As a get near the 100th follower milestone it is a good time to take some lessons from my first month on Steemit. Here are a few unexpected facts I learned.
Fact 1: up to 25% of the Steem I make is from my comments.
This is something that surprised me but some days I'll write a fairly long post and earn 5 cents, then later in the day I make an insightful comment on a popular post an a earn 50 cents on it because a few people with high Steem power liked it.
Fact 2: commenting can bring you more followers than posting.
There are days when I do not have the time to post but I can still find the time to read a few post and provide a few comments. I noticed that those days bring me as many followers if not more than the days I write posts. Apparently Steemians will follow you if they like your comments and when you are new on Steemit more people will see your comments than your posts.
conclusion
When you start on Steemit commenting is critical to building your follower base and will still bring you some Steem. I would advise to initially spend up to 75% of your time commenting and 25% on writing new posts. As you get more followers you can increase the new post ratio, but I would continue to comment. Also make well written and relevant comments. These are effectively the advertising for your work as a writer!
I think 99% of my followers came from my commenting. I also focus predominantly on "new articles" and introduceyourself posts. I think this maximizes follower gains.
New people like to connect with other new people! I stay away from trending because no one will see my comments on those articles. I'll get lost.
Indeed I tend to keep an eye on the 'new' feed rather than the 'trending' feed. This allowed me to discover some good posts that I would have missed otherwise.
Totally agreed!
I think networking in general is an important factor for success :)Good insights @erlik :)
I am still learning the ropes here at Steemit and I really appreciate this post about commenting. I have made comments on most post that I have viewed just to offer encouragement to those who have invested precious time to share something that was on their mind. To me this is just doing unto others and you would have them do unto you but knowing that there could be a financial win make it even better. I guess the reaping from what is sewn rule is still at work!
Yes, this is how you start to network and grow your followers.
My first comment :) Just wanted to say thanks for the insight and I'm glad I came across this. It's probably some of the best info I could have read this early on. I'll also give a follow.
I just upvoted your comment so you'll earn your first cent for commenting 😃
Oh cool thanks erlik 👊🏼
I finally finished my intro post 😃 Took me so much time! I'm slow and particular though. I'm happy with it. Thanks to you it's much better than it would have been 👊🏼