8 Skills Bloggers can Improve by trying THIS

4 years ago, I would have never called myself a blogger. I wrote articles, some published in print and some published on my website. It wasn’t regular and wasn’t what 'I did'. However, my business needed change. I produced and sell courses with online delivery, but I was not using the online world to generate business. The largest most open market in the world at my fingertips and I was not tapping in.

Producing blog content is not an issue for me. But just like producing courses, you still need to get people to look at your content and so other skills are needed.

In 2017 I found steemit.com which is a blogging platform developed on the steem blockchain where likes have a value. It wasn’t long before I was posting daily and became an active member of the community. As someone that would now say I often blog and call my self a content creator(or at a stretch call my self a blogger) my time on steemit.com has given me the most valuable experience any blogger would need. Here I learned, tested and perfected many of the skills needed to succeed in a world were just publishing content is just not enough.

I think all bloggers should spend some time on steem. Steemit.com is not the only interface to the blockchain. steempeak.com is another very popular site to use. I would recommend it not to earn crypto (but that is a bonus) but to perfect the other skills needed to have your content seen and read. The steem community is small in the general schemes of things and if you can improve the basic skills and get found on steem, then doing the same on larger platforms will be a lot easier.

The thing is with steem, the community wants you to succeed and so help you. On steem, users are the owners of the platform. It's decentralized and not controlled by one single entity. It's in everyone’s benefit to help each other improve their skills. So there are always people willing to show you the ropes, help you with your writing, share different ways and introduce you to communities. That makes it much easier to master than hitting Linkedin or Reddit.

With that in mind, here are 8 Skills that I improved by blogging on steem. And you can do the same!

Understanding your audience

One of the first lessons I learned on steemit was to understand the audience. When I started, I was blogging about Excel and I saw steemit as a content syndication option. However, these types of posts didn’t do well. There was no engagement and no likes. It didn’t take me long to notice posts about steemit and steem and crypto did well. This is what the audience (at the time) wanted. So, I flipped my skills and used Excel and PowerBI to analyze the steem blockchain and I used this data to produce data posts.

Engagement

A struggle for many bloggers is getting people to engage and comment on an article. I am proud to say when I was very active on steem, I often had posts in the top 10 most commented on articles for the day. But this didn’t come easy and I tried a lot of different things. From asking questions within my articles to setting challenges. What I found did best was leader boards. People love gamification. But other skills are also involved in achieving great engagement. We will look at some of these below.

Engagement is not only about getting people to comment and replying to those comments on your blog. It's also about commenting and getting involved with other blogs. If you want someone to read your blog, maybe you should read theirs. Leave them comments and engage with them on their content and posts. Engagement and networking go hand in hand. By engaging you are giving your self a chance to network.

Networking

I can’t overemphasize the power of networking. When you have a personal connection as well as a similar interest, the chances of your content being shared and liked or given the thumbs up increases greatly. Shares are what we all want. More eyes on our content. I did so much networking on steem its crazy. The common interest with everyone was steem so that made it easy. It didn’t really matter what we wrote about in our blogs because we still had steem as a commonality. Networking on steem was easy. We were all trying something new, blogging on a blockchain and earning crypto for doing so. The more I networked the more familiar my name became with people. Making it easier for them to want to open and read my content.

Influencer Networking

On steem Influencer networking is a little different from traditional social influencer networking. Traditional Influencer networking is about building credibility from other influencers in your niche. With the hope that they and their following get exposed to you and your content. On steem, you also want people that will share your content, but the influencers on steem are not really niche specific. These are the ones that can give a post a valuable vote. Valuable votes on steem = social proof, just like reviews on a course or shares on a tweet.

Consistency

One of the valuable lessons I learned on steem was consistency. The more you blog (great content not crap) the more you will be seen. The greater the reach. Posting once every few weeks won’t cut it. People won’t remember you. Be consistently great and keep it up. Rome was not built in a day.

Avoid Spamming

We all want our content to been seen. To achieve this many of us will spam. Drop links in communities and run. Leave a comment on someone else's post with a link and run. Marketing your blog is not about spamming. Get to grips with networking, engagement and active community involvement.

Community

The buzz word in growing online right now is Community.
There were so many communities created around steem and it is an amazing way to network. If you want to share content in a community, make sure you are an active member. Get involved in discussions, form relationships. Engage. It takes a bit of work but it pays off.

If you really want to fly it, create your own community. Nurture it and grow it and you will benefit greatly. Communities have just launched on the steem blockchain. It's a decentralized option with many other benefits. I set up an Excel community during the beta. You can see it on steemit Excel For ALL Steemit or on SteemPeak Excel For ALL SteemPeak. Now out of beta, its time I got it going and started to invite people I have in my social network.

If you want to get started on steem, you will need a steem account. You can sign up with this link Sign up on steem. If you have any difficulty signing up, drop me a line and I will have an account set up for you. If you want to set up a community on steem, again drop me a line and I will make sure you get set up and running.

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