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This is going to be a bit of rant, thus I apologise. Whether it is justified, or whether it is just because I have completely lost the plot, I do not know. I would be happy to hear your thoughts down in the comments, but here goes.
Yesterday, I posted a piece about me trying to make quality content that adds value to Steemit but never really getting any upvotes or post engagement from the community. I made the argument that I am not getting any post engagement because my posts get drowned out by the thousands of posts made on Steemit on a daily basis.
I then offered a solution to the problem, not only for me, but for everyone who engages with said post. The solution was simple. Help me gain exposure and I will share that exposure with you. To get the full details you can read the post here.
Again, I only managed to get one upvote on my article on top of the one upvote with which it started. I also only got two people to comment it. The two Steemians who did comment on the post thought that my proposition was excellent and offered something fresh to up-and-coming Steemians. They were very upbeat about what I had to offer.
Yet, almost 12 hours later, the post still only has that one little upvote and not a single new comment.
This makes me wonder whether exposure is really the only problem I am facing or whether there is something more going on. The way I see it, Steemit’s success comes down not only to constant content being created and added, but also to an active community that engages with the posts of others.
If people continuously make quality posts day after day but they never get the rest of the community to engage with those posts, they will eventually become disillusioned with the whole thing and leave. This is not good for Steemit and will eventually lead to its demise. This is the problem I think I am currently facing, on top of not getting enough exposure.
I think there are too many Steemians out there who make posts but, at the same time, they never make the effort to also look at or engage with the posts of others. Too many Steemians are seeing nothing but Dollar bills and are treating Steemit as a get-rich-quick scheme. If that is you, and I am not saying it is, you are failing at Steemit.
Steemit has a strong community vibe to it. If it is to succeed, it requires an active community. And with active, I do not just mean Steemians actively posting. Even more importantly, we are also required to engage with the posts of other community members.
Now, fair enough, I understand that there are thousands of posts made every day and you cannot possibly engage with all of them. I do not expect you too. You can, however, easily engage with the posts of those you already follow at the very least. I would also recommend setting some time aside every day to discover some new Steemians. Most of the posts you will find will probably just be garbage that someone simply reposted from the Internet. Those ones are usually easily identifiable.
I, however, implore you to keep scrolling down. Eventually you will find something new and fresh somewhere in between all that garbage. And when you do, give that person an upvote and leave a comment. I, myself, do my utmost best to upvote and comment on at least five new posts a day. Whether they be the posts of someone I am following, or the posts of a newly discovered Steemian does not matter. What matters is that I engage with the posts of others.
It is time we Steemians start comprehending the fact that Steemit is about the community, not about the individual. If you do not help to improve Steemit, Steemit is not going to do much for you in return. Even though Steemit can provide you with a good income, it won’t if that is your only reason for being on here.
Thank you and have a nice day!
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Good blog post, but I respectfully disagree.
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thank you for saying this. It seems like everyone just posts with the (understandable) goal of getting more votes without actuallyreading or commenting on the post itself. Any ideas how to fix the underlying system so that people just don't post and move on?
To be honest with you, I think it will sort it itself out. People who post but do not engage with the posts of others will not have their own posts engaged with. They will not make much money as a result and just leave. Those who stay behind will be the more active Steemians. What do you think?
I think you're right, there will just be growing pains for awhile
Did you try to promote your posts on Steemit Chat and on Discord? It seems like it’s a must for any new aspiring Steem-blogger in order to get recognition and grow his or her followers base. Without those avenues for promoting my posts I would’ve never achieved even the modest results that I have. So I encourage you to check them out and to start shameless self-promotion campaign. ;) Remember, your posts deserve it! Good luck!
I have indeed been posting on Steemit Chat but I did not know there was a Discord channel. Do you know its name? And thank for the advice :)
These are the most popular of the Discord channels dedicated to Steem and post promotion. Good luck!
Thank you :)
Saw your posts on Discord channels – well done! Hope you will notice effect in terms of an increase in upvotes and payouts soon!
You pointed me in the right direction . Much appreciated. I hope so too :)
Perhaps, Steemit (for now) misses some of facebook-like qualities, such as sorting which posts appear in my feed according to my past preferences of readings and interactions. This method has proven to be effective in increasing rates of engagement inside a post and all over the network (in addition to the rather archaic "topic filter" in the right side).
Example: Simply by the fact that I'm reading this post, which relates to the future of Steemit, some AI based algorithm could understand that I'm interested in posts that discusses Steemit's functionalities and recommend this kind of article to me in a near future.
Coercitive measures could also be the case, at least until a "Steemit Way of Acting" is established.
For instance, people could post only one article per day (little difficult to elaborate a really quality post in less than a day) and/or a person could only post something after engaging with 3 other posts.
Each and everyone of these possible changes have its upside and downside, but I belive that is only through this kind of article that we will be able to change Steemit for the better.
Best regards, Lucas.
Thank you for your engaging response to my rant :) You make some good points and I am sure it will come to Steemit eventually. It is still only in its beta phase which indicates that development of the platform is not complete. Let's hope these problems get sorted out eventually.