So for those of you who are new to Steemit, there is a major functionality of Steemit that is exploited that I believe is causing the #1 issue for all users; that being a follow for a follow.
What Is A Follow For A Follow
This is the #1 tactic new users are using to gain followers very quickly. Basically, what is done is you go into other peoples posts and say "I'll follow you if you follow me", and therefor both users follow each other.
The other way this happens is new users look for Steemit users with a lot of followers, and follows all of them hoping some of them will follow them back.
The Problem With This Method
For Full Disclosure, I've done this and regret doing this. It is the worst thing you can do for your channel in the long run. Before I go into the full problem, I want to point out some statistics I got from following users.
Each Follow =.001 users
Weekly Active Users = -10%.... This is higher then normal channels as many new users just give up
So going back into the problem, when users cross the 1000+ followers mark this basically makes it so any content in your feed is unwatchable. To put it simply, every 30 seconds you go back to "Home", you will see brand new content then the last 30 seconds. For content creators like me, this is disheartening seeing that followers are not able to find your content that you normally post.
The second biggest problem is active views of your posts are very, very low. A shocking statistic I have for you is a user who has 35,000 followers might get 100 views, and 50 likes. On a good day you are getting .003% of the likes from your total followers & .006% of the views.
Impact & Solution
I personally believe this is the worst killer of Steemit as you can post as much as you want, but if users are using this tactic to make money, It is hurting them and other channels in the long run.
A simple fix Steemit that will help mitigate, not prevent this would be for Steemit content creators to have the option to hide their followers and who they are following from the public. This would be able to cut down on users spamming feeds and would lead to a more prosperous community for all.
What do you think? Agree or Disagree, let me know below.
If you like this post, follow me for more quality posts @cryptowallet
Did the whole follow back thing on Twitter. Not worth it, had to go through and unfollow them since all the ever posted was follow back messages, and maybe a referral link to some junk I didn't want. Learned my lesson.
Most of us have used the any of the old social media platforms. We bring our good and bad habits with us. We consider the lessons learned, over time and as we collect rewards we learn and improve.
I did one of those follow trains on Twitter and some website that gives a new follower for following 2 or 3 people. Eventually I had to go through my Twitter and unfollow a bunch. Total waste of time trying to inflate the stats.
Most of us have learned from the old social media platforms so we bring our good and bad habits with us. As time goes on and we gain experience with steemit we will get better.
I agree. I really would like to see granular control of all privacy options on Steemit, or the Steem blockchain itself.
I like your reasons, but there are an array of others reasons too, such as journalists and other government goon threats that people will want to lock down privacy.
I think this could add a huge amount of value to the platform.
Agree
It seems so easy to say from someone who has 5400+ followers but only seems to find 10 people on Steemit worthy of following. I saw another comment here asking how you got so many followers but I'm not seeing any re-engagement here to answer the question (or did I miss it with all of the attaboy comments?) Those of us who are newer here and trying to have a positive impact on the Steemit Community may need some additional wisdom from sages like yourself. It's great to lecture people not to simply do reciprocal following (and I tend to agree) but if everyone here limited those they follow to 10 people like you, then wouldn't Steemit be a pretty lonely place where you're just talking to yourself? And how does one get 5400 followers with 370 posts? Would you be willing to shed some additional light with a response?
Definitely I agree!
I would prefer private weight systems you can apply to people you are following that affects how they show up in your own feed. Everything from keeping them at the top longer if you give them a highly weight (those you just can’t miss blogs from people who put always put out grade A content) to not showing what they resteem if you don’t want see that and give them a low weight (some people you want to follow but they just resteem to many things you are not interested in). I’ve gone into this a few times in details elsewhere so I won’t be going into that much detail here.
I would prefer who you are following to still remain transparent and public knowledge. I spend my time every so often to check up on every SINGLE person I’m following and decide if they are worth still showing up on my feed. I consider the people I’m following part of my social network. I feel that’s how it’s supposed to be.
well said ^_^
I definitely agree.
Yes that would be a nice idea. I'm always watching on my followers and thinking about following them back because I have to. The feed is becoming more and more unusable.
An additionally idea might be to categorise ("tech", "crypto", "travel", "recipes", etc.) your feed or the people you are following to get a clearer feed with sub-categories. YouTube had such a feature once and I loved it. I don't know why they removed it...
I have to agree. I'd rather just have followers who might be interested in my videos. (That's why I have so few followers of course ;) )
Real talk thank you for the heads up sharing as i am a new user, very informative thanks again great post oh an i am following you @cryptowallet
I agree!
I agree. Better to have 50 unique followers than 1000 randoms that aren't interested in what you post.
Agreed. Steemit should have Facebook Unfollow for posts. I add new Facebook Friends but then unfollow them. Doesn't Steemit have a mute button? If not, then Steemit should maybe create an unfollow or hide or mute or silence or stop or filter or unsubscribe button.
Definitely, it's not worth the time. Steemit is an opportunity for a positive impact in society. If someone is working hard to change himself or herself people will spot him sooner or later and follow him.
I totally agree that the newsfeed is getting useless if you follow too many people. That might be changed later on with a "favorite list" where you can have a separate list of only a fraction of all your follows.
Also, I really think it is unproductive to ask for followers. That is a killer to the system. You should mostly grow your followers organically and by that I mean that you should only try to follow people that you consider good content creators.
I agree with you crypto✨
I think it's not the really issue here, Twitter and Instagram have to same thing going for them with follow for follow things and like for like things. People are doing this as they think it's the way to go, eventually they will notice it isn't working and people will discontinue this thing. It's just a matter of time before it will slow down :D
truth spoken ,
i never asked for a follow but i told people i had followed them and left it up to them if they wanted to do anything about it - just as i am now upvoting you now
I agree with you 100%, I think the follow/followers statistics should be hidden. This will ensure that people will follow u for what u post rather than who else follows u. This will ensure people with great content get followers based on that content. Thanks for sharing your thoughts
How did you get so many followers?
Agree and have already un-followed a few. Better with just a few great channels than a twitter like feed going mach speed and having to have channels you follow have to tag you so you can see them! Resteemit!
I absolutely and totally agree with you here. Now, before I re follow a new follower, I check their area by clicking on their name in my follower area. If I see a huge amount of follows against posts, I refuse to follow back. I am appalled to find new users with 6,000 + follows! What is the point? It must take them hours and they cannot possibly read the post. I agree, hide the follow/ers, though the score earned will still be visible. X
I started here last month and although I never did the follow for follow, I followed everyone I chatted with about their posts. Last week I decided to go through everyone I followed before it got to be too many and see if I still wanted to follow them. I was amazed how many had only made one or two posts say 20 days ago without further movement on their accounts. Some others I couldn't see what I'd thought would be interesting in their posts (like photos without any text telling where the place is). Anyway, after unfollowing all those, I went from well over 100 to just 46 who I now still follow. In light of this I feel follow for follow is a time waster. I bet those people don't post much.
As for your suggestion, it won't be necessary for me. I intend to monitor who I follow more closely myself and I don't mind who sees it. Also I like to check whether or not someone is following me. I couldn't do that if it was hidden. I guess that makes me a 'disagree'. Upvoted, already follow you.
I disagree, transparency is more important than a quick fix.
Agreed.
Agree, steemit is ALL about quality not quantity. So there you have it.
Well done CW. Good advice about the follow back.
Before simply following someone who followed me, I check to see how many people they are following. It's amazing, there are folks who manage to follow several thousand people, even though they've only been on the platform a few weeks! For the reasons you described, I try to avoid following those folks.
I miss the Twitter function that displays a popup of the number of followers and follows when you hover the cursor above a user. Unfortunately, the screening I describe above is a bit tedious on Steemit.
I would also absolutely love a function that would show me only followers who have upvoted and or commented on at least two of my posts. I consider them two way street followers. I would then like the favorite function you mentioned, and I would place those who did right by me on my own "favorites" list.
I think doing that would eventually allow meaningful communities to form. It would also give users a tool for culling one way street follows so that the volume problem you mentioned could be reduced. Until then I do this:
Good post. Upvoted @roused
Agreed - If I see someone post and their post contains - follow me... etc.. then part of my mind discounts the value of their post because they're begging for follows. I think either your content should be useful/interesting and people want to follow you - or it isn't, in which case - why would they.
I don't think it helps you asking for follows as anyone who uses steemit knows how to follow someone that they want to follow, so it just seems desperate. but again - it's like in the Twitter early days where people just followed as many people as they could to try and get back-follows from 'anyone'.
Hopefully steemit community members actually want to form relationships and get to know people here and not just come here to spam content and beg for followers they don't know or want to know.
I also noticed that people would follow and then after I followed them back, they unfollowed. So, it was a strange situation as I concentrate on content creation with original writing/posts which is far from easy. I do not have time or the ability to constantly check what is going on - anyone else who is an original content creator see this? Great post!
There should be a limit to Steemit users. We also should develop an algorithm that creates a search engine like function filtering the posts of the users with very low upvotes and low followers. Something that is time activated, executing within a month or 2. That limits the problem of 500 stupid posts to get to 1 post, and ensures that the new people invested into Steemit has time to "do the works". With this algo published, it will instigate the characters of the new Steemit users to follow the quality rule.
Just follow people who's content you like. Whether they follow you back or not is irrelivent. I only unfollow those who unfollow me 😉
Best way to handle a channel is follow the people you want to, that way you make sure to upvote those people you want to upvote. Then same applies to the people following you. Especially on Steemit. All you need is 1 whale to upvote your post and it pays good. Quality for your viewers!
Good point, I agree 100%
Totally consistent with my thinking as laid out here: Love Thy Feed
ch @globocop