other social media platforms, but please don’t do that here.
If you ask for F4F, or beg for an upvote…people will run from you like they run from cockroaches on the street. That’s the opposite of what you want to be doing!
Make sure not to link your blogposts in the comments section of anyone else’s post. People want to be heard. They want you to comment something meaningful that adds value to what they’ve already written. Their post isn’t the place for you to put your link.
It’s the place to add value and make legitimate, valuable connections. It’s the place to give back and let people know they were heard
When someone leaves you a lackluster comment, it’s like the same kind of disappointment you get when you open a birthday gift that you really don’t like.
How Should I Get Paid On Steemit? Should I Power Up 100%??
Learn from my mistake on this one!!!!!
Powering up makes your vote worth more. It’s a way of giving back to the community. So, he said in his article you should power up so whales see that you are giving back and not being a greedy McNeedy.
So, I immediately powered up my next post to prove to the world that I’m here to give, and not just take. It truly is better to give than to receive.
BUT…the problem is…as a result…I had less to give than if I had done a 50/50 payout.
Do the 50/50 payout and THEN buy Steem Power with the SBD that you earn. You will get more SP that way!!! (As long as SBD is worth more than $1 USD, but it has been for while now)
How Do I Make A Thumbnail For My Post?
You can use fotor.com or picmonkey.com or canva. They’re all free.
You just need to make sure your image size is about 1280 x 720 pixels (that's for any steemit thumbnail, really).
The FIRST picture in your post will automatically become your thumbnail, so post whatever you want to be your thumbnail image, first.
You don’t even have to make a thumbnail, just make sure the first picture you post is eye-catching.
For D-Live, I had a hard time figuring out how to make the thumbnail fit within their size limits. Thankfully, google led me to easy-resize.com which is free, EASY, and did the trick.
Key word, easy. I’m lazy sometimes.
A Better Way To Browse Steemit
Just check out this awesome article by @gmichelbkk it’s a game changer:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@gmichelbkk/a-better-way-to-browse-steemit
How To Upload A Picture And Video
You can now just automatically upload pics. But for me, for some reason to help with the layout of my posts, it's easier for me to upload my pics at postimages.org and then copy and paste the link into my post instead.
For video, you can just copy an paste a youtube link into the post. You can also just use dlive or dtube if you want.
If I See Someone Transfer A Crap Ton to @deepcrypto8 With Just #s in the Memo, Whaaaaat?
I did some detective work and found [this article that explains it all:] (https://steemit.com/steem/@htliao/beginner-s-guide-how-to-use-steem-to-buy-cryptocurrency-in-binance)
It just means someone sent their steem to finance to exchange for other coins. You can calm down now.
Just, when you see stuff like this, if you’re curious like me…try to find out what it means.
If you’re not…then just do what’s the most important…. which are the main takeaways from this post…
3 Main Takeaways For Getting Started On Steemit
1. Comment The Heck Out Of People.
No, this doesn’t mean spam people with pointless comments, or spammy “follow me” stuff. Just you know, be real. Like you would with a friend. LISTEN to people and then respond. It’s that simple.
2. Be Consistent With Posting
I did both of these things simultaneously. Since starting, I’ve tried to be consistent with blogging almost everyday…which is a tough task for me with being diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and being unmedicated haha.
But don't just post trash just to get it out there and check it off of your to-do list, actually post something good.
And notice other people's good work, too. Appreciate other people's posts as well! Show the love sometimes, give them a shout-out in your own post or a re-steem!
3. Don’t Expect To Make Bank Right Away
I think this is one of the biggest things on steemit. I think you see this successful posts and think “I can do that, too.” And you can.
But, just remember, it’s not always instant.
It’s like when people would say to me “You’re so lucky…you have an instagram account with 30k followers.”
You look at these people and somehow think things were accomplished overnight or something.
But it’s like NO, fool. Don’t call me lucky. I WORKED for it. I was consistent. I engaged when I didn’t feel like it. I created content when I just want to take a break and go to the beach instead.
I spent hours and hours learning strategies that would allow me to grow.
If you create something of quality, you WILL eventually attract your tribe. You will gain a following.
But it’s not going to be overnight. You may need to use bots and be willing to take a little loss on SBD OR get creative to get seen. Like, participate in/host contests.
Maybe you can collaborate with other users to host a contest or some kind of cool event. Then more people will know that you exist.
How To Get Notifications
My favorite way is the steemify app. It sends steemit notifications right to my phone!
Come For The Money, Stay For The Community
For me, no matter what happens on here, whether I make a lot or not… I have met some of the most amazing people in person BECAUSE of this platform.
So far, I got to meet @connecteconomy, @joannewong @aaronleang @zord189 @macchiata @howtostartablog @danielwong @karinzdailygrind and @elizacheng
Can I just say… I haven’t met ONE lame steemit person yet??? I used to do couchsurfing.org a lot, but now I just want to meetup with steemit people whenever I travel.
It’s seriously been loads of fun.
Not to mention people who I feel like are actual friends without meeting in real life. I was going to mention this huge list....and I wrote up a lot of stuff about a lot of you... but then I didn't want anyone to feel left out or something.
What I’m saying is, whatever happens here on Steemit… I’ll stay just ‘cause the people here have proven over and over again to be above average, amazing people.
So, if you’re new… don’t get discouraged. There’s an amazing community of people here to support you!!!
And the snowball effect is real. When you start, you're rolling a snowball up the hill. And it's a slow process. But, when you keep rolling it and keep rolling it, eventually you get to the top and rolling it down is so much easier. It's the compound effect. It doesn't make sense to expect to be a whale or something within a few weeks of signing up.
That will only set you up for disappointment.
P.S. If you want to make emojis or bold letter text, here are some helpful articles on how to do it:
If you have any advice you'd like to add, please share in the comments below!