It's Not Important That I Have 3000 Followers on Steemit. What's Important is How They Became My Followers!

in #steemit7 years ago

When I achieved the first 100 followers, I was excited. When I reach my first 1000 followers, I was so excited that I gifted 5 SBD to one lucky winner. My next aim was to share an update on 1500 followers but when I thought of writing a post, the count had already exceeded 1600. Then I waited for the figure of 2000 but same happened. My posts started exploding and so did the count of my followers. Both 2000 and 2500 milestones were passed in a flash.

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I am finally doing it on achieving the milestone of 3000 followers. This post will serve more as an educational guide on how to gain followers than just a celebration post. I remained slightly inactive for two days now so the number of followers increased steadily. I am thankful because I was able to capture the beautiful moment.

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Is It Really an Achievement?

But is it an achievement worth being proud of? Not really! Well, it is a great achievement but not under some circumstances. Some of the circumstances under which having a huge following—and this is my opinion based on experience—are listed below.

  • You follow 18,000 random people, and 3000 of them follow you back.

  • You join some crappy follow4follow groups to get some following.

  • You have high SP in your wallet but never post anything. Since you never post, having a following doesn't matter to you.

  • You beg people to follow you (rookie mistake) and people who are doing worse than you follow you and ask you to follow back. Both parties gain a significant but useless folliwing.

My very early views about blind and mass following are recorded here. I loved reading what I wrote 7 months ago because I don't feel even a word needs to be changed. It's a good advice if you are just beginning here on Steemit.

How Did I Get This Much Following?

It is not easy to get followers when you are not directly trying to get followers. By direct efforts, I mean requesting people to follow back etc. I do not do that. Most of my following has been indirect.

Here's a quick summary of how I got so many followers.

  • I create a valuable post.
  • People read it and appreciate it. If it's useful, they resteem it.
  • More people see my post. If they find my content useful, they follow me.

I have always focused on writing good content; content which is of some value to others. At this point in time, I am using following criteria to create content.

  1. First and foremost, my content should be valuable for my readers (followers or not). But it should not contradict with the point number two below.

  2. Secondly, the content should be beneficial to the Steemit ecosystem. It should bring good results for the Steem blockchain. For example, this post is less like a celebration and more like an educational guide on how to gain a good following. It improves the system.

  3. If I am covering a Steem based app or a Steemit based service, the post should benefit that app or service as well, because the service enhances Steemit experience.

  4. Ultimately, the content should help me gain recognition, following, and rewards. It is the least consideration on my list. Generally, fulfilling the three conditions above automatically fulfills this one.

Lately, I have been strictly following this criterion and my content has brought massively positive results regarding all the points mentioned above. I do not wish to go into details of what has happened with my recent posts. You might have seen the $300, $400, $500 and $600+ rewards on my posts during the last three months.

But did you see the number of views and comments on them? Do you know that my following has been increasing at the rate of more than a hundred followers per day? Do you know that on average, making one post took more than ten hours spread over many days? You cannot appreciate the increase in my following if you do not take into account the amount of effort involved, the level of quality delivered and the number of people served with massively useful knowledge.

A Bit by Bit Recap of Followers

Thanks to my excitement for getting new followers, I have so much saved on my blog and device in form of posts and screenshots. I am going to bring all the memories back for me and record them on the blockchain forever. I hope you will enjoy going through my little milestones. You will also observe an increase in reputation score and the number of posts all along.

Let's begin.

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I shared the first milestone here.

After getting 100 followers, I received 116 % increase in followers in just 4 days.

500 Followers
The 500 Followers Post

1000 followers

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Reached this milestone on 24 Dec, 2017.

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And within a month, the next 500 were done.

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22 Jan, 2018

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And just in 10 days, the next 500 were up too.

Right now, the count is nearing 3100. I hope to be active now and deliver the value I always believe in delivering. Right now, I have only one active post in last seven days because I could not do much about Steemit lately. With hard work and dedication, my followers have more than doubled in less than two months. I am thankful to each one of you any kind of support on the way.

I hope you enjoyed going through my sweet little journey. I love every bit of it and I like to celebrate these little things with great joy. Part of the reason I am followed by people is that I have shared a lot of content of education value for my followers. I am attaching it below to help people learn whatever they may be looking for.

As a standard feature of all my posts, I am listing all my previous work to help people find the required information or guidance. As I write more and update the previous work to add more value, the list will keep evolving. Feel free to share with people who need it; especially new members.

Newbie Guides

Steem Guides

Steemit Tips & Advice

Advanced Understanding of Steemit

Steem Ecosystem Guides (Services Empowering Steemians)

If you have any question, do share it in the comments. It would be kind of you to support this post through your valuable upvotes and resteems. Helping this post with upvotes will not only benefit the community at large but also will encourage me to put more effort into educating Steemians to create a better ecosystem on Steemit.

Steem on!

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I am happy to see you reached this milestine and this is all due to your hardwork.

I am almost following the same pattern and reaching 2200 followers. More of my followers have come through communication and interacting with them.

Since I have started posting better valuable contents and joined adsactly my followers are increasing at brisk speed.

I find this post to be really motivating and educating in so many ways, I did include it in my week's recap post of today!
I am also posting daily and what interests me more is the interaction I have with my friends and the mutual value & empowerment for all of us here.
Dear @ilyastarar I am thinking of finding some time and start translating some of your guides in Greek, can you please advise how we can be in contact or how I could start (possible till the end of this month, if all goes well?)

Yes! super inspiring !

Posts celebrating follower milestone usually don't interest me. And that's for the reasons you mention in your post. If they came about because the person followed 10,000+ themselves, or follow4follow etc. What value is there?

Seems you have created value, and the followers are linked directly, so congrats are deserved.

The number of views and comments is still my number one yard stick on whether there is growth of not. Anyway, keep producing quality, and all the best for your journey towards 5000 followers :)

@ilyasatarar, such a lovely piece you put out there. Just new on steemit and this post might just be "it" for it. it's not about the number really but the value you are giving out.

i am going to live by that principle.

Begging for followers is not honorable and i am glad i learnt that early in my steemit journey.

Thanks for putting this out here

Thank you for addressing something for many new users of steemit. I am a new user, I read many of your introductory guides, yet I still made many of the mistakes you described here.

Trouble is, it is easy to make those mistakes when you start, but it is hard to undo. When I started, I randomly followed people, but the most annoying thing about it is that basically destroys your personal feed. It becomes filled up with junk useless content, and then the primary reason for using steemit (at least for me) which is reading quality content, is lost.

Now I have started to mute people, started to un-follow people, only a couple of weeks into it and it is already a tiring task. I decided, better do it now than later.

Give yourself the most credit for your content

Focusing on Steem helps becuase a lot of us want to learn, but the fact that it’s useful and practical is really what’s driving your success.

You deserve it brother.. not many people on steemit reach this level and you have done it in an impressive way.. remember i told you to make your 3000 follower post way before you hit 3000 ? Because i knew that the kind of content you dish out, you will wake up one morning and you would have gone from 2700 to 3000 in no time.
Best of luck for the future endeavours and steem on, our favourite steemit teacher..
blessings

Congratulations my dear friend @ilyastarar. You deserve it and more. You know how we became friends cos one of your posts I read helped me while I was a newbie. Send some sbd let's pop some champagne 😁😁

That is an incredible achievement, I hope to do the same someday! You provide awesome info though, so it’s well deserved! I’m still trying to get used to creating content! This is all new to me.

That's such an awesome post, thank you very much! I'M so grateful for having people here on Steemit who provide such useful and helpful content. Thank you very much!

Ooo wooww...I can see you really went through a lot before reaching this milestone...steemians need to create and post good contents and it will really fetch them more followers and upvotes than to be begging for votes ..

Hardwork really pays

This is the first post by you that I've read and I must compliment you on the quality and general ethos you seem to follow. Nicely done!

Thank you so much! The ones that can help are listed in the post. Nice to have you here.

Also, I fully agree with your stance on self-serving up-vote and follow groups. I'll be sure to check out some of the links you've posted in above post. Thanks again.

Soliciting for followers is almost every newbie's mistake. But like you've demonstrated, hardwork is the best option in the long run.

Quality content helps too, thanks for the info you've given out. Thank you. I will keep to your shared rules.

I have to admit that I've also been falling into some of the traps you listed in your other guide, '4 Things You Should Stop Doing on Steemit Immediately!'. Doing things the right way, makes the process a whole lot slower, but in the end it does give more gratification.

You do give out some good tips and they confirm that in roder to be really successful, you have to put in a lot of hard work. It will only come to bite you in the *** if you try to speed up the process of gaining followers by using shady tactics.

Thanks for the interesting read!

That the gospel truth..... You nailed it. Even as a newbies in this platform, I never for once begged to be followed nor upvoted.
I believe u don't have to compel people to follow or upvote your post.
Lovely article @ilyastarar.
You deserve it, you have really worked hard for it.

Many Congratulations for another quality milestone here. I explored your blog and noticed that not only your pots worth-reading but followers are too loyal with you. That's what you achieved by doing aforementioned things. Applause!! :)

Thanks a ton for giving your best tips. ;)

** see i like this kinda stuff, this is what steemit is about... community!**

I think you bring up a lot of good points. It's interesting how you find people with a 1000 followers but they only get a handful of upvotes on their blogs, not a very high percentage of actual readers. I suppose it's just the nature of this sort of thing.

you always inspired me with your posts. your followers journey is awsome and motivated me. one thing i learn from this post is create and engage.

Congratulations and this article contains some very good advice. I like how you pointed out that it's not merely in the numbers and that a quality following is important.

You deserve every bit of it...
I've read a couple of your guides and they were easily the best guides I've read on steemit.
Congrats friend

Thank you for your generous words.

Good quality posts that you created make many followers follow your account including me

Good Job brother @ilyastarar

Congratulations on 3000+ followers keep ur efforts like this u are sharing really amazing and helpful things. you deserve it man keep it up

Wow! Thanks for sharing these tips.
3000 followers, that's a whole lot!

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I need to work on my 'getting followers' skills - lol - and I'll use your tips to do so.
Maybe I will do a celebration at 300 :0)
@simplymike

سائیں مبارکباد

I felt sincere and sincere feelings. Take care of your health @ilyastarar

congratulations❤️

Te felicito, por tus logros en esta plataforma. pendiente de tus publicaciones. Ëxito!

happy to see sir that you are from Pakistan and also succsseed in field !
just need your help to grow up . i want to work daily on it any sugestion please

Can't you find anything useful in the list of 27 guides?

Wow Congratulations @ilyastarar for your 3075 followers.Its just because of your hard work and your all posts are interesting and valueable.

You deserve many followers.I have read your guides and they were easily the best guides.
Your contents are very valueable and give us many help. I learn many things from your posts and I want all newbies and my friends learn from your posts.

I am also learning new things day by day from your posts.
Best of luck for your steemit journey and also for your life journey ;).Stay happy always.

I wish you get more more more followers.

I would like to say congratulations on your milestones so far. Seeing your reach increase like that by posting quality content is without doubt the best way to go about your business here on the platform.

I have been dreaming of the day I manage to connect organically with so many people, and reading your journey has inspired me even more.

Quality content, consistency, time. That seems to be the 'magic formula'!

About point number 2, does art and poetry qualify as adding value to the blockchain or do you mean that it should be a "how to" or a guide of some kind? For example, I post my art, and join art contests. But would I be more successful if I also created some art tutorials? Or, do you think that a personal blog post or art also brings a unique element to the platform? I am curious because I feel somewhat stagnant right now in my growth and I am reaching for how to get to the next level. Thanks so much for your time and for your guides.

Really thoughtful post sir as always. I'm having a bit of an issue myself...Deciding what is more important for me, upvotes or followers.

My issue is, you kinda can't get one without the other when you are first starting out.

And I agree...Leading with value is critical. You must be putting out great content to attract both.

I guess that's the issue for most newer content creators...Staying true to creating great content...But secretly wishing we had more followers and upvotes too LOL

I choose to stick with content, almost every day...And we'll see where I'm at in a year :)

Hard-work says it all you deserved it, I very happy for you, at least i will learn how you achieved this goal.
Just have to follow you i know i will learn many amazing things from you and i know you will learn from me also.
i'm new here

What a cool achievement to make! Hope one day to get there! You have some great steemit guides! Gonna have to check them out as well. Upvoted :)

Hello Ilyas! I've reached this post, after reading your comment to @jongolson's latest post.

I've dug deeper and have read your post about the importance of commenting on other people's posts, especially as a rookie. Which is one of my goals, although you apparently recommend more daily comments than I have set as a goal.

You still seem to have kept the habit of commenting on other posts, and this is how I got here and followed you.

Steemit provides endless sources of inspiration, thank you for being one of them! And of course, congratulations on your recently surpassed threshold!

Since I view this post on busy, I've also bookmarked this post for the links to valuable resources you provide.

I am new to Steem and I found this content super valuable. I have been here just over a week and one of the first things I did was join one of the Facebook groups (follow for follow) after a couple of days of reading I realised this was not the best (you end up following people who add no vlaue to you and who are posting about something that isnt even of interest to you - and they also follow you but often wont be engaged in your content). I think at the start it is about building a dedicated following with people you acutally engage with - this means building those relationships by finding people who are like minded and will be interested in what you offer.

Begging for upvotes etc is something I never understood and it seems abit low to me.

People think this is a sprint but it is a marathon - my first few posts made nothing but they are slowly starting to gain peoples interest so I just have to keep it up and keep producing god and entertaining content.

Thanks again I enjoyed your post

Congrats sir, I'm happy for you sir. I'm a newbie, following the same pattern and hoping to be like you someday. Thanks for the guide.

I want to ask, whether by writing tags that exceed 1 tag there is a cut from the number of votes ??

5 tags are allowed. Make sure they are relevant. There is no cut from rewards for using tags.

@ilyastarar esto me encanta ya que tengo algun tiempo dando vueltas y vueltas en un mismo desierto preguntandome que he estado haciendo mal que no veo un resultado positivo en mis publicaciones y por medio de esta publicaciones me ha motivado y descubierto algunos errores que he venido cometiendo. justo en este momento te he tomado como un ejemplo a seguir revisare tus post me gustan mucho

This is super hella ass inspiring . It brings home the point where when you create value, you will be rewarded. Enough said, and with good creation of value, that takes a lot of time, effort and energy. Well done you!!!

Excellent work, I will follow you and I will be waiting to vote for you in all your publications. Follow me to make our votes reciprocal and achieve our goals together. SUCCESS FOR BOTH ...

GTFO!

Lamo ... clearly didn’t read your post and or take anything away from it ha ha

Wonderful post dear,this is awosome! Am a newbie dear I upvoted you, please do the same for me pls thanks @julistar.

Thanks a lot my dear ilyastarar,i appreciate.

Hi @julistar, I did not upvote you. I downvoted/flagged you. It was just a minor flag to keep your comment down in the list because it was a bad comment. See the following guide to know about bad commenting habits.

https://steemit.com/steemiteducation/@ilyastarar/how-not-to-comment-on-steemit-7-things-you-should-stop-doing-to-avoid-being-flagged

You can learn basics of Steemit by visiting this guide.

https://steemit.com/minnowsupport/@ilyastarar/an-absolute-beginner-s-steemit-faq-welcoming-and-familiarizing-new-users-steemit-newbies-guide

Please learn more and only then start your activity on Steemit.

Thanks dear for your correction ! I appreciate@ilyastarar.i will put more effort and work very hard more and more,thank you.

You are awesome. And now you get sweet little vote from me for saying that. :)

Nice post.realy good job.

Thank you for reading in 5 seconds what I wrote in 5 hours.

Awsome writing sir.great post.

Who is teaching you what to do on Steemit?

How often do you take a look at blogs of those who comment on your posts? What kind of comment motivates you to do that?