Hey, it's @shayne
Most people around here know that I like to give new members of Steemit the best advice I can.
Well, I'm kind of creating a series of things NOT to do. Here are the other posts so far.
This isn't to say that I know everything, but I have been able to prove real results in the last month of really trying to work it on Steemit. So let me give you this little bit of advice:
Stop Follow-Begging!
What is follow-begging?
It's when someone goes to another person's post and leaves a comment with the intention of getting people to follow them back.
Usually looks something like this:
Hey, cool post! I followed you. Return the favor.
No.
No. No. NO.
Please, stop doing this. I'm asking you nicely. Not only does it look lame but it will actually hurt your ability to grow your following here.
(And trust me, I realize that by writing this I'm going to get comments that will copy and past exactly what I said not to do. Funny, guys. Real funny)
But but but I'm just asking! Is it so wrong to ask?
No, there's nothing ethically wrong with begging people to follow you.
But it's bad taste.
Like you, people posts content on Steemit because they want people to see it.
This is a good place to build an authentic audience, unlike places like YouTube and Twitter where a good portion of your followers aren't even humans.
So when you leave a generic copy + paste script as a comment asking people to follow you, it's obvious that you didn't even look at the content. You're just posting. And that's going to leave a bad taste in people's mouths.
So QUIT IT
Seriously. Stop.
You're doing yourself and the Steemit community a disservice. I would even go so far as to call follow-begging a kind of soft abuse of the community.
It's a good way of signaling to everyone else that you're not an authentic person.
This might attract people who are just interested in doing "follow4follow" deals, but for people who are actually invested in this platform or who are actually producing real content, it makes you like like exactly the person not to follow.
What should I do, then?
Easy answer: authentically engage with the Steemit community.
Leaving comments is great. Do that. Leave lots of comments. Especially if you're new -- leave as many comments as you possibly can!
But here's the super-secret fool-proof trick that will really make your followers grow... ACTUALLY LOOK AT THE POST YOU ARE COMMENTING ON.
If it's an article, read it. If it's a video, watch it. Be a real person and treat others like they are real people.
You're going to develop a great following here if you are authentic and honest, and you treat others like they are authentic and honest, too.
What I do with follow-beggars
I ignore you.
And that's a damn shame for you, because I try to engage with every comment I get on my blog.
I will go into a lengthy conversation or debate with you if you're bringing up something that stirs me up personally. And if you continue to be engaging and interesting, I'll probably follow you an become your friend because I'll want to know whats on your mind.
But if you are constantly follow-begging, I'm not going to click on your profile, I'm not going to upvote your post, I'm not going to follow you. I'm going to ignore you like you never existed, because you are not treating me like a person, and that's not what friends do.
In fact, I might even go a step further and click your profile and check your comments, and if I see a bunch of follow-begging or link-begging I'll just mute your account so I never have to see you again.
And believe me, there are lots of people like me here on Steemit.
So act accordingly.
What do you think?
Are you tired of follow-begging? Am I being clear in what I'm saying here?
Leave a comment below and tell me all about it.
Great post @shayne... you are right on, actively engaging as a real person is the way to go. Slow and steady.
So much this. It adds up over time and the network effect of other people who are also doing things the right way (writing good content consistently, taking time to engage with others genuinely, etc...) does reflect heavily on your results.
This is an old strategy though, nothing new. It's the same thing that has driven results for most successful internet websites and personalities for over 20+ years now.
If I walked up to you and said something short and completely out of context, you would think I was either stupid, on-drugs, rude/inconsiderate or possibly autistic.
Why people do it online is beyond me.
Exactly.
:)
Looks like it getting a bit of a hype lately, quite anoying. Steemit is not Instagram :)
Let's just hope all newbies read this post ;)
I know a lot of people are coming to Steemit with the established social media paradigm. My hope is that Steemit with maintain its unique community qualities, at least for a little while longer.
Hah! I just got my first "Follow Beggar" .
My response was:
"https://steemit.com/steemit/@shayne/steemit-tips-how-not-to-behave-on-steemit-follow-begging
I recommend anyone new to Steemit read everything @shayne posts about being successful."
lol! Awesome!
Post me the link. I want to see your first beggar :D
https://steemit.com/security/@theblindsquirl/do-you-keep-a-firearm-for-home-defence#@izbing/re-theblindsquirl-do-you-keep-a-firearm-for-home-defence-20170611t015442901z
I think I've arrived. ;-)
You've made it!
lol
Please believe me when I say that reading your posts have made me the kinder, gentler person who replied to them with such a benign (and hopefully helpful) answer.
Well, that is very much appreciated. I just hope you haven't wasted your kindness and understanding on a bot
lol
I wouldn't consider it wasted, more like practice.
Soon, maybe I'll be able to do it without going through the whole "devil on one shoulder, angel on the other" thing. ;-)
Is such a thing even possible?
thank you. shouldn't even have to be said but....people are people
You seem to have the right idea. Keep it up.
If I have a productive and lengthy comment exchange with someone, is it acceptable to ask after you know you click well, at least on the topic at hand? I certainly don't leave "This is cool, follow me" comments, but I do interact on a lot of posts that I enjoy the content of, connect with the author, and then politely ask if they'd like to check out my content or follow me.
Is that alright? I'm trying to be a good girl dammit! <3
I think so. If you are engaged with someone on a topic, it would make sense to follow each other. The worst part about his example is that they do this in a rely comment to an article. Its very rude.
It's all about relationships. If you are comfortable with someone I see no problem sending them stuff to check out. But if it's a stranger, well... that's like handing out flyers at the grocery store. You're basically saying "Here, you throw this away :D"
Got it :D Thank you for clarifying, I'll be on my merry way curating and posting <3
Also, I think I've only asked for like 3 follows from other people, I have 70+ in just under two weeks, hard work pays off, sometimes I just want people I like to see my stuff though LOL
70 in two weeks is really good! Figures, you didn't get the vast majority of those by follow-begging, eh? hmmm... ;)
I just hope it keeps going and I don't get burnt out, I'm trying to pace myself a little better with when I post and varying the content a little day to day. :)
As long as you enjoy what you are doing that it wont be an issue. Make sure to write about what you know and enjoy, then its a win-win. With no expectations. I like teaching what i know. SO i win either way and hopefully the people who read them do also. I am at less than 3 weeks so we are on the same adventure right now.
Keep up the good work.
I agree that you shouldn't convince someone to follow, almost like buying votes. Your suggestions and my morals on the subject are in agreement. Sometimes though i don't have time to read every point made in a post, and I have made a comment that was a little off before. Very good post for new people, including me, to learn from. Thanks
You're welcome! A little integrity goes a long way -- that's for damn sure :D
Agreed. Never asked for a follow & never will! Integrity is everything.🖕🏻😈🖕🏻haha
Integrity speaks volumes.
The follow begging recently has gotten a bit ridiculous, I'm getting quite sick of it now, and it's so obvious too!
Well, yeah -- that's what inspired me to write this. They're annoying to get because you know they have no idea or consideration for your post. It's just rude lol
my habit for a long time was to note that I had followed a Steemer, but that was always in conjunction with an actual comment...not the "great post" throwaway
Oh, I think that is perfectly fine. I almost always tell people what I've done with their post when I comment. You'll often see things like "upvoted, resteemed, followed" on my comments because I want the poster to know that I appreciate their work. But it's always in the tail end of an engaging comment of at least a few sentences and questions.
I would rather have fewer followers who appreciate my posts and engage with me than hundreds who do not.
Sound advice once more @shayne
One real follower is worth 1000 follow-begging followers.
Thank you.
Great advise, am new to steemit, am learning along the way. Keep it coming, will be reading it!
Hey, welcome! I'm glad you're here. I'm finding that the influx of new people is so great that it would be useful to make these sorts of advice posts daily.
Great article that can save many people new to Steemit a lot of trouble. I think you summed it up in a nutshell with "Be a real person and treat others like they are real people". Good advice to live by out in the real world, as well as our digital world on Steemit.
Hey, thanks a lot :D
100% I have been really trying to be honest and just put out things that Im interested in! Hopefully others will find it interested too! Thanks for the info!
You are welcome! :D
Good advice for sure!... i would not be so harsh with newbies doing that, they just don't know yet the best way to grow their followers. Usually i just take a look at that persons profile and if i see something interesting i follow. If they are from my country or musicians i follow them automatically (chances are they are going to post something interesting for me)... I just don't see the hurt of following a lot of people, if someone spams its very easy to un-follow (or mute) and that's it...
Indeed. There is no rule book for Steemit. It's a trial by fire.
"Great things take time". Building patience is only beneficial in the long scheme of things.
True. If you're looking for short-term results, short-term thinking can work great! But if you want results over time, long-term thinking and brand-bulling are your friends :D
It's almost like this is a social network. :)
Yeah, that's how I like to look at it :D
It wouldn't bother me too much if, after a series of comments on my articles someone asked me ONCE to follow them. But I see the point.
Let me ask you, is it in bad taste in your opinion, for example, to read a post on something like, a movie review or video, and then to ask someone to take a look at a similar review or post that you've made?
I wouldn't do it in an oping comment, no.
Think of it as though you were talking to a real person. :)
"nice post, follow me"
Unfortunately I believe am guilty of this at the beginning. But later on I feel that seriously I'm better off just engaging people's post and share what I think of it.
It's only going to be toxic if everyone shouts "do me a favor!!" and communications are all 1 way. I've seen communities go down that road and boy it ain't pretty!
Thanks for sharing your advise and experience, of course I'd never think "owh so you think you're a big shot" about you or anyone who gives good advise, regardless if whether that person is or isn't an actual big shot. In fact it's much sadder that there are people with real helpful advise through experience but never shared it because they think they aren't "qualified" enough. And so the community losses one potentially impactful lesson.
Me too. I've seen several proto-social media sites fall because of stuff like this. I don't want to see Steemit go down the same road.
I agree Shayne. I hate those jerks. Follow me now please. I am following you. 😉
hand hovers over mute button
...
lol!
Love the way you ended that.
scrolls up to check how I ended that
Oh, do you mean with the ignore part?
"Follow" its funny in the context of that post. Good stuff
I should try ignoring. It helps avoid that awkward moment of putting out niceties when in reality, you're thinking..."dude, I can shit better content than you..." :)
Yep. It's not even worth it to fight with them. Most follow-beggars aren't interested in your thoughts anyway, otherwise they would have looked at what you posted.
Hi @shayne.followed you. 😂😂😂
But I was already following you so its really unimportant information.I'm going back to your other post about cognitive dissonance and pretend I know what it is. 😄😂
lol
I'm happy to have you here!
totally agree, with the single exception that no one's tried with that kitty-cat picture! you may have just found my one soft-spot there! lol
resteemed "puss 'n boots" too!
Good point... what have I done?!?!?!?/11/?!//!/1
Glad someone said it. I have not once in my 11 months on steemit directly asked someone to follow me, feels distasteful.
Mentioning a post I wrote that relates to something they are clearly interested is far as I've gone.
Right. If someone is into f4f then sure, go for it, but for most people it's just rude.
Well, I tend to mention when I followed someone. But that does not mean I expect a follow in return. It could be that you are just not interested in the topics I blog about and thats fine, we all have different reasons for being on Steemit.
I actually appreciate when people note me about following, I like to at least have a quick look at their blogs. When people like my ideas and topics, chances are that I like their topics as well.
I dont get why steemdb and steemit itself dont notify about new followers. checking steem.makerwannabe all the time is a pain. Ofc I highly appreciate @shaunmza for at least giving us the tool, but it is yet another extra stat site I got to check.
Oh, I think it's perfectly fine to tell someone when you've followed them. I'll usually do that down the road in a conversation... but that's just me. I'm really not trying to beg people to follow me at all but I know that I appreciate it when people tell me they're following me :D
I'm a little confused. Having "follow me" as a footer is not considered follow begging but putting it into a reply is? Or is the difference only that the commenter didn't read your post and is asking for a follow without actually engaging? I see a few people put "follow me" in their post footers and was always wondering about that. A clarification would be appreciated. I was under the impression that everyone knows the importance of followers and that anyone interested in what you have to say would automatically follow. Is it actually advisable to put something like that on all posts? Do people actually become more motivated by seeing that? Have you got any statistics or metrics that support doing it? Should everyone be doing it?
Oh, of course it's not follow begging to put that in your footer! I'm not going to other people's blogs and asking them to do it.
The difference is like a guy with a sign on the street corner begging for money vs someone at a cash register in a store you voluntarily entered asking if you'd like to donate a dollar to Red Cross with your purchase.
Does that make sense?
Yes! It's called a CTA (call to action) and it is an integral part of marketing. You can research the term in any search engine and find many sources to read and watch.
Yes, that makes it perfectly clear! Thank-you for that explanation. I had read a different post discouraging the asking for a follow, so I assumed that was a no-no across the board.
I know about call to action, but does it work here too? I suppose I should have made myself more clear in my initial question. (I was pulling an all-nighter trying to clear up all the BOLDED text in my comments, replies and feed tabs and was getting too tired to think clearly.)
Congratulations @shayne! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honnor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPIf you want to support the SteemitBoard project, your upvote for this notification is welcome!
This post has been ranked within the top 25 most undervalued posts in the first half of Jun 01. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $21.45 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Jun 01 - Part I. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.
unfortunately most of the users came to steemit knowing that is a facebook that pays for posting!! when they join our community they don't have the results they were expecting and try to grow their followers list without creating content but they beg for upvotes and followers..I dont know if we need this kind of users! They harm all the content creators by spamming with their garbage posts!! Also sometimes people who work hard for their posts and give to the platform good content are getting dissapointed and give up with steemit!! I this is the biggest problem of our community!!
There's no official book of rules for steemit. It's a game in and of itself. It also takes time to gain experience and the ability to develop strategy, which a lot of people don't want to do.
If most of these people knew they they could grow a following of several hundred people in about a month, which would net them an average of $10/post, they'd probably stick around.
Yeah I get it. I did this in the beginning couple posts just because it was hard getting exposure when you are new and don't have a youtube channel to bounce followers from there to here. It's tough going sometimes with some posts I've made 10-100 dollars on I didn't think were ever going to get that kind of payout and others I spend a lot of time on and get 6 cents. Take last night I had a dream about steemit, wrote some things down before I fell back asleep and I think its a great idea but not many votes so far. Hit or miss I guess.
ok this is definitely going to sound egotistical ... because I mean who's following me to look (yet) ... but I'm picky about who I follow because when I follow someone, I'm also telling other people "hey this person is fun / has good info / great art" and besides I so so so often write "in response to ... " So I love loading up my feed with great triggers. ... So. Yeah. if a person has to be desperate enough to beg me to look at their content, I figure they're just posting cats and ... hey, look at that ... cats! Anyway. yeah. maybe I look ... maybe I don't ... probably ... I don't. Honest ... they could be more like me and use puppy dog eyes. (and cats) ;-)
Love the series btw!
Upvoted, Resteemed, Followed
I didn't catch all the comments on this post -- sorry for that!
I love your comment and I don't think it's egotistical at all.
I'm also very picky about who I follow. I follow personal friends, people who's content I regularly enjoy, and newer people who are up-and-coming.
I don't want a home feed full of random stuff that I probably won't even like. Why would I want that!
Currently, my feed is full of content that I don't hesitate to read and upvote, and that's because I trust the quality of everyone I follow.
:) thanks and exactly!
Oh man :) I was actually wondering if there's anyone feeling the same way I do. Since I started on Steemit, I got lots of these beggar comments and got quite dissapointed that some people are THAT desperate - "Follow me and I follow you!" or "Upvoted, so upvote mine too and follow me, or I get my vote back!". So THANK YOU for writing this, I'm relieved now :)
Indeed. I am quite sick of it by now!
Thanks for clearly stating what's cool and what's not. Being new to Steemit, I have to admit that one of my first impressions was, "Pretty cool...but with stuff like vote begging etc. it kind of feels a bit like a high school popularity contest." And who really wants to go back to high school! But, after getting past that and finding some truly well written blogs, Steemit world seems like it can be a refreshing place.
I just don't understand it! Who ever got popular in school by begging everyone to follow them, anyway? Nobody, I'd wager.
One should treat this platform as though it were real life -- be friendly, helpful, and funny, and you'll make tons of friends!
:D
Haha exactly what i was thinking, asking others to follow, irrespective of the quality of posts will surely make you seem just another greedy salesman rather than a professional steemian. Good Info. Thanks @shayne