Some Insights Why Your "Quality" Content Ins't Making You Money
I never browse the Trending Page, but the other night I was about 6 liters of beer in and had some time before bed and took a look at the posts that were Trending. I quickly realized that many of the authors of these posts weren't any more talented from a literary standpoint than some of the posts that I curate in the #Payitforward contest or various other "Minnow Help" communities that hang around in.
The biggest difference was that these posts had a target audience that believed that there was a perceived value in reading these posts. I'm going to use a post I read by Jerry Banfield. I want to point out that I have highest level of respect for Jerry and I think he does an admirable job advocating and promoting Steem as a platform. That being said, his post was just "preaching to the choir" or "free ice politics" if you will. His post was titled something like "Why I Think Steem Will Surpass Bitcoin" or some shit like that.
Yes, I said shit because it is not only unlikely to happen, there is very little reason to believe it will happen despite his 1500 word dissertation. The key thing about the post is that it was making a ton of money. Not just vote bot money, but REAL upvote money. Good for him. He has found a topic that everybody wants to discuss and, to be honest, he is telling everyone what they want to hear. People are eating it up like candy. It's like a Haejin post talking about Dope Coin going to the Moon or some ridiculous shit. Every Bong pilot on Steemit wants to believe it so they upvote the post. Literally the posts have absolutely NO VALUE to me personally, but others don't see it this way.
So, why do they get such great upvotes? There are several reasons, but the most important is that they have branded themselves as someone whose opinion/advice is valuable to a huge number of people. The second most important thing is that they have presented their posts as having something valuable for their audience.
The Raw, Hard Truth that You Don't Want to Hear
Most people don't give a damn about your posts! - I can hear it now. "Your so mean and insensitive." - "You don't care about the little guy." Well, if you believe that, then you haven't been following my posts or your stupid and I wish you wouldn't follow my posts. I DO care which is why I'm trying to help you understand that your photo of your sister's dog with it's new haircut has ZERO value to anyone except you and few other people on this Earth. Yes, it's cute, but I'm not giving up my valuable upvote for your picture of a dog.
Let me give you the real reasons that most people are here on Steemit. I say "most" because there are many people that are just messing around with the platform for fun and others that truly believe that they are saving the world from poverty, global warming, big pharma, or whatever the cause du jour is today.
Here is a basic lesson about human nature gifted to us from a pretty smart guy named Maslow. As you can read from the pyramid graphic I borrowed from some guy on the internet who wouldn't claim it or source it (source - https://medium.com/@CLHedgeFund/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-99b0946e7788), people take care of the basic needs in life first.
Most Steemians didn't come to the platform to spend their upvotes or investment (most people have invested so little it's comedy to call it "investment") on your pictures of flowers, story of Grandma's knee surgery, or European Beer Tour (in my case). They come to Steemit because some idiot told them they could make money upvoting crap and posting even worse crap. The truth is that they won't make money no matter how many dummy accounts they create.
You're SO NEGATIVE! - Not so fast. I love the platform and I love the posts about your Grandma's knee surgery if it is entertaining or interesting to me, but I'm not a whale and I don't have a Curie trail following me. If you want to make decent returns on your posts, then you need to find an audience for your posts or you NEED to change your posts to suit the audience that exists.
It really is that simple. It isn't that the platform is "flawed" or "the have's always outperform the have not's" or any of that whiny defeatist leftist crap. If you want to make money on Steemit, then you have to find an audience that truly values your posts and that potential audience isn't as big as you would like to think it is.
Your FB and Instagram food posts won't make you a freaking dime in Steemit regularly. You're going to have to be creative and work (like I did on this post that I'm 2 hours into after actually thinking about it all day before I started writing). Yes. It's work. Maybe not building houses kind of work, but it takes time.
I actually spent way too much time discussing an issue with an "artist" that thought people should be finding her on Steemit and upvoting her art because she worked so hard on it. Excuse me? Why the fuck am I supposed to find YOU to PAY you with my upvotes to LOOK at your art? What am I getting? Some people have lost their fucking minds on this site. If you want to get paid, you have to provide VALUE to the people you want upvotes from.
Strategy Basics Recap
I'm finished with my overall rant. Some questions that you need to think hard about and answer.
- What value can you provide to people so that they will upvote your posts? If you don't know, you need to figure it out and fast if you TRULY want to make money on the platform. Remember, some people convinced us to buy "pet rocks" once. Value is often just a perception.
- Why are you an expert on the value that you're providing? Why should I trust you? How will you convince me that you're an expert and I can trust you? Don't just tell me you were in the "investment banking business for 20 years". I've heard that about 18 quadrillion times. Usually they sold insurance.
- Do I have a special niche or sphere that I know a lot about and enjoy discussing? Yes, this is an option to make some income. For instance, the Homesteader community on Steemit is fantastic and super supportive of each other. Are they making Haejin dough? NO, but many of them are getting good returns on their posts for talking about something they love and enjoy. Value doesn't have to involve money on Steemit, which takes us to #4.
- Can you make money outside of Steemit based on your activities IN Steemit? This is the best question to be asking yourself because there is NOT a lot of money to be made on Steemit. Sorry, hate to burst your bubble, but none of you are retiring next year because of your Steemit accounts. I say that with 100% certainty. Here's an example - I feature BBQ videos on my blog. I have a catering company. I send my Steemit posts to my friends and clients. They see a bunch of upvotes (many of which I pay for) and think, "Wow, people really like Jerry's food." Sale done. They don't know that you only upvoted me hoping that I would do the same for you. They just see $25 or $100 dollars that I got paid to talk about BBQ. Then they write me a check for $500 to deliver lunch. Leverage your Steemit success in the "Real" world.
- Are you buying upvotes or participating in communities that trade votes? No, why not? Oh, Jerry that is not "real" votes. BS. Nobody likes a loser. If your post has .17 on it, even people who like it are afraid to waste their upvote on it unless their upvote is .001. You need to show some interest and success for people to give you credibility. More on this in a future post.
- Are you upvoting your own posts at 100%? No. Stupidest thing I've ever heard. It's like someone saying that they don't put money in retirement because that is their employer and the government's job. It's your #@%^^& money! If you don't believe in your own post, then why should anyone else? Also, you're killing yourself on curation rewards (yes, another future post). People ask me about this all the time. Yes, I spend 60+% of my voting power upvoting myself. "You're so greedy Jerry!" Screw you. I pay for my SP unlike most Steemians and still give away nearly 40% of it. I grow my account so that I can continue to help others. If you are truly some altruistic monk, then you should do the same. If you're a poor schmuck, you can't help anyone. See the Maslow's pyramid again for slow learners.
Things to Do For Those That Must Be Guided
Here are some basic things you should do if you didn't figure it out from my questions above.
Figure out what your true goal is on Steemit. Write it down. Be clear and precise. If you wrote, "I wanna be a whale." Go back to instagram and leave me alone. Precise is, "I want to build my account to 2000 SP." This is clear and achievable (and easy if you have 8K USD that you want to invest).
What can I post on Steemit that MOST Steemians want to read about? "Ooooh Jerry, I want to talk about Crypto. Sia Coin is going to MOON." Really? You're going to have to do better than that to gain an audience here. You need to have some special insight, information or general understanding that separates you from the pack. I write about history, travel, some Steemit tutorials and BBQ. Why? Because I'm an expert on them and SOME people like to read about them. I'm not trying to be on the Trending Page because my stuff isn't that interesting. It's okay to be honest.
Post about your chosen specialty everyday or 4 to 5 times a week? If you can't, then you're not likely an expert on the topic. Add a few posts on other things you like. That's okay. I have a broad-based page and so do many of my friends. Honestly, I spend more time curating #payitforward posts than I do writing my own and I have more fun doing it. lol
Find people that like the same things you do. Find people with SP that like the same things you do. Discuss these things and make friends.
Quit worrying about how much money everyone else in the world (including Steemit) is making. Focus on what YOU are making. You can't control their income, but you can impact your own income. I should have put this point at the top of the post, but if you haven't read this far I don't care about your success anyway.
Invest in your "Quality" articles. If you believe in the product, then advertise it. You will never know how many morons gave me crap because I spent 80 SBD to promote the payitforward contest. These idiots think they are "purists". I made my money back and promoted a great program BECAUSE I believe in it. I can only imagine Apple saying, "We don't need to promote our product because it is QUALITY." Yeah, good luck with that.
Last thing. Be the BEST! Yes, the best. Know your stuff. When you establish yourself as an expert and authority on a subject, people will listen to you. They will share your advice, upvote you and bring people to your page. People like a winner. Show them that you're a winner in one way or another and they will flock to you. If you don't believe me, look around and ask yourself why some of your Steemit "friends" are so popular. Usually, it is because of respect for their knowledge, expertise, willingness to share (VALUE) these things with others, etc.
Okay. It's Friday night and I want a beer. Sorry Steemit, but I'm taking a 12 hour break. All the best to you.
Like this article? Please resteem, upvote and comment.
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Send me a copy of one of your posts and I will try to read it quickly.
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Hahaha, some of your rant looked like my ranting. A few observations I have on the ideas you mention.
I would suggest anyone who has a skill that can be marketed elsewhere NOT give it away here. Because you will be giving it away. I came here due to videos the witness you mention at the top had made pretending making money here is easy. What he was not so clear about (nor many of the other people making videos on YouTube) was most of that money was their money to begin with. They handed it to a bot and got most of it back.
Based on my perception due to some very misleading videos, I figured if mediocre posts could make hundreds, so could I. I have self published for years, getting my start in how to books. I published some how to material that could have made me thousands on Kindle/Nook etc and it was met with crickets. I can not publish this material now as the online stores really frown on you charging their customers for what you are giving away for free elsewhere.
I will be honest, I was considering leaving. It seems like most of the money is just a circlefest handing it to whales, only to get some of it back for so called visibility. But unless you are spending hundreds per post, there will be little to no visibility.
I decided to stick it out though as I have found many authors (like yourself) who teach me things I do not know, and i am a sucker for learning. And while I doubt I will get rich here, I do make some money by interacting with interesting people like yourself, something I would do elsewhere for free.
I am still feeling my way here as to what I can post. I am not given to idle chat in real life, nor am I here. So my posting has went way down, and only through encouragement by you and a few others have I recently posted a couple times.
I wish more videos with this realistic view you give existed on YouTube. The lying ones I mentioned are probably the cause of the low retention rate as perceptions were built that were not realistic.
Yes, many people arrive at Steemit with serious misconceptions. This is the problem with the free money we call "upvotes". They have no respect for it, but they do have great ideas about how others should spend their "free money" much of which isn't actually free (many of us have invested in Steem and the Steemit platform).
You bring up a great point as to why you stay and I'm glad you do because your comments are some of the most thoughtful I read everyday. This part of the platform is good for me because the conversations are more engaging than other social media (and I make a little bit of money).
The promoters of Steemit often do a disservice to the community with bogus posts about rich rewards, but there is money to be made, or at least an increase in value since much of our rewards are tied to SP. However, none of us are going to become rich bloggers here or probably anywhere. The tough part is learning how to use the platform to enhance our lives here and offline. I'm struggling with this as well, btw and still feeling my way on many issues like vote bots, resteems, the whole trending page thing, etc. So, I try to learn and share.
I hope you continue to stick around and, of course, I truly appreciate your comments and support.
Seems to me that it could be a general Human Truism that everything revolves around the lowest common Denominator. There's a good reason why Sports Illustrated has 10x more subscribers than a "quality content" magazine like Atlantic Monthly.
It's a pretty good rant, and pretty on the money. Maybe it's a misnomer altogether to even call Steemit a "social content site." Maybe it's just a "money making circle jerk." Which is OK — but let's have some truth in advertising.
Oh wait, nobody wants "truth."
Truth is that most humans behave like jackholes as soon as there's money involved. And in bizarre ways... like they start to behave badly over five cents, which would make zero material difference in their lives.
Biggest and most relevant truth in this rant: #7 — pick something and be the best at it. I say that because it's also misinformation to think that you need "thousands of followers" to do well. No you don't. You just need a couple of hundred who think you're all that and a bag of chips in your niche.
=^..^=
First, let me say that YOU are all that and a bag of chips. Thanks for reading and commenting.
This phrase has been getting more and more use lately and much of it is true, but that is also the case in business, friendships, etc. My friend has a nice jazz restaurant. There are many of these places in St. Petersburg, but if we go out to listen to jazz we go to her restaurant. Why, because we support our friend and not necessarily because her's is the best place. If I need a carpenter, I hire my friend, Victor, because he always needs the work and I trust him. The key to the "circle jerk" is expanding your circle to the point where your accumulated value to the circle exceeds the value that you expend on the circle. Steemit is no different in this sense, but the "game" of it can appear very stacked against the average Steemian because we look at $ in other people's accounts instead of growth of our own.
You point about SI is so spot on. Love it. Also, spot on is the behaving badly over .05 STU. It drives me crazy when people ignore real value. (had someone irritated with me because I upvoted them less than someone else - .02 difference) I think I wrote this post about 30 minutes after that happened. lol
Thanks again for the thoughtful response. I hope to see more of you.
Well, I totally agree that we help our friends; and presumably we have something in common with our friends or they wouldn't be our friends. I'm likely to upvote my friends on Steemit, and have hopes they might return the favor. In a sense, that's the core of the being social part.
Part of the circle-jerkiness here — as best I can interpret it — is that a bunch of the participants don't actually care about each other's stuff, they are just trading favors. My guess is that you would probably NOT hire your friend Victor if you needed fine cabinetmaking, and he was a shit framing carpenter. At some point reality has to kick in.
The biggest challenge we seem to face around here is — to paraphrase you a bit — that we "we look at $ in other people's accounts instead of growth of our own" to which I say YES, and people get wrapped up in short term gains rather than long term growth. Which is a variation on people choosing two "full buckets" TODAY, rather than the value of a steady flow into their bucket for the rest of their life.
Maybe those $200 worth of paid upvotes from bots look really good right now, but if the consequence is that in a year from now Steemit has a global reputation as a "spammy joke" and the Steem token ends up at $0.05... just how clever is that, really?
=^..^=
I would say there is less risk of Steemit becoming a spammy joke due to the people paying for upvotes than those that are posting someone else's pictures 10 times a day, creating 10 dummy accounts and then upvoting each other. While the posts on the trending page aren't always "quality", most of them aren't spammy. The community does a fairly good job of maintaining some standards as opposed to other social media.
Struggling on this one:
Writing a post for a stranger is quite different from applying expertise in person. It takes time that I currently delegate to things with a better or more immediate return, like my job and family. Obviously I need to decide whether I'm fine with the results I'm getting or whether I want to change how I delegate my time. But not keeping up that frequency is definitely not a function of expertise in my field.
Oddly, I've been hesitant to even write on the topic I had planned to focus on. It's like I don't want to commit myself to something that I will be driven to write about daily.
Good piece, and thanks for this:
That's the direction I'd really like to go.
You are pure gold @wholeself-in! Thanks so much for your comment. Of course, you can't spend so much time on Steemit and either can most people because we have lives that generate more overall utility in returns than spending hours on Steemit. There is no way I would have considered blogging daily when I was a parent. Not because I didn't have good things to post, but because the overall utility was less valuable than being around my children and raising them. Lucky for me, mine are all grown.
Unfortunately, many people think they can make a ton of money here by investing 30 minutes a day on something that isn't very interesting and that some benevolent whale is going to come by and give them 100 STU for their picture of a sunset. If they were full-time Steemians, it would still be difficult without investing in the platform.
Side note - I truly believe in investing in the platform because it has more utility than most cryptocurrency.
Last note and you hit it on the head. Can you use Steemit to show your expertise to potential customers outside of Steemit? That is the real ticket here. If you figure that out, you are golden. Of course, I would love to help in any way possible and look forward to hearing more from you.
All the best.
LMFAO Oh crap you were on a roll here. Love when someone speaks the truth and nothing but the truth.
You make an interesting point about the paid votes, but my biggest issue with them is that I wasn't seeing any sort of ROI. Not only in the fact that my votes were returning enough after curation to cover the investment, but I wasn't getting any sort of added views.
Are you finding that you are seeing some ROI these days?
Thanks for actually reading. LOL. Yes, I was definitely a bit frustrated with some of the people I was reading last night and some that were messaging me with questions. I may have been a bit off in overall organization with this post. However, most of it is accurate in my opinion.
ROI, you are correct here. I have been running some experiments with upvote bots, promotion, resteeming, and curation over the last 2 weeks so I could give better advice on strategies. One of the reasons I leased a bunch of SP and why you see my post promotion so up and down ($25 - $50 - $200). Of course, I spent the most on the experiment promoting #payitforward because if promotion was going to work/or not I wanted to invest the most on something I actually believed in. The results aren't complete yet, but I will let you know what I find out (you will be one of the first).
If I comment I've read top to bottom, if I only vote odds are I still read it just didn't have much to add or not the time to add it. I enjoy your posts and think we have a lot in common in our overall thinking.
I'm not a fan of bid bots, but it's mainly because the way it skews the reward pool and moves the income to the richest members of the community with zero effort on their part. IMO the paid slots in trending should be achieved with a payment to steemit of SBD that get burned (gone forever). This advertising fee would be based on how long you want to be promoted and the tag traffic you want to be promoted for. The only want to recover your investment/cost would be if your post is actually good and people give votes once you hit trending.
Brilliant post! I love your rants! Thanks so much for writing it. I've looked at Maslow's hierarchy before but never from the point of view that I am at the thin end of the stick when it comes to audiences. I guess that's because for me self-actualisation and self-transcendence in particular are survival ...and I'm just learning to let go of the idea that 'it must be good for everyone.'
I was also watching Jerry's post and thinking - how do people do posts like that...? In my small niche, I guess I've been hoping that the steemit pool is big enough for me to find like minds... or at least some minds that like what I write.... unlike the small town in Australia I grew up in.
Fortunately the one really great thing I have found about writing on steemit, is that writing posts evolves me... The process of posting on a semi-regular basis is bringing me personal clarity, insights and better ides. So that's worth 10cents a post in itself!
Thanks again for your experienced insights, I look forward to reading your post again, especially after I've had a few beers, as I think it over further.
warm regards, Margot
Margot, I haven't read all the comments yet, but you have made my day! (maybe yours is comment of the day).
I agree so much with you about writing here. Some of my posts are me trying to build my account and brand, but much of it is me sharing my thoughts and developing them in the process. I would like to think I'm growing as an individual because of my writing (this post may not be a good example of personal growth, Iol)
I certainly think there are like-minded people on Steemit for all of us especially if we grow the platform, but some of these audiences will pay better than others.
I highlighted the homesteaders community in this post because I love these people and their stories. They give great DIY help that we use at our country house here in Russia, but another person that is great is my "friend" @yankee-statman. He gives good market analysis several days a week, but also talks about baseball, which I absolutely love. He gets an auto vote from me because I believe in him and his writing. If ever I was to find that most of his articles were "rainbow and unicorn" bs, I would stop following.
We all have posts that we love for different reasons and I absolutely love reading posts from Aussies outside the city because their lives are like epic adventures in many cases. lol
Have a beer on me. Cheers.
I did resteem your post, I found it because @elsiekjay, resteemed your post. I also liked and enjoyed the rant and the message, that was why I resteemed and let you know how I found your post. So far my feed is still light enough for me to find some post. I also think you did a great job of covering several various styles of using steemit, and the central one for how to grow a persons account. At some point I am sure I will see he wisdom of self votes, but right now I just do not have enough SP to do that and try to help as many people as I can, I do understand what you say about rent/leasing/buying SP, however I do not make much on steemit yet, and likely my renting would only be on a sporadic basis.
A lot of nice info, thank you.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I'm glad I didn't scare you off with my rant. After you read my post on Curation that I am doing in the next day or two (waiting for researched posts to hit 7 days), you will see why you should upvote your own posts immediately. Better for you and for your followers. My rich uncle (yes, I have one) always says, "pay yourself first, then help others."
Something I will have to think about. I don't believe in any absolutes other than shit happens and things change, the only two eternal truths of the cosmos. (well that I have found so far). looking forward to the next post. I am glad that not everyone has a rich uncle then there would be no rich uncles.
Excellent article. I've resteemed it because I think it's so important for people to read! I like your take on it, even though it does feel negative in many places.
I well understand that my main weakness is my lack of willingness/ability to market myself. That's always been a problem of me because I do have an underlying shyness that keeps me from really putting myself out there. The stuff I'm offering "for free" right now have generally been offered elsewhere and have done "okay" (in the case of the photos) or not really got there (the fiction) - and I figure that pennies is better than nothing - especially since I can always repost the same crap in a year or whenever.
I had been discouraged originally from upvoting my own posts with the idea that it discourages others from upvoting a newbie because they won't get the first vote... However, since my posts are now regularly getting 0.20 and more (yes, that's a significant step for me) I may begin self-voting again. Very fortunately, I did choose to upvote the episode which got curied. :-)
I know what you mean about people not adding value to their posts. I'm sometimes guilty of this myself when I just want to get a picture out - since that is one of my strengths along with my writing. I do always describe something in the picture though - even if it is simply to say what plant it is - or express the fact that I don't know! I've seen so many people who don't bother even that much - and expect my upvote or curation (when I'm doing the pay-it-forward contest) and a picture with no explanation does not get my vote! What's worse, is when people use a picture that is very clearly not theirs - and they still can't be bothered to say anything about it!
(I was really, really excited to have my vote increase to 0.02 yesterday after I steemed up again - now at 80 SP. My goal is to make $100 real money by the end of the year - preferably in one month. Maybe...)
Anyway, thanks for the great article. And thanks for your time/effort supporting me. It means a lot!
Thanks for commenting and sharing. I do appreciate it. Congrats on reaching a new threshold. I would say that $100 by the end of the year is very achievable. I think you are doing many of the correct things to get there such as interacting with people and building relationships. Eventually, this tends to payoff in my experience. Everyday doesn't have to be a perfectly written post, but the good posts should outweigh the quicker posts so people can feel good about giving you their vote even when they can't read it everyday (like me).
There is NOTHING wrong with upvoting your own post. I am so tired of hearing that from people. Let me give you an example. I upvote all my own comments but usually after 3 days have passed. Why, because it's my money and I can spend it how I want, but also because everyone that upvotes my comments gets better curation because of it. For example - Person A has only 0.001 upvote, but they want to show me some thanks for giving them .10 or more on their post. They upvote my comment. They will make nothing on that curation because the comment wouldn't reach the .03 threshold to get a payout. I upvote my comment and not only do I get paid, but they get curation rewards that they wouldn't received beforehand. I give them first crack at upvoting (3 days) my comment.
Another thing I do is I use upvoting bots. Sometimes several and sometimes less depending on the situation. If everyone that follows me was to auto upvote my posts at 30 minutes, they would get more curation because when the bot votes come in, they will receive a better percentage of the curation rewards. The bots generally do not give me much of a profit (sometimes I lose money on the deal), but that is my risk. The people who follow me are still going to benefit in curation no matter what as long as they "beat the bots" to my post. As opposed to upvoting a post that is going to get a total of 5 to 10 votes.
I am writing some posts for this week that details how this works in both vote bots, curation and curation trails, and other strategies for newbies/minnows.
Talk to you soon and keep up your good work.
It will be interesting to see what you have to say about vote bots. I find a few of the free bots to be worth the effort such as the resteem bot and the steemit world map bot (the originalworks bot was another one,) but the only paid bot that seems to make sense to me is the steem basic income. I currently have three shares, and have won a fourth - I've paid for only one myself for a minnow who asked a good question on my fiction, prompting an "ask the author" post. :-)
Still, my upvote alone isn't worth much, so I'm guessing - especially after reading @thedarkhorse's article about getting out of the dust - it didn't actually make any sense for me to self-vote until now. So, that's a caveat worth adding to your original article in this case - that the self-vote only makes sense if the posts are getting at least 0.03!
There's also something in getting the length of the post correct - too long is bad, too short is equally bad - and catchy - when I do a photo salvage, I put the outcome at the beginning because the original isn't going to bring in readers - that's the whole point of the salvage! When I do my fiction, I hate keeping the posts short because my chapters were written to be longer than what I want to do for a single post - and sometimes it doesn't want to break into nice, need 2-3 page sections, but that's what I do, because people's attention spans are short.
Anyway, thanks for commenting. Catch you later.
Once I kinda sorta started to understand Steemit, I developed thinking aligned with this post.
WAIT WAIT WAIT
I'll not bore you with how my thinking has been evolving on the 82 days I've been here on Steemit.
I'll boil it down to 2 questions...
(I must spend some time going through your posts to see how that all happened in your life!)
Thanks for commenting and raising some great questions. We are much better off if we don't pay attention to how much others are making. Rather, we should see if their methods have value to us. Of course, rich friends support each other and so do poor friends. There is some logic in the belief that if we grow together then we will still support each other when we have more resources to do so. This works out well for many people.
Using bid bots can be profitable, but not in the way most people think and the difference between Steem and SBD price is a huge issue where this is concerned. I will be posting some stuff on my results soon.
Here are some communities that you might enjoy. @qurator is my favorite. They don't sugar coat their program with rainbows and unicorns BS, but they do help and their members are growing their accounts (this is a fact and not just conjecture). Another group that seems to work really well together is @asapers, but I have less time to interact there with my #payitforward responsibilities. @yallapapi has a Discord called Shark School that I think is full of great information from some very sharp people. Unfortunately like everywhere on Steemit, you have to weed through those that are full of shit and those that have some valuable insights, but @yallapapi is a truth teller and I like him despite some obvious flaws. You may like @steemgreetersguild also. Many of friends here are very involved with it from a curation standpoint.
Great to know you're from North Central MO! I spoke at the community college up there (North Central MO College) in Trenton several times about 8 years ago. Nice place with good people.
People here love the American BBQ recipes and food that I share with them. I use mostly KC style cooking, but I have some Southeastern and Texas recipes that I throw in. We have a lot of fun with the project and it looks like it will start making a net return soon. We will see.
Thanks again for commenting and I hope to see more of your comments soon.
22 miles north of Trenton is Princeton. I'm the water/wastewater plant guy there.
15 miles west of Princeton is where I live. I'm 5th generation on a very small farm homesteaded from the government around 1860. You mentioned the homesteaders group here on Steemit. Yes, they are great!
I recently joined qurator. I will check out the others you mention.
I really need to figure out discord...
I like the people I've kind of gravitated too, but man, they had me feeling guilty for upvoting my own content or using an upvote service of any kind. Yet, many also applaud qurator, which has it's own upvote bot. And how are you ever going to be able to join their service (4 Steem now) without using tactics to get yourself built up? But then I recently realized something. Several bought in and at least one was delegated very early on. Some of their logic is flawed. I believe everyone's first goal should be to get at least a 2 cent vote and do whatever it takes to get there as quickly as possible, as long as you do it without breaking any rules. And I'm not talking about some madeup rules some people come up with (like those who say self-voting is unethical...).
I've started looking through your posts and am liking what I see.
BTW I was Utility Superintendent over at Rock Port, MO where they have wind turbines hooked directly to their city distribution system. I'll be commenting on that alternative energy post you did.
How could someone NOT like KC BBQ?!?!? haha
Very cool that you took it to Russia.
Thanks for actually discussing your ideas. There are a lot of people who toss out ideas, but don't actually discuss with their commenters. I think that's a key here on Steemit. I look forward to digging down through your posts, reading new ones and discussing ideas with you down the road...
Discussing things is my pleasure. That's why I like Steemit as a platform. It doesn't always happen, but when it does it is usually good stuff. Good to hear from someone from Mizzourah! Getting to the .02 vote is so important. 500 SP is the most important though for the vote slider. Also, check out the post by @thedarkhorse on "Voting Dust". It sheds some serious light on minnow voting. Talk to you soon.
I don't even know where to begin. Well, how about this, the entire world would be better off and the human race in general would be happier if people would get this one through their heads:
Your fourth point about Steemit activities impacting your outside-Steemit life is relevant for me since one of my goals was to get more visibility for my Etsy shop, and web traffic to it has been considerably higher since I started posting about my projects here.
I never thought about self voting being the same idea as investing your own $ in retirement. That was like a lightbulb moment.
Thank you for a very educational and entertaining rant. I hate that entitled, "the world owes me because I'm so amazing and rich people are supposed to just give to me instead of me having to work hard" attitude as well.
There are some people that I knew would enjoy it. Of course, you were one of them. lol Btw, we are planning to spend a month in the U.S. in October/November and will be driving through Wheeling at some point. Far from you?
Yes, opposite side of the state! But it's the Husband's hometown so I asked him where he'd recommend people "passing through" to stop if they were so inclined. He recommends the Alpha for lunch or Figaretti's for dinner (for "where the locals go" places to eat), and Oglebay park for sightseeing :)
Ah. That's too bad. Food and sightseeing wasn't really our aim. We were hoping to meet you guys and see something of your neck of the woods. We will figure out another time. I have seen quite a bit of Wheeling (good and bad) many years ago. Had to bail my little brother out of a bind there once. He studied briefly in Morgantown.
Ahhhh yes! WVU shenanigans, huh....
Haaaha!!! OMG I haven't even finished reading it but I'm itching to let you know you have killed me with this one point... I love love love.#pardonmyhumor
I DO care which is why I'm trying to help you understand that your photo of your sister's dog with it's new haircut has ZERO value to anyone except you and few other people on this Earth. Yes, it's cute, but I'm not giving up my valuable upvote for your picture of a dog.
Back to reading...
Damn, I guess I was a bit tired. I forgot that I even put that in there. My thoughts were really flowing into the keyboard last night. Thanks for reading. Talk to you today about progress on your project. ;)
Man. I love it when that happens. When you just can't stop typing your mind out. This was so lovely on so many levels dear.
Really looking forward to more, you continually keep on raising the bar for most of us!
Looking forward to your input smartie! Overwhelm me :)
Lmao...Ah. You have absolutely made my night so entertaining!2 beers on me!!!
There's only so much I couldam quote! This is my favorite post of yours this week. Talk of ending the week on a high note! I'm so thankful to whoever ticked you off, they should dobe it more often so you can crack me up as much as you did today!!!!
The heck?? You're such a smartie. I don't think I'll ever tire of reading your content.
I will never forget this from now onwards..
Haha. Glad you got to the good points you mentioned at the bottom.
Thank you!Thank you!
I ditto this entire comment!! Too many amazing quotes to quote them all....I laughed throughout at this most awesome (and hilarious) rant😂😂😂
Hahaha. Just coming back here cracks me up momma! This was such a great read really, we need someone who cracks us up end of the week cause Lawwwd! This place can be overwhelming!
Thank you @energyaddict22, xoxo
Those points are spot on though @elsiekjay, totally agree.
Very enlightening @energyaddict22
@energyaddict22 I agree with you on everything except liking jerry. That guy just gives me a really bad vibe. I am not sure if it is just the goofyness that i think is incredibly fake or maybe it is the new found religion that he is pimping. No matter something just does not feel right about him. My personal opinion is that he is really the worlds first actual super villain and he is going to end up ruling the world with bots that enslave us all and make us play shitty electric pianos for the rest of our lives.
Haha! Thanks for commenting. I don't like Jerry's videos or his posts generally, but he DOES do a huge amount of work in growing the platform. The jury is still out on how effective this will be for Steemit, but he could just upvote his own stuff and make tons of money and call it a day. Instead, he seriously invests back into the platform and supports smaller accounts and initiatives. This is why he gets my witness vote. However, his videos are pretty goofy and he has never commented on a single one of my comments or questions (I guess I'm just a serf in Steemit land). lol
We are all serfs in steemitland. I guess it is a lot like being born dirt floor poor. We can fight our whole life just to get to where someone else started out their life. I will keep fighting and self voting when i need to and putting in a bit of my own money on occasion. Eventually I will find my niche and fight out a hand hold and then the sky is the limit I suppose. good tallking with you. Have a nice day or night, where ever you might be in this big ol world.
Best to you as well. I'm hanging out in St. Petersburg, Russia. I live here most of the year.
ah well then
хорошего дня
hopefully google translate got that right :)
I love your sincerity in writing this post; Saying what you think to being outspoken is a way to influence the right audience, without embellishing things just to be accepted. This is the truth, and whoever wants to run the race has to make an effort, like everything in life.
Excellent information for users in general but especially it´s very valuable for newbies, because that way we are locating and deciding from the beginning what we want to do in this platform.
Steemit looks like real life:
Regarding the idea of giving votes to your own publications, this is something completely logical, for example: the owner of a bakery will not stop eating his own bread just because he wants to be modest; On the contrary, he’s a prosumer, because he earns money while advertising his product because he is proud of it.
The theme of the bots is similar; In a traditional business, if you want to invest in publicity, you do it; it's marketing, in that world, in this one of cryptos and social networks and in any other, it's completely acceptable. (I do not know much about bots)
I understand from this post that there are two ways to get results, either by investing as in any business, or as those who do not have money to invest starting from below with work and talent.
Particularly I do not consider myself as an expert for now, I am simply learning what life itself is teaching me and always wanting to learn more and share what I have learned. As I wrote it in my introduction:
Thank you very much for your valuable advices, since we must also be sincere, we all seek to earn money and if someone with experience offers an orientation, be it welcome. Everything has a value and if you are investing time in creating quality content it is good to know the best way to get it paid fairly.
Thanks once again for this space, I hope to continue reading similar posts that guide and help debug and improve the platform so that visiting it is something very valuable.
Reesteem insured.
Thanks for you thoughtful and well written comment. I am very pleased that you stopped by and look forward to seeing more of you.
Say it the way you see it @energyaddict22 this is the best of the best rants I have seen in awhile!
My philosophy has always been "beware of the know-all" those who "shout loudest" normally are in it only for themselves, they could not be bothered, nor take time out to actually respond to minnows.
Communities are a good way to get to know people on a more personal level, sadly each and everyone wants their logo used whenever you use their community to share from. Some even expect you to always use their footer and tag, yes you are part of the community, but does the post need to look like a cheap store window. (I do this because I do enjoy supporting communities, sometimes very grudgingly). Tags are a premium, your currency on Steemit to be noticed in the right place.
Stick with people I Like Trust and Know offering the best they have, usually it is high quality, informative and ranges in the 80/20 basics of 80% interesting, unusual, nature, animals, environmental, travel, and 20% selling products you support with information or something tried and tested by myself. So basically one post per week is promoting business ideas I really do support.
When pumping one product without using the 80/20 formula people actually know little about you, place a barcode where your face is on your profile since all you are selling is a product. IMHO
NB: Steemit is a Social Media Platform.
Thanks for stopping by @joanstewart. Of course, I always like to see and here from you. I truly appreciate how supportive you are with others and see why so many people follow and interact with you. (You are probably much better suited to it than I am, ;) Humble as your opinion is, I love hearing it. All the best to you.
Ah...and here’s the post you told me you were planning to write. The funny thing to me is that I know all of this. I’d tell it to anyone coming to me for advice. Yet I don’t apply it to me. And I need to examine that.
I also respect the sincere passion and commitment that Jerry exudes. But personally, I’m never going to fit in such a broad and pandering niche. It’s not who I am or what I believe in. In my opinion, it’s essentially going back to corporate life...which is exactly what I ran like hell to get away from. I spent most of my adulthood writing useless drivel for other people...in the pursuit of empty goals. Theirs. And if I’m honest, what I thought were my own. But I’m done with that.
I may lack clarity. And probably I’m too precious. I feel like I am providing something substantial. Something that lies between get-rich-quick-cult-of-personality rhetoric and selfies-from-my-car. Oh hell, I feel like I offer something higher. And I’m sure that Maslow would have a smirk or two about that.
Being the expert or the prophet shouldn’t be the only way to master Steemit. There are several other valuable personnas that successful bloggers and creators fit into. But here, you may be right. It seems that the prophet rules the Steemit universe. But I did that gig IRL. And it was empty. And it left a big hole in my life. There’s got to be a way to carve out a path on Steemit without feeding the masses false rhetoric. If not...it’s not the platform it claims to be but is rather quite a flawed microcosm of the very system it claims to transcend.
I love your visits and posts! We've discussed this before, but the key is to find a niche here on Steemit that includes truly like-minded people and not a bunch of fakes spouting all the right words when in truth they are just wanting upvotes like the rest. This is the tough part - weeding through the BS'ers and the genuine. Rich, thoughtful comments and posts that take more than 15 minutes to write (on topics that are interesting) are going to help make your Steemit journey a success. Just remember that there is no Utopian paradise online (I know you know that already). all the best. See you on Discord I'm sure. :)
Well crap. I want a utopian paradise. And a pony.
and some wine and cheese :) Personally, I want a utopian paradise and a cupcake.
Мне нравится эта статья. Это хорошая информация. Спасибо большое!
Спасибо, что остановились и комментировали. Я рад видеть, что вы используете своего русского. Моя становится лучше каждый день. Надеюсь, вам понравился пост.
Да, хотя я не понимаю всё что ты пишешь. Мне надо переводить в Гугле Перевода.
This was pretty much awesome and i can't forget to say your language was epic..... I bet i didn't know most of this facts; thanks to you, i just got my self stuffed with some useful information...... Well done
Thanks for stopping by @joyart! I'm thrilled that you read and commented. If my mother was alive she would be washing my mouth with soap for my "epic language". lol
Lol.... That's a funny line
Can u pls give me an insight on how how to use the bots for my post and probably recommend one?
smartsteem is good. The link is at the bottom of my post. 180 - 210% returns and you can send small amounts. minnowbooster.net is similar. Go to their site to see available buys. My favorite is ebargains because they resteem. Just send them 1.0 SBD and they upvote (about $2 STU) and resteem to thousands. I will be posting articles this week on how I think it is best to manage upvote bots, resteems, etc. Sorry for the delay.
Thanks so much..... I'll try to see if i can send
The circle jerk thing. It's everywhere. All industries, all platforms.
Perhaps it's just inherent in human condition.
Spasiba for the post, and for the communities you recommended on some of the replies to your comments.
Cheers
@greencross
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Certainly my pleasure to make suggestions. I agree about the "circle jerk" thing, but I have no problem with it. Strong communities build strong circles. Hope to see more of you in the near future.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to answer.
Hope to see more of you as well. I'm learning a lot in this post already, about to dive on your other ones. Hopefully I can also up my BBQing game now that it's possible to be outside here in Upper Austria.
Cheers!
@greencross
PS: my favourite cut is Picanha, have you tried it?. A brazilian friend taught me how to properly grill it, who learnt from an argentinian!
I believe I tried it at a restaurant in Philadelphia, but I can't be sure because their English sucked so bad even I couldn't understand them. I don't know anything about the cut or how to make it so you have a good idea for a post there. ;)
Cheers! @energyaddict22
Well written energyaddict22. And yea, I think I could use a beer too! ;)
Thanks for stopping by @ecid and commenting. Hope you got that beer. Cheers.
I did my friend :O EDIT: Cheers to you as well!
Great post and information there @energyaddict22 I feel like I ticked most of your boxes for success and I feel a little less shit about upvoting myself and putting bots on my posts also.
I am a qualified Horticulturist with many years experience in the field and a huge passion for all thing nature, so that is mainly what I blog about :-)
Feel free to check my posts out and leave a comment as to what you think (good or bad.) I try to keep them simple so its not such a niche blog and everyone can undestand what im crapping on about.
Not fishing for upvotes here I would just like your opinion. THANKS!
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I didn't think you were fishing at all. In fact, I probably would have stopped by to see your posts anyways (I usually do when people make interesting comments) so no worries at all. I'm glad I could provide a bit of validation for upvoting yourself. Many of "friends" and I still differ on this issue, but we all make our own choices to meet our own objectives. Talk to you gain soon, I promise.
Thanks,
Those of us that have invested our hard earned 💰 into steem deserve to see some sort of return in my opinion :-)
Wow! @energyaddict22, this is the most fun I have had in reading a post in my whole three months. You are highly entertaining and your advice is good. Thank you.
And while I'm saying thank you, your work on the #payitforward initiative is highly appreciated. I love the concept!
Absolutely my pleasure to help on #payitforward. Most of the accolades should go to @thedarkhorse. He works extremely hard on the project and is the great idealist compared to me. lol Thanks again for commenting and stopping by. Glad we got connected on Steemit. (another #payitforward success story).
Wow
You have hit the nail on the head with this post!
I am still super new here but I am treating it like anything else online and in the real world.
Your number 4 on the top was perfect. Most do not get this. Those that do will be the giants in their niches in the next few years.
I am also working on my #payitforward post today and should have it up tonight or tomorrow; I still have to look through your #payitforward posts to make sure I join correctly and format my post submission correctly.
It has been crazy with everything but like you said one has to work at this like anything else.
Upvoted and resteeming.
Thanks so much for stopping by and your comments. I do really appreciate it. I always like feedback (positive and negative). Hope to see more of you.
This is the first post I’m reading of yours. I read it all which is uncommon for me and I loved it from beginning to end. I found you because I just participated in the curation contest.
I’m not trying to butter you up by saying this. I’ve been studying business and entrepreneurship for the past year. What you have said I’ve heard before from smart, established, and successful people.
One example, and I’m not going to fact-check this, was Seth Godin giving the advice to get 1000 true fans.
You don’t need a million people to like you, you can be plenty successful with a much smaller number of enthusiastic supporters (1000).
This post was gold from start to finish. I appreciate it but I’m also at a level where I can understand your advice. I understand because those ideas are foundational and have been repeated to me many times and from many sources.
Thanks so much for visiting the post @nikema. I am extremely excited that you have joined our #payitforward contest/project. I'm not sure who it was that made the 1000 true fans remark, maybe it was Seth Godin, but I agree with it.
I know an Armenian couple that lives in my building here in St. Petersburg. They own a small 24 hour shop at the bottom of my building that sells food, drinks, cigarettes, etc. They have a small child, and they are genuinely nice people. I asked them about their business and they told me, "All we need is for 1/4 of the 4 thousand people within 50 meters of our business to be our friends/customers. No more and no less. This is why we are successful." You see if they got any bigger than that, they would lose the relationships they have with us folks that visit them nearly everyday. So instead, they invest in their family's doing similar businesses in the city. It is such a different concept to how I was taught business in the U.S., but it is so much more to my liking.
Anyways, thanks for stopping by and I look forward to seeing/hearing more from you.
Thanks for being so welcoming. I like your no-nonsense writing style. It seems it's a good practice to follow @elsiekjay around. She mixes with the best folks here :)
I really enjoyed my writing my first curation post. I'm excited about the next one because I will take my time and make it much nicer. A free way to pay it forward feels great. It's as much self-serving as serving others. I'm okay with that.
Hahaha. Honey! You make me laugh. Lol
I am extremely excited to see you helping out here. I am really enjoying curating as well as drinking from the well of wisdom that is @energyaddict22 lol
See you on week #5 for the contest.
Xo
If I made you laugh, that's a good thing. Maybe I should start the Elsie fan club :)
Haha. Girl please! I'll leave that to Ellen D-generous. Lmao.
Truly Epic Post @energyaddict22!
Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it. I appreciate you stopping by.
I just love your honesty! Keep this material coming because it's raw, straight to the point, and definitely fun to read!
Thanks so much for stopping by and commenting. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I appreciate the support and hope to see more of you.
You have made absolute sense than most people on the trending & hot section. One of the realest posts i have read on steemit.
You sir, deserve a beer, or whatever it is that you prefer from me.
All points made are spot on, personally would like to contribute on the point regarding use of bots.
There is a lady that i know here, her posts always make it on the trending page, (atleast before the steemit eco cleaners started flagging her for spending too much on bot). As i joined the rest of them to frown upon her behaviour, i pulled back and gave it a deep thought.
her bot buying gave her account more value, in terms of increasing her rep, and because of that, she moved from a minnow toma dolphin real fast, which also gave her upvote more value.
she gained religious followers, that even though she posts about pizza alone, she would have people "drooling" and commenting on how "beautiful" she and the pizza looks, and dropped their heavy upvotes. And thats what we all aim for here at the end of the day.
All this happened to her on her 3rd month here on steemit and by her 5th month, she had 4k plus followers.
Meaning at this point, even if she did not use the bots, she still would have her followers upvote her.
I could go on and on about her activities here, but what i would like to emphasize is the fact that she helped her self grow. If she let her self grow based on the system. She would take age , too much effort and not much outcome.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment and for stopping by my page. Each person has to do what they think is best to achieve what outcomes they want. As long as they don't do it at the expense or detriment to others, I am for whatever they choose. Some people have natural advantages over others and we should applaud their uniqueness and not denigrate it.
Just what I needed to hear.
Thanks for putting it how it is.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. ;)
I agree totally with your opinions because i have had most of them as my thoughts,and i came to realise that most people registered on steemit because they wanted free money without learning and creating value......That's why i try my best to explain to people who want to join this platform that this isn't the normal facebook and instagram shit....you need to create content and build relationship before you earn.......
Kryptonia @bitcoinpaul
Thanks for commenting, reading, and resteeming my posts. I truly appreciate it and I also like that we are both on Kryptonia. I really like that platform.
Yes Kryptonia is a great platform.....do you have plans of promoting it more in your country?
You could share with me some of the strategies you're looking to use
You never lied in your write up.
But the issue of posting quality articles on Steemit is quizzical. Many today are confused having posted well researched articles without Upvotes and comment.
Thanks for commenting. Well researched doesn't mean "valuable". I write well researched articles. Is that why they are upvoted? No. It just gives me more credibility.
@energyaddict22, you had me laughing throughout this posts; youre hilarious. I appreciate your "straight-forwardness" and your willingness to speak your mind even if it isn't common thought. I am still trying to find my way around and figuring out my footing....I must say that this post has given me much to think about with regards to this platform. Thanks for the light that you have shone and the advice. Keep up the good work. I am looking forward to that Curation post. Blessings.
Quality content can be any subject but which content has a great intrest to all.may i know from you?
Quality upvotes can be any person that actually hits the "upvote" key. It has great interest to all that post. ;)
oh ya thank you for ur info.
This post got upvoted by @goldenwhale
✔ Upvote Service for Minnows │ 2.5x upvote Return
amazing post.thanks for sharing.
Thanks for commenting. What did you find most amazing about it?
Gotcha! There's already a lot of discussion here, so I'll just poke fun. Glad I found your blog (you found me more like). I'll look for your content in the future.
I don't know how I missed your post? good task I saw on the kryptonia. You're right, everyone should have a goal. I have it too, I want to achieve the level of Pescara.
tnx.