Welcome to the introduction for The Beginner's Guide to Steemit, a project seeking to demystify Steemit to brand new users and make joining the platform a seamless experience. The following is intended as a simple guide to get a user going on Steemit as quickly as possible.
Once someone has gone through this section, they'll be ready to head out on their own as they use the following sections of the guide to learn more about the platform in depth. If you're a returning user, I'd love your feedback on this. Would it have been helpful to have something like this when you signed up? Please leave your feedback in the comments!
If you're brand new to the platform, I hope this guide will help you get started! Enjoy!
Welcome!
If you're taking a look at this guide, you've shown interest in learning about Steemit! So let's get right to it.
Steemit is a relatively new social media website where you can share your thoughts, music, photos, videos, and more! Other users on the platform may interact with your posts and show their approval by giving votes and leaving comments. In these aspects, it's very similar to networks you may already be familiar with like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. So what makes Steemit unique? Why should you spend time migrating to a new platform?
On Steemit, votes are worth something, and we're not just talking about the good feelings you get from likes or retweets. You can actually earn money for the posts and comments that you contribute to the community. How does it work? It's based on a digital currency. If you've heard of bitcoin, it's similar, but you won't need to fully understand the technology behind it to take advantage of the rewards.
This guide will address many terms and topics that you'll encounter as a new Steemit user. Each lesson will focus on a specific aspect, so you can read up on each topic in detail. However, you don't need to understand everything about the platform to get started, so the rest of this introduction is designed to get you going on Steemit. The best way to learn is to check things out yourself!
Signing Up
It's completely free to sign up for Steemit, so there's nothing stopping you from getting involved today!
If you're intrigued and want to learn more, first head over to https://signup.steemit.com and follow the steps for sign up!
Be sure to pick a username that you want other users to be able to identify you by when you're on Steemit. It will also be how others can find your profile since your unique profile URL will be steemit.com/@yourusername. Steemit also asks for your phone number during this process to verify that you're a real person.
You'll receive a confirmation email right away, so be sure to confirm through the link so you'll be on your way to account approval.
At the time of writing this, Steemit accounts can take 24 hours or more to be approved, so you'll have a little time before you're able to get started. You'll receive an email when your account is approved! You may read ahead while you wait for account approval, or come back once you've logged in for the first time.
It's also important to note that Steemit will generate a master password for you when you finish your account setup. Be sure to write this password down. It cannot be recovered if it is lost.
Account security is extremely important on Steemit since your account will be associated with your identity as well as have monetary value. Part 2 of this guide provides a more in-depth look at account security. For now, here are the basics:
After you've received your master password, use it to log in to Steemit for the first time and then immediately browse to your Permissions page by browsing to the following URL:
steemit.com/@yourusername/permissions
or by clicking your user avatar in the top right of the page, selecting Wallet, and then clicking on the "Permissions" tab (see image below for position of the Permissions tab)
You'll see four different long strings of numbers and letters. These are your account keys. We will discuss each of these in more detail in the next lesson, however, it is important that you click the button that says "Show Private Key" beside of the Posting Key. This will reveal your Private Posting Key, which you should always use instead of your master password when you log in to Steemit:
The master password is a backup key to recover your account if necessary. It should be stored offline and used as little as possible. Think of your Steemit account like you do your home. Your account keys are like the lock on your front door. As long as you are the resident of the home, you could give keys to anyone, knowing that you could change the lock at any time to prevent them from accessing your home. However, the master password is like the deed to your house. If you gave it to someone, now you've relinquished your claim to your home and someone else is in control of who comes and goes. It's a silly situation to imagine, but analogous to what can happen if someone gains access to your account's master key.
Now that you've secured your account, let's explore Steemit!
Here are some of the first things you'll notice about Steemit:
You Have Your Own Blog Page.
This is where your posts will show up for everyone else to see. For example, here's what my profile page looks like:
You'll have a few options to customize your profile, like adding an avatar or profile picture as well as a cover image to go at the top of the page (accessed via the Settings button).
You Can Follow Other Users
If you have friends who are already on Steemit, or you are browsing and find a user's posts that you really enjoy, you can follow them. Simply browse to the person's profile by using the following URL:
steemit.com/@usernamehere
For example, if you wanted to browse to my profile, you'd type:
steemit.com/@ethandsmith
This also works for your own profile, as I mentioned before.
In the top right corner of the profile, you'll see a large "Follow" button. Click it to follow them!
When following another user on Steemit, any time that user shares a new blog, it will appear on your feed. Think of it like your feed on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. It's just a list of the latest posts shared by the people you follow.
Each time you type steemit.com into your browser, you'll be looking at your feed. Nothing will show up in your feed if you haven't followed anyone!
You Can Interact with Other Users by Voting, Resteeming, and Commenting!
Showing your approval for someone's post is as simple as going to their page, clicking on a specific post, and using the social functions at the bottom! Here's what they look like:
Starting from left to right, you'll see when the post was shared. This is important on Steemit because posts only earn rewards over the first seven days. Therefore, if the post is more than seven days old, avoid voting as it no longer benefits the other user.
Next, you'll see the user who shared the post. In this example, it's @ethandsmith. The number beside the username in parentheses is the user's reputation, which is a measure of how active and influential a user is on Steemit (right now this can be from 0 to 77, and when you register, you begin at 25).
Moving across further, you'll see the small green arrow within a circle. This is the vote button!
This is what you click to vote on a post. Voting is the method by which posts earn rewards, so every time you vote on a post, you're actually increasing the rewards that post will receive. Your vote is worth something! Likewise, others may vote on your posts using this button to increase your post's rewards.
You may vote on as many posts as you want, but your vote's value will decrease the more you vote. We'll discuss implications of this later, but for now, try not to vote more than 10 times in 24 hours. For more info on voting, check out the voting section of this guide.
Speaking of rewards, you'll notice a dollar amount next. This loosely corresponds to the amount of rewards a post will receive when it pays out! You may also click on the small arrow beside the dollar amount to see a summary of the rewards so far as well as how much longer a post has before it pays out. We'll talk more about rewards more later.
Beside the vote button, you'll see the number of users who have already voted on a post. Clicking the small arrow beside this will display a list of the users in order of whose vote is worth the most.
If you keep moving across to the right side of the social bar, you'll see a small arrow icon:
Clicking the small arrow allows you to "resteem" a post, so that it will show up on your feed alongside your own blogs. This is similar to retweeting or sharing a post on Twitter or Facebook. Note that resteeming cannot be undone once you've confirmed the action. When you resteem, a post will remain on your blog indefinitely!
The "Reply" link will allow you to leave a response on the post, called a comment.
This is the main way you can engage another user or other users can engage you. Leave your thoughts about their post. Did you like it? Do you have any questions about it? Let them know! Other users will do the same!
Comments may be voted on or responded to like posts, so if another user likes what you have to say, they can reward it and respond once you've shared your comment!
If you want to learn more about what's appropriate for comments, check out this guide.
Just to the right of the "Reply" link, you'll see two numbers. The first tells how many comments the post currently has, and the second number shows how many views the post has received.
Check out this post on Steemit.com to familiarize yourself with the layout of a blog post and the social actions you can perform!
Your Account Has a Wallet
Since you can get paid for your content, there has to be somewhere for the funds to go. That's where your wallet comes in. Wallets on Steemit are public, so anyone can see how much you have at any given point. Here's what a wallet page might look like:
There are a lot of things going on in the wallet, and we'll talk about all of them in later lessons. The main things worth noting are:
- STEEM- the liquid currency associated with Steemit
- STEEM Power- the measure of how much influence someone has on the platform. Higher values mean your vote is worth more!
- STEEM Dollars- another liquid currency that you get from post rewards.
Right now, the main thing to know is that your earnings will get deposited here, so don't worry if the numbers and terms don't quite make sense yet. If you want to read ahead, here's the draft of the guide to STEEM currencies.
There Are Many Topics to Explore
Steemit is organized by tags, which appear similar to "hashtags" on Twitter and Facebook. These can be anything like "photography," "travel," "blog," "gaming," and many more.
You can browse the most popular posts in a specific tag in two ways. First, you can go to the Steemit home page, where you'll notice a list of the most popular tags over on the left side. Simply click on one of them to browse that specific tag.
You may filter these results four ways by clicking the links at the top middle of the page:
- Trending- The most popular posts sorted by pending payout amount
- New- The newest posts that have been shared in the specific category
- Hot- Similar to trending, but the posts have received many votes and comments very quickly after they were posted.
- Promoted- Steemit has a promotion feature where users may pay small amounts of money to have their posts appear on this page.
So if there's a particular topic you enjoy, check it out using Steemit's tag system!
If you want to browse a custom tag, you can just include it in any of the following URLs. Replace "yourtaghere" with the desired tag.
Trending:
steemit.com/trending/yourtaghere
Hot:
steemit.com/hot/yourtaghere
New:
steemit.com/created/yourtaghere
Everything is Public and Permanent
On Steemit, all posts and wallet transactions are publicly viewable by any user. This means other people may view the contents of your wallet page at any time, and you may view the wallets of other users as well. It's as simple as browsing to steemit.com/@yourusername/transfers. Replace "yourusername" with any user, and you'll be able to see the value of their account and a list of all recent transactions.
Give it a try. Go see what I've been up to lately. Here's a link to my wallet page!
This has to do with the fact that Steemit is based on what is called blockchain technology, but you won't need to know how it works right now. We'll discuss it briefly in future lessons.
It's also worth noting that after seven days, all content posted to Steemit.com becomes permanent. There is no way to delete it once you've shared it. This is an important aspect of the platform, so be sure to take this into consideration before posting or commenting.
So What's Next? Where Should You Get Started?
One of the first things you can do is introduce yourself to the Steemit community! Introduction posts are a great way to share the things that you enjoy so that you can connect with other users who share similar interests.
Get some ideas together about what you'd like to include in your intro post. Here are some examples of questions you can answer:
- How did you find out about Steemit? If a specific user referred you, mention them!
- Where are you from? Share photos from areas nearby.
- What do you think of Steemit so far?
- What are your unique hobbies, interests, or passions that you might enjoy blogging about?
- What do you hope to learn from your time on Steemit?
Gather some thoughts that you want to include. I suggest typing them out in an offline editor. To compose your blog post on Steemit, you'll be using a language called markdown. We'll discuss markdown in more detail in a later lesson, but for now, you can check out this short guide to help you with a few formatting tips. If you want to compose offline, check out Atom or Haroopad. Otherwise, you can just compose right on Steemit.com!
The following section outlines the very basics of sharing a new post, but if you'd like to read more about these concepts in detail, check out this note (This will be a later lesson in the guide, but I've made a draft available now).
Composing Your First Blog Post
If you're logged into Steemit, you'll see a button with a pencil on it in the top right beside your avatar:
Click the button, and you'll be taken to the compose page! It will look like this:
First, you'll see a place for a title. This is what others will primarily see when they view your post across Steemit or by visiting your blog. You want to make your title appealing, so be creative!
The next field says "Write your story." This is never relevant more than when you're making your first blog post. Introduce yourself to the world. Tell Steemit your story. Include as much as you want! Photos are great. In fact, you can include images by dragging and dropping, pasting, or selecting them as the message says at the bottom of the field.
This is where you can make use of Markdown formatting, but if you want to come back to markdown, you can click the "Editor" link below the title field, which will change the page slightly:
Here you may see some buttons that are familiar to you. There are buttons to make your text bold or italic, include bullets or numbered lists, and even insert images and links. This may be very helpful when beginning, so make use of these tools!
Once you've wrapped up your post, you'll need to tag it! We discussed tags briefly above, but when you're introducing yourself for the first time, there are a couple of tags made for such an occasion! Be sure to use introduceyourself and introducemyself as your first two tags. Then you have space for three more tags (Steemit posts may only be tagged with up to five different categories). Choose three that work. Steemit, life, and blog are three popular tags if you can't think of anything, but again, they can be whatever you want!
It's also important to note that the first tag you choose is often the most important tag since it appears in the URL of your post once submitted. It also makes your post easier to find via searches of that specific tag.
If you would like some examples of Introduction posts, I encourage you to visit steemit.com/@thefreshfive and browse through the blog posts there for many examples.
Before you click "Post," you'll see a few other options over on the bottom right of the page. Leave Rewards as "Default 50%/50%." We'll talk about what this means in a later lesson about Steemit economics. Finally, if you'd like to upvote your own post, you may check the "Upvote post" box. This is completely up to you. We'll talk about self-upvoting in a later lesson. If you're unsure, leave it unchecked. You can always vote on your post later if you choose to do so.
That's it! You're ready to send your first post into the Steemit world! Remember that whatever you share in your blog posts becomes permanent after 7 days, so keep this in mind and make any final edits. Click "Post," and that's it! You can browse back to your blog page (steemit.com/@yourusername) to see your post up in lights!
Once again, you can find a more detailed explanation and guide to intro posts and sharing your first blog here.
I've Shared My Post, Now What?
Now that you've gotten one post done, what you do next is up to you. Steemit.com does not have a built-in notification system, so you'll need to check back on your post to see if it has received any votes or comments. You may also use the "Replies" tab on your blog page to access recent responses to your blog posts.
If you do get some responses, be sure to reply back to them. Ask people questions, thank them for their time, and if they took the time to leave a meaningful response, go check out their blog. You can vote and comment on their posts, too!
Getting responses on your blog as a new user may seem difficult. With a bit of time and effort, however, you can start to increase your followers and post views, which will likely lead to seeing the payout number go up on your post.
Remember the tags we mentioned earlier? Go browse through posts in tags that interest you. Find other authors and leave comments on their posts. Read their entire blog and ask questions about specific portions of their work. Comment on what you like (Need more advice on how to comment? Check out this post).
Other users on Steemit appreciate genuine engagement, so as you're making these comments, don't be surprised if these other users visit your blog. Your intro post will be there when they do, so they can learn all about you and perhaps even vote and comment on your post and follow your blog!
If you'd like to read more about how to build your audience once you've stated blogging, here's another helpful resource.
There are plenty of other ways to build community on Steemit, and they involve finding groups and communities that are already established! Many Steemit groups reside on two different websites: Steemit.chat and Discord. Both of these websites provide ways for users to chat in real time since Steemit does not have a private messaging functionality. Examples of these groups include
- The Minnow Support Project (@minnowsupport)
- The Writers' Block (@thewritersblock)
- The Steemit Ramble (@shadowspub)
- Voices of the Underground (@votu)
- The STEEM Engine (@thesteemengine)
- BuddyUP (@buddyup)
- SteemSTEM (@steemstem)
- Steemit Education (@steemiteducation)
- Qurator (@qurator)
and many, many more. As you browse across Steemit, you'll find that there are communities dedicated to almost everything. Be sure to browse to these accounts listed if you want to learn more about what each of them does for Steemit.
Your Next Blog
Now that you've gotten one blog post under your belt, start thinking of ideas you for your next one. Elaborate on one of your interests that you mentioned in your intro post. Share your thoughts on Steemit so far. Find inspiration from someone else's blog. As you browse across Steemit, you'll find many contests and challenges that you can participate in. Feel free to enter those. You'll get some more visibility right away, and there are often rewards associated with contests that you can use to grow your account.
You may have plenty of ideas right at the start. That's great! Consider spacing out sharing them. I know you'll be tempted to get everything out there, but I advise posting one blog a day to ensure maximum views and rewards. This gives other users time to see all of your blogs and their feed won't be inundated by just your posts.
The sky is the limit. If you can write it, you can share it on Steemit.
Reaping the Rewards
Posts pay out after seven days. This means your account won't see any rewards until exactly seven days after you've shared your first blog post. To claim these rewards, simply browse to your Wallet (steemit.com/@yourusername/transfers), and you'll see a summary of any rewards that are waiting for you beside a button that says "Redeem Rewards (Transfer to Balance):"
Since you selected 50%/50% for rewards when you shared your first blog, you'll likely see two different numbers, one in SBD and another in SP. These currencies are how rewards are distributed to you on Steemit. You can learn about these currencies and Steemit economics in a later lesson.
Click the button, and you'll see these amounts indicated in your wallet. There are various things you may now do with your earnings, so feel free to skip ahead to the currency lesson for more details! (Again, I've provided a link to the draft version since the actual blog post may be shared after this post can no longer be edited.)
Moving Forward
That's it! You've learned the basics of navigating the Steemit ecosystem! There's so much more to learn, but by now I hope you feel much better about getting involved. You may have many questions, and this guide will seek to answer them all. I encourage you to read through this guide and explore Steemit simultaneously. You may learn better by doing, so feel free to continue on your own and reference this guide if you have specific questions!
Otherwise, if you have a pressing question, the community is always here to help! Feel free to browse to any of my personal blogs (steemit.com/@ethandsmith) and ask for help. Alternatively, you may join any of the groups listed above and ask for help. There are plenty of resources available to you outside of this guide.
If you haven't already, I'd suggest browsing through the Steemit FAQs. They cover most of the basics of how the platform works and provide very useful information if you're just starting out. There's also the Steemit Etiquette Guide, which can give you more insight into how to interact with others and properly introduce yourself!
The next lesson will provide a brief overview of how Steemit works and where the rewards come from, as well as more details about the sign up process and account security!
Final Thoughts
This represents a very basic introduction to Steemit that I believe will serve as a good introduction for the rest of the planned Beginner's Guide. I want to thank many users for helping inspire this project, specifically @markrmorrisjr for helping adjust my perspective on how to introduce many concepts, and to @dreemsteem for reading and thoughtfully commenting on several of the drafts for this and upcoming entries into the guide. Also thanks to the team at @thesteemengine for their support of this initiative.
I welcome all feedback. Do I need more images? Does the order need to change at all? Should I mention any concepts that I've left out? Please let me know in the comments so I can make notes and change things for the final version. There's still a lot of work to be done.
The next installment will briefly explain the blockchain aspect of Steemit and focus more on account signup and security. Look for it soon!
All images are screenshots taken by me or are CC0 obtained on Pixabay.com.
Hey nice work here @ethandsmith! I was just talking with @plushzilla and he told me about your work on the guides and then funny enough I was just commenting on one of @goldendawne's post and saw you there as well! So this is all rather serendipitous!
@plushzilla said that he thought that I
I am a member of @newbieresteem (a group that focuses their energy on welcoming, supporting, educating and mentoring new and not-so-new folks) and @asapers member (also focused on quality content and helping out new folks) and both have Discord channels (which I would love for you to add to your list). I focus on watching for those who struggle by reading between the lines on their commenting. Although many come right out to say they're frustrated or not understanding things, some are little less forthcoming. My background is in Education (English/History/Special Needs Teacher) and Psychology/Sociology. So I've started with this post stressing the importance of genuine commenting to develop relationships, and will go from there. Because I tend to comment a lot on others posts, I've started randomly finding more and more people that way. When I find 'them' I like to help support them and point them in several different helpful directions, one of those being our @newbieresteemday family, but also to links such as your here!
So thank you for this and all the selfless work you are doing for this community!
Cheers!
Hey there @lynncoyle1! Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to this post.
@goldendawne is a great user to know, so I'm glad you were able to connect the dots from her post to mine as you've gone about commenting.
I am planning to do a section about engagement, as I, too, believe it's one of the greatest paths to success on the platform. I appreciate you letting me know about your two initiatives. I'll be checking them out, and I will be sure to include them when I do a more in-depth look at Steemit communities.
It's great to be able to collaborate and point people to further resources that they may explore when joining Steemit for the first time. I really do appreciate your feedback. I hope you'll follow the rest of the series and let me know what you think! I hope resources like this will help you onboard new users more smoothly.
I'm always on the lookout for great resources to provide to new users, so I appreciate you providing the link to your post about genuine commenting. That will be very helpful.
Thanks again!
Oh it's my pleasure! Thank you for doing so much of the work here for me ;)
I'm glad you'll be 'checking out' the two initiatives too; I'm confident you will appreciate what they are doing. A third one that I forgot to mention is fairly new, called @greetersguild. They do a great job greeting and educating new users as well; and I'm involved with all three and am happy to say that we are all working together cooperatively, because it is such a nice fit.
You're welcome about the link to my post too. I will be happy to watch out for your continued series and give you my thoughts.
It really does take a village :)
I think and forgive me for that, in the post where you show the upvoting and resteem, You should use lower amounts, The majority of new accounts will not each those level of reards and that part is misleading, and leads to great expectation from a new user, which will soon get disheartened. Just a minor detail I think you should look at for future blogs to newbies.
This is excellent feedback. Thank you. I honestly didn't even consider that. I just grabbed a screenshot from the quickest post I could find. I'll update these today with some lower amounts.
Thanks for taking the time to read and respond. I really appreciate it.
That's cool I was more worried you would think I was nit picking :)
Definitely not. We've talked about how it's difficult for new users to adjust once they see the large payout numbers on the trending pages. I think updating this guide with more realistic numbers for someone who is just starting out is a great idea. Thanks again!
I have now updated the post based on this recommendation. Thank you again.
Hi @ethandsmith - well thought out, a very sought after resource, very well planned, illustrated and edited...one I think critical aspect though: TLTR.
I know especially newcomers have to thoroughly investigate the new terrain and that knowledge of the many intricacies and pitfalls they might encounter is essential and it is true that obtaining this is a time consuming task. Many of us though have only brief moments in our daily programs available for that and digesting a long lecture covering several points in one session may be hard to accomplish.
Maybe smaller chunks, to be assimilated into a greater whole over time can make this beautiful contribution useful for more who really need this kind of assistance.
Kindest regards!
Hey @clicketyclick! Thank you for your feedback. I appreciate your concerns about the length. I struggled with this as well. Since the goal is to eventually place this into a single guide, it's more difficult for me to figure out where the breaks should come.
I think you'll find the next few chapters broken up sufficiently. This original post is a bare minimum for new users who want to get started right away. The next few chapters deal with specific subjects in much shorter segments.
I think finding the right balance between information and length is one of the biggest challenges facing projects like this. Even the official Steemit welcome guide is rather lengthy, and IMO, does not include enough detail.
The rest of the guide is going to be much smaller chunks which will be assimilated into an entire guide. Think of this post as the "let's get started right away" small leaflet that is included when you purchase a new electronic device or appliance. The rest of the guide is going to be more like the full user manual.
Once again, I really appreciate you taking the time to comment and share your thoughts. It's always great to consider perspectives that I might be neglecting.
I know you said you would cover this in the next post but I honestly think a bulleted and bolded and emphasized however else you can think of point needs to be made immediately after "Signing Up" and before "Here are some of the first things you'll notice about Steemit" which makes it 100% crystal clear to NEVER EVER EVER use the password anew user is given (Master/Owner Key) for anything except to reveal private posting and active key, or to generate a new password. Link to a tutorial for the keys and/or your own future posting or what not. But man. I still see people to this day who are high REP and have been on platform for a long time who still have no clue. Who are still logging in every day with master key. Why the blockchain even allows this without a warning message is beyond me, but it does, and you see users lose control of their accounts all the time because of this.
Everything else looks great! Wonderful job Ethan! Really easy to understand, well formatted and organized, just top notch! Resteemed :)
Much love - Carl
Thanks for stopping by, Carl.
I've got an extensive section discussing this in the next section, but I did consider adding more to this about the keys. Perhaps I'll modify and add some more tomorrow. I appreciate the suggestion as it's incredibly important.
Thanks again!
The in-depth security post should be coming soon, but for now, I've added a small section about using the posting key to log in and an analogy to help explain the master key. Thank you again for this recommendation.
This is great. You hit just the right tone and you've explained everything well. Nicely done.
Thanks, Mark. I really appreciate your input on this project. It's helped to consider the variety of perspectives that will be viewing this guide.
The first tag is the only tag that sticks with your post for life, correct? So using something that isn't common is not necessarily a good idea as it makes it less "searchable." Don't you think? Also resteeming stays in your post list FOR.EV.ER...as in, never goes away. You can't unresteem it. This is a great, thorough beginners guide. So many of these things I learned on my own in the first few weeks (there is no telling how many times I voted on posts older than 7 days and how many times I voted way more than 10 times in a 24 hour period). Ha! Great job putting this together!
Both of those are great things for me to add. Thanks so much for the feedback!
I think once you pass out of rewards, whatever tags are on it, stay. Not certain on that.
I think for the search, it only pulls up titles and the first tag. Someone previously told me this and I did a search of mine for "cat" and it only pulled one with that in the title, but I know I've used that tag other times (thanks to that catbot). ;) The tags stay on the post, but only the first one counts for it appearing in the searches after the 7 days are up. That's my understanding at least. That's why the first tag is super important.
Never seen it so articulated. It is much more than a guide, it's indeed a companion for a beginners and aspiring whales.
Thanks @ethandsmith for this masterpiece delivery.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read and support this initiative! I'm glad you think it will be helpful to beginners. I hope you'll return for the future installments to let me know what you think!
Excellent post! It's good to get a refresher after being gone for so long from Steemit. I'm looking forward to reading the future posts.
Hey Dr. Steve! It's great to see you here! Glad you've been able to get a refresher from this series. I suppose not a whole lot has changed since your departure, but if you do find yourself wondering about anything specific, be sure to let me know and I'd be happy to address it. I hope to see some more great posts from you soon!
Hi @ethandsmith, I just stopped back to let you know your post was one of my favourite reads and I included it in my Steemit Ramble. You can read what I wrote about your post here.
Join us on Thursdays for Pimp Your Post Thursday at 11am EDT or 7PM EDT in the Steemit Ramble Discord or:
If you’d like to nominate someone’s post just visit the Steemit Ramble Discord
Hey there, @ShadowsPub. It's always an honor to be included in the Ramble. Thank you so much, and I'll see you on Thursday for PYPT!
I can appreciate all the work that went into this post. I have been following your progression with this guide and am looking forward to all you'll be sharing.
Also, I'll be sharing this link in the newbieresteemday Discord group for the members. THANK YOU!!
Thanks so much for your comment and support!
I have heard great things about the newbieresteemday project, so I hope to include a little about it in my future post about getting plugged into communities on Steemit.
Thank you for this! It has been massively helpful to me. For instance, I never realized there was an 'editor' button (or at least had no idea what it was for and have ignored it) but it will be an easy way to make my text more interesting, for sure. I also never realized that voting on something older than 7 days was a waste.
I am not really able to post daily, but I am making an effort to be more diligent, this was helpful in giving me the best practices for when I am able to post.
looking forward to future lessons and resteeming this!
I'm really glad that people who have been here for a while are taking the time to read through this guide. It's even better that you learned something!
Glad you found out about the editor button! Markdown can be tricky, but that button helps make it easier to format. I do suggest looking into markdown a bit more if you really want to master formatting. I actually did another blog a while back about how to polish your posts, so perhaps you can pick up a few more formatting tips and tricks from that guide.
I do plan to come back and discuss formatting in a future installment, so I hope you'll stick around for the rest of this series.
It's also great that you found out about the 7 days threshold. It's kind of silly that Steemit still shows the vote button even after a post can no longer be rewarded. This is a criticism that many people have. Some people wish that rewards could be for the life of the post instead of just seven days, but for now, it's what we've got!
Posting daily is a challenge for many of us. I tried to do it with this series, but life keeps getting in the way. The main reason you want to post daily is so that you can increase your reputation. If your followers and audience have posts of yours to vote on every day, not only will you see a reward increase, but you'll also see your reputation increase steadily.
I really appreciate your feedback! Thank you!
This is going to be absolutely invaluable to people @ethandsmith!!! Excellent work!!!
Ethan is just being @ethandsmith, bringing the best content to the most users.
Great start of a series!
I certainly hope so. Thank you for your feedback so far!
Thank you for a well articulated article! This was linked to me last night and I think it's a brilliant post, very helpful.
I only joined Steemit a few days ago. When I first wrote my introduction post I got greeted by an introduction bot which shared a few links with me, links that I didn't really understand as a newbie to Steemit... a link to a resource such as this instead of links to the other Steem related websites would have been much more appreciated.
Cheers!
Hey @kaelci! It's so great to meet you. Welcome to Steemit!
It's so great to hear from you about how this post has helped you! I always appreciate the perspectives I get from established members, but to hear from someone who has just joined makes this even better. I hope you've read Part 2 about your account keys and security! I hope it will also be helpful to you!
Let me know if you have any questions about anything. I can always take feedback into consideration when I continue the series!
Best wishes on Steemit. I'll go check out your blog.
Yes, I did :) and I just completed the locking of my deeds well within my safe, so to speak. Thank you once again! Security information for a newbie is always welcome knowledge. I'm fairly new to the whole cryptocurrency thing also, as of maybe six months ago, and security is always a priority.
For the most part I feel that Steemit is fairly intuitive. My main issue was with the nuances of the upvote, how it was worth something, and how your voting power falls after excessive use (woops). Will be a bit more selective with my votes once it returns to a more respectable percentage! And I appreciate the links to various discord groups. I'm not much of a Discordian, but it seems to have become prevalent in most aspects of the internet now so I may need to become more active in that respect. Especially if I want to join in with the communities, which I definitely do! I'm here to participate however I can. :)
I can't think of anything in particular at the moment that may be of benefit... but I'm sure that I'll think of something as I continue to use the platform and come across curious things.
I've got a lesson on voting in the works. If you want to preview it, you might find some helpful info! https://hackmd.io/s/HyuJaoWdz
Discord communities are great. I know that you'd enjoy getting plugged into The Writers' Block. My good pals @GMuxx, @rhondak, and @damianjayclay would love to have you, especially since you're an aspiring writer. I'd suggest starting there if you want to get involved. Here's a link to their server: https://discord.gg/vNY2wB2
Glad you took advantage of the security precautions. I wish you the best as you continue to get the hang of things!
Thank you for the shout-out!
No problem! I know you guys do some fantastic work, so it's always my pleasure to refer aspiring writers over to your wonderful community.
Excellent work Ethan. Thanks for taking the time to help the new steemit users. I wish I had read a guide like this the first day I started.
You are very welcome. I enjoy hearing comments from current users about how they wish that guides like this existed. I'm hoping we can do away with that sentiment now that there are so many resources available to us. I hope you'll stick around for the future installments of this series!
If I had seen a piece like this when I joined steemit the journey would have been easier, thanks for blessing the new users with your work, and thanks for being a blessing to steemit .
This is definitely good to hear. I've heard many people say they wish they could have read something like this, which is a good sign. I appreciate your feedback, and I hope you'll also give me feedback on future installments of this series.
Bookmarked to give to new users, this is fantastic and thorough!
Thank you so much for your kind words. I only hope that new users will find it as clear and concise as current users do. Please let me know if you get any feedback from people that you pass this along to. I would love to be able to implement any changes that are necessary.
This is a great comprehensive guide for a new user!
I love how the community is gathering around to add to this effort.
I have been around for a while and I still do not feel that I have mastered tags. Great info! Keep helping out the newest members of our community.
Hey Nate! Thanks for your feedback.
I've got a whole series coming on sharing blog posts with a more detailed discussion of tags, so I hope that will help everyone understand them better.
It's been great to receive so much feedback from everyone on this initiative. I hope that the future installments will be just as engaging!
Excellent thoughts this is wonderful even i got to know a lot about it awesome :)
Good to hear! I'm glad you were able to learn a lot. I've gotten some great feedback so far on this post, so I hope you'll check out the future installments and share this guide with anyone you know who is just getting started!
This is a very complete and we'll put together guide. You can tell that you put a lot of thought into it. I think it will be great for new users as well as people who may have skipped some things when they first started.
I think this guide skips a lot of things. The follow-up installments are going to try to fill in the knowledge gaps about the specifics of Steemit. I appreciate your comment and feedback. It's been great to see the response from others, and I hope many more people will be able to use this in the future when introducing Steemit to their friends and family.
great beginning stuff for everyone which is great thanks for sharing :)
That's what I was hoping for. I'd love to get feedback from actual beginners, so if you ever decide to pass this along to someone you're trying to convince to join, please let me know how it works out!
Just got my account today, your post came at the right time :)
Thank you @ethandsmith
That's excellent timing, indeed! What do you think has been the most useful part of the guide so far? I'm glad to know that you've made use of it.
Please let me know if you have any questions, and I hope you'll follow the future posts in the series to help get a solid foundation for your Steemit adventure!
Your post is tour de force overview of steemit. The most practical part was on the markdown formatting- I'm having a blast now playing like a child with it :)
That's just the beginning for Markdown! Check out this blog I made a while back if you want some more tips for how to polish your posts!
Fantastic post Ethan. You touched on some of the most important parts, in a nice order.
The segment about your master key is very important and I liked seeing that. Very well explained and understandable.
You broke up the post nicely too and gave great bite-sized chunks of advice, nothing seemed too large or too difficult to comprehend. It'll be interesting to see where you take us next.
Hats off to you, you're doing a brilliant job. Looking forward to the next one. I'll definitely be directing anyone I bring to the site, straight to this post.
I appreciate your feedback!
I actually updated it to include the section on the master key thanks to a recommendation I got in a comment on this post. I've got a whole article dedicated to the keys coming soon, so I would love to get your feedback on that as well when it goes up.
If you do get to share this with new users, I hope you'll let me know what they think of it. I want it to be the best experience possible for them.
I'll definitely let you know, I have a friend who is interested and eager to sign up, I just haven't heard from him in a few days. Once he is on his way, I'll get some feedback from him about the BgtS.
Good clear and concise post, it would be great to get some newbies to teest this out and show their findings on how they got on.
I thought at first it maybe long, but to anyone needing to get to know the basics perhaps one post is better, forgive me if I overlooked it but the Trending part did you write up anything to deter new users away from that??
I'll admit that it is quite long. However, this is intended to be put in one single PDF publication at the end, so it'll be more like a packet with chapters. I think all of the things I discussed are the bare minimums that new users need to be familiar with, so it ended up this long.
I decided to avoid Steemit politics in this discussion for now. I'm going to dedicate a chapter to it, but at the same time, if I included discussions like that, it may not age well as a guide. Therefore, I simply stated what trending is intended to be and omitted the fact that right now it's difficult to get there without paying for votes.
Thanks so much for your feedback!
No problem @ethansmith hope my comments did not appear negative its very good.
Not at all! I appreciate your feedback, so don't shy away from pointing out small details like this. I've already made some modifications based on the feedback I received from comments here.
Thanks that's really useful, filled me in on a few things in my first hour on Steem.
That's great news! It's already being put to good use.
I'm really interested in more detailed feedback from you. What about this guide would you say is most helpful?
This is fantabulous.
You nailed it man
I appreciate the kind words. I hope you'll continue to give feedback on future installments of this series!
Wow this is all in all. You did well here sir and this guide will surely help newbies @ethandsnith
Thank you very much for your kind words! I sincerely hope that everyone is able to use this as a resource for new users.
Well done, this is much more detailed than I originally thought it would be. Great tutorial for newbies.
It's interesting that you say that, especially considering that this ended up being much shorter than I anticipated. There's so much to consider when first beginning on Steemit, which is why I'm going to be expanding this guide into many more sections with detailed discussions. I hope you'll come back to read them and give feedback!
and in the process learn something new perhaps :)
Wow you covered everything up and nicely well done great job i would say and every newbie should watch this first and then start
Thank you! I hope you'll be able to send this to new users to help them get oriented with Steemit!
Moving forward is the only way to go nice post buddy you have put all the elements perfectly here
I appreciate your comment and kind words. I hope this will serve as an excellent resource for Steemians in the future. Be sure to let me know if you share it with anyone!
What a complete post for beginners.
Newbies not only learn about Steemit, but also learn how much quality they should maintain in posts from this post.
And yes, master key should not be used often, there are other keys to use daily.
Account keys are the topic of the next lesson! Thank you for your feedback. I surely hope this guide will help new users get accustomed to Steemit more easily!
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Hey @ethandsmith, thanks for always being active here on steemit with a perspective that looks out for all of us little minnows! I actually just used this post to explain Steemit to my parents, haha!
This was wonderfully written in easy-to-read terms and I picked up on a few things myself. I am going to keep digging and read through your other parts of this series - should be a hell of an education. Thanks again my friend!!!