Hey, welcome to #Dolphinschool Bootcamp, Season1 Day1. I'm really excited about this project. For those that stumble on this post, it was originally created as a part of a beginner's course on how to Steemit. You're welcome as well. This first post will have some really basic stuff, I'll try to keep it brief.

The members of the #DolphinSchool Bootcamp have agreed to let me coach them for a few days. In exchange, they will promote these posts. It's a win/win. Free training for them, free promotion for me.

If you'd like to join in, please visit this post, to see the rules of bootcamp and sign up. If you can catch up, we'll include you in the rewards. If not, join the conversation and enjoy the tips.

So, let's get started!

I am so excited for all of you!

When I came up with this idea, I thought, maybe ten people will show, and that should be enough to gain some attention for next time!

But, to my shock, the signups just kept coming. Thanks for following my silly rules. The copy/paste was to make sure everyone had at least the skills required to succeed here. So, here's the goal. I want you guys to grow. That's it. I want you to have more votes than the last ten day period. I want you to have more followers and a I want your wallets to end up fatter. SO, here's how you can help, first, if you've got bandwidth, follow these accounts.

@manuelmendez
@chieppa1
@mawit07
@jampresents
@magicalmoonlight
@lilyraabe
@donjyde
@redheadpei
@mandelsage
@andysantics48
@insideoutlet
@bristowboy
@sarahewaring
@jeejee
@bozz
@naquoya
@cristoferimm
@mineopoly
@makingthebest09
@solomon507
@powellx5
@castleberry
@sarahart
@happychaga

*If you're just following along, watch these accounts and see what happens over the next ten days! *

• Do the assignments, even if they seem silly, if you already know the tips part, then add something to it. But at least do the writing assignments.
• Support each other. Even if you only have bandwidth for a couple of comments a day, do it. Reserve bandwidth for the next ten days, focus on this.
• Follow each other. Even if you have to do it in spurts. Become each other's fans.
• Invite your best supporters to follow us and upvote. They'll still support you, but their added support could make this a success!
• Talk to each other. I'm not the only one here with something to teach.
• Ask questions.
• As you write, invite people to follow us! They can follow the thread, or me @markrmorrisjr or @steemgoblin who will be really active in this.

If you're a guest reading this, I'll be very focused on those that signed up, so excuse me if I don't spend much time with you this time around. Get in on bootcamp next time. But, the tips are solid, and the training is good, feel free to audit!

First, a brief explanation of where you are. This is steemit.com. It is a single site on the steem blockchain. The steem blockchain is a computer ledger, which creates a decentralized, disbursed network. It is a privately held corporation, but, their blockchain is opensource, meaning anyone can agree to partner with them, or even take their code and replicate it somewhere else. The blockchain is housed on a huge network of computers, known as nodes. The Steemit witnesses maintain the block chain and enact changes, known as hard forks, from time to time to improve things, correct problems, or add new features.

Read the blue paper for the details.

If my explanation is wrong, please correct me, but I think that's the gist of it.

In non technical terms, we exist on what is currently the largest central planet in the Steem galaxy. There are many other planets that are part of it too. Today, we're going to explore some of that.

Okay, you've found me, and managed to get signed up and share your link, so you've got the basic idea of what's what.

Each steemit user account is a subdomain on steemit.com

It's basically no different than a Facebook profile, or a blog. It is, however, more within your power than those other platforms. Because you own a share in the company, represented by whatever SP you manage to accumulate.

Every post here on steemit is public, in fact the whole platform is remarkably transparent.

There are no private messages, and every other user can see your every move. Your wallet, your comments, your replies, and all of your actions are recorded here, permanently and past a certain point, they cannot be deleted, or corrected.

A Post is a single blog entry

It can contain a variety of content, or be posted in any digital format available.

• Writing
• Images
• Video
• Gifs
• Links

If you prefer to post video, images, or memes, click on those words for curated gallery apps that allow you to post them to a smaller audience, as well as on the steemit site.

Posts are written in HTML markdown language. It requires small snippets of code to format things like bold text, italics and headers. You can drag and drop images into the editor where you want them in your post.

I use an offline editor to make it easier

This may also help with bandwidth issues. I use Markdownpad2. It has a lot of great features, has a free version, and also has an image uploader, so that you post a URL, instead of pasting a picture. It takes less bandwidth.

I edit my posts beforehand. This will help with bandwidth as well, since every single transaction requires a fragment of your bandwidth to transact.

Think of bandwidth as currency

To upvote takes a coin, to resteem takes a coin, to comment takes a coin, to post takes a coin. Each transaction has its own price, based on the amount of computing power required to complete it.

There is good news!

Once you're established, and get past about 500 SP, bandwidth doesn't seem to be an issue.

You can check your bandwidth, by going here https://steemd.com/@markrmorrisjr and replacing "my user name" with your user name. You can do this for anyone on the platform. All of our stats are transparent.

If you haven't explored it already, you can "rent" SP through a process known as "delegation". In future bootcamps, I hope to be able to lend the SP required for bootcamp, at no charge.

The home page is pretty self explanatory.

You can navigate your account by using the nav bar buttons at the top, or clicking on your profile photo to open a bigger menu with a lot more choices. We'll talk about some of those at a later date.

Outside of that, there are nav buttons for the larger world of steemit, and a search feature at the very top in the center. In the top right corner is a hamburger menu. Click this to open up the file room and exits to some outside services.

A quick word about rewards

In each 24 hr period, a certain number of blocks are added to the block chain. A block is a bundle of transactions from sites like steemit. Once recorded, they cannot be changed. As each block is created, steem is the result.

Rather than have a "proof of work" mining system, steem depends on content creators like us to disburse the coins. Each account has voting power, according to its SP. The amount of voting power is 1 to 1, so, with 900SP at the moment, I have 9x more voting power than a user with 100.

As you get votes, rewards are added to your "potential payout". That payout can be added to by upvotes, taken away by downvotes, or changed by the rise and fall of the price of Steem coins for seven days, at which point whatever value remains is paid out to you and those who've voted on your post. You get 75%, half in SP, half in Steem Dollars. The Upvoters split 25% according to when they voted and their SP.

The SP is automatically powered up into your account. If you wish to withdraw it, you can, at 1/12 of your steem per week, for 12 weeks. The Steem Dollars, or SBD are liquid. You can choose to power them up to steem, over three days, or use them to buy within the steem eco system, or cash them out into fiat currency, such as dollars, and spend them.

That's about as basic an explanation as I can give of steem and how it works. Read the blue paper, if you want more.

Okay, glad that's over

That's the nickel tour. I'm sure most of you had figured all that out already.

So, why are we here?

I know all of you have your own reasons. Some want to share a passion, some want to make money, others want to learn about crypto. Those are all great, but they all require one thing, an audience. Upvotes, views, resteems, and comments are the real currency of Steemit. Without an audience, you can't do any of the things you hope to do.

Here on steemit, we call our audience members "followers"

So, how do you get them?

On Steemit, there's no "friending" or groups, or circles. We follow and have followers. You can follow any profile that hasn't muted you. But, you don't know much about these people. And, on Steemit, you might be trusting that person with thousands of dollars, or even more!

High stakes social media!

So how do you know who to trust?

You don't. Plain and simple, you cannot tell anything from an online profile. Sure, they may have added a dozen identity proof photos, but what does that really mean? Not much.

So, here's what I suggest, instead.

First of all, don't trust anybody. Here's what I mean

• Only send SBD or Steem, to recognized exchanges, or in amounts you are prepared to lose
• Do not give your login information, or keys to anyone, except in an appropriate dialog box, on a known site
• Don't answer too many personal questions, trust your instincts

Instead, I consider the people that interact and support my work as my friends

So, how do I find this out? Simple, go through every vote and comment and find their names. You could be there for days if you just started to do that. Stop. There's an easier way!

If you are new to steemit, I'm about to give you the keys to the kingdom!

In the top right corner of your steemit dashboard there is a button. It looks like three horizontal bars. Click it. Inside you'll find the "main menu"

There are several options in here, look for the one marked "Steemit App Center" and click it.

This takes you to a site called Steem Tools

Steem tools is a collection of apps built by steem developers for use on the steem blockchain. Many of them give you great peeks behind the curtain of steemit! So, after we're done here, scope these out. Seriously, some fun stuff in here.

Find the app called Upvoters

I'd tell you where to find it, but Steem Tools is an organic listing, so it moves around from time to time. Type UpVoters into the search bar. Once you find it, click on it.

On the site input your steem screen name in the user box in the top right corner. Next, input a number of posts you'd like to examine. It starts with 5.

Below you'll find all of the steem accounts that have voted for you, with some stats

First, you'll find the number of times each account has voted for you, out of the number of posts you selected. Then, there are three stats.

1. The average Steem power used in voting
2. The total SBD you earned from their votes
3. The total weight of their combined votes and SBD

To me, this is the best method of finding your true supporters. And it may surprise you. I have people that upvote every single post I write! Those who upvote me regularly, I consider in my inner circle, I spend time cultivating those relationships. So, if you want to get close to me, upvote me!

To find good potential followers, you can use this tool.

While a lot of it is Spam, I love the Facebook friends suggestion feature. It puts me in touch with people who are in touch with other people I already know, or at least am acquainted with. It's great.

Steemit is sadly short on such features.

When it comes to social interaction, it mostly seems to happen on steem chat, or in discord groups, away from the hustle and bustle of the blog feed on steemit and I think this is unfortunate.

But, don't despair, there is a way to find people who might be interested in supporting your work. Here's how.

First, you need to determine who you're looking for!

Who is your ideal fan? I've thought about this one a little, and here's what I've come up with!

1. They like to read, upvote and comment on fiction!
2. They have a presence on the site, good reputation score, at least minimal steem power, but likely not a whale (too much competition for their votes)
3. They are active on the site on a regular basis
4. They blog themselves, which is where we will interact with them

There is a method for catching them without blog posts, I'll explain it in a minute. It's not as easy.

So, how do I find these people?

That's a great question! I'm going to explain a few methods here and you can choose.

First, you have to scout tags! (categories)

In case you don't know, go to the hamburger menu, select "Explore"

For me, this one is pretty easy to define.

• Fiction
• Writing
• Story
• Humor

These four are a good starting place. For example, if you are nature photographer, try

• photography (duh)
• Art
• Nature
• Inspiration

If you look through all of the tags and explore them a bit, you can find three or four that will fit the work you want to add to the steemit blogosphere.

**Next, spam the hell out of every top earner in the category.

NO DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES EVER DO THIS!

I'm joking, you've got to handle this correctly. NO SPAM! Are you ready?

1. First, make sure you've got a recent post up that represents what you want to do on Steemit. Not a rant (unless that's your thing) or a one off, one of your regular posts at the top of your blog.
2. Next, go to the "Hot" posts in that category. Ignore trending for now, we'll get to that later. (too much competition)
3. Grab a post and click over to the author's blog
4. Plug the account into UpVoters, like you did for yourself.
5. From here, you can determine who their big supporters are
6. Make friends with the big supporters.

That's sounds easy, right? Well here are some suggestions on how to go about that.

• Click on the supporters avatar on UpVoters and go to their blog
• Scan their posts. If they have good posts you want to support, upvote and comment, consider resteeming.
• Then, find the "comments" link in the nav bar at the top of their blog and follow it
• Engage them in conversation, by responding to their comments, where it makes sense.

Remember, be friendly, positive and helpful. Ask questions to draw them out, do all the things you'd do if you wanted someone to buy from you, because, in essence, that is what you're doing.

You can also link to their content, review it, and use @ mentions in your article to coax them into responding.

Wherever you leave a comment, use the @ mention, like this, @markrmorrisjr, to leave a link to your blog, right there in the comment. You'll be surprised how many will follow it.

Instead of sending them a tip note, begging for an upvote, engage with them. Treat them as an equal, be kind and generous.

Right here, I'm going to give you some wisdom from Dale Carnegie, "You have to mean it" in his book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, he teaches the art of persuasion, his techniques, he says, won't work unless you mean it. Be genuinely interested in people.

If you don't know who Dale Carnegie is, drop what you're doing, go and get "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and read it tonight!

If you can't manage that, try the tip note, what's the best that could happen? It might work.

Is that cool or what?

So, let's get to the homework for today, ready?

First thing first, make sure you upvote and resteem this post. This is my price for taking the time to do this course.

Today's questions

It's going to be simple today. Three easy questions.

1. How many people do you currently follow?
2. How many followers do you currently have?
3. How many followers would you like to gain in the next ten days?
4. Now, share your stats. What is your beginning SP?
5. How many votes do your most successful posts get now?

So, question number three is our first goal for the course

Do you think you could add one new follower a day? Ten, twenty? fifty? Whatever you think you can do. Add to your comment, include all of the stats above, so we can track this, day to day!

Today's Action Assignment

Using one of these methods, or your favorite. I want you to find at least three ideal followers and find a way to make contact. Remember, add value, don't spam and be positive.

Today's writing assignment

Pick one of your potential followers and create a post to promote their work. You could add them to a list of favorite posts, or add it as a reference link, in context, to your blog post. Make it at least 250 words, and use at least one image for best results.

If you're not a writer, create a video and post it to Dtube.

Now, go back to their blog and leave a comment, linking to your post, and mentioning your mention of them. It works.

At the end of your post, please link to dolphin school. If you know how, create a hyperlink.

When you post your blog

1. Use the tags #dolphinschool and #markrmorrisjr as two of the five for your post. Writing is a good primary category option. This is the other part of your price of admission.
2. Come back here and leave a link to your blog in the comments.
3. If you have the bandwidth, comment on at least three or four of the other posts here, resteem and upvote if you feel it's warranted.

But, don't expect others to support you, if you DON'T support them!

I'll visit your blog and leave a comment so you'll know I was there.

I'll leave the critique of your post here, in a reply to your link comment. Okay? Any questions?

DOLPHIN SCHOOL BOOTCAMP DISMISSED!

Please take a moment to check out my fiction. I'm sharing two novels right now.

The Wishmonger

9 Seconds of Freedom

Upvotes, Resteems, Comments and Follows are Always Welcome!