I can't believe I'm posting summary notes for Session 8! Thank you all for your support but especially @dynamicgreentk who's given me a home for these classes.
A new feature on these summary notes is the table of contents in the introduction. These notes can get quite long and difficult to navigate. Starting now you can click the links below to go to the sections you want or get a preview of the topics I cover in each session.
If you have other ideas for improvement in the class or these notes please let me know.
Rockin' the Grammar
3 things you can do to write better posts
#1: Analyze your old posts
#2: Ask for a critique or feedback on your post
#3: Read AND analyze successful people's posts
And the winners are...
Rockin' the Grammar
Last class, we had someone ask about using conjunctions, and I referred them to a Schoolhouse Rock video.
Apparently, Disney now owns the rights to those old videos since they've purchased ABC. But you can still find them online.
Readers from countries other than the US might be wondering what all the fuss is over Schoolhouse Rock. It's American pop culture for "those of us at a certain age". Starting in the 1970s, this series of 3-minute videos taught kids about government, science, math and - you guessed it - grammar during commercials on kids TV.
Besides the one I mentioned on conjunctions, they also covered:
- nouns
- verbs
- interjections
- adjective
- adverb
- pronoun
- preposition
- subject and predicate
I thought they might be useful to anyone who is learning to write in English and anyone who is a little rusty on their grammar rules. The format makes them super easy to consume and understand. The music and lyrics can get stuck in your head as well so you won't forget what you learned.
The 30 anniversary DVD is available on Amazon in the US http://a.co/5ETG7wR
But it has all the videos, not just grammar. I'm not sure if you can find it in other countries, but you should be able to tell what you're looking for from the link above.
The series is also available for purchase on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=ELwwLthb40x1A
It's nice because the videos are all on one playlist, but they cost about 50 cents per episode unless you have YouTube TV
But you can also search for them on Youtube and watch them for free, but your best bet is to search "schoolhouse rock (enter name of topic)".
So, if you wanted to learn about adverbs, search "schoolhouse rock adverbs."
Otherwise, you'll find zillions of videos and have to sort through the other topics to find the grammar ones.
3 things you can do to write better posts
The objective most of us have on Steemit is to write better posts so we can get more upvotes, get noticed by a whale and/or grow our accounts and network.
Many of my classes talk about ways you can do these things.
But I have more!
Three more to be exact (at least for this class session).
#1: Analyze your old posts
Look at the posts you've written and see if you notice differences in how they did. Are some doing better than others? How do you even measure that?
The number of upvotes is one metric, but I'd argue not the best. Many upvotes are automatic if you have followers, so they don't have to actually read what you write to give you one. Also, some upvotes are paid promotions (if you're doing that). So upvotes are something to look at but not the best - unless you get a visit from a whale but that's a different topic.
I'd argue the best indication of how your posts are doing is the number of genuine comments - not bots and not spammers. In the discussion that follows, I'm going to use the number of comments as a measure of post-performance (you can use what I'm going to share next with any metric you choose - post-payout, resteems or whatever you think is the most appropriate for your goals on steemit).
The first thing to do is identify posts that have lots of comments (assume from here on out I mean quality comments) and also pick one that doesn't have many.
What are the possible reasons for the poorly performing post?
Your content
Timing
Content
First lets look at content.
Are the topics in the well-performing posts much different than the one that didn't do well?
If they aren't, then it's time to look at the content itself. Is the "bad" one (I really don't want to call it bad but I need to call it something!) the same quality of writing? Were you rushing maybe, and it isn't as polished as you normally are? Are there more errors in the text or formatting?
Or maybe the length is not the same as the "good" ones (again, "good" is just a label for reference).
If the bad one is much shorter, or much longer, that can tell you something about your readers. Whatever you did differently for the bad post isn't what they want for length.
Now if the content topic is different than what you usually write about, that could be the reason too. Maybe no one cares about that topic. Do a search on Steemit and see if there are others writing about it. If there are, and those posts are doing well, that means your topic is ok, but maybe you need to check your tags to reach a different audience than you normally do with your followers
If no one is writing about the topic (I find that hard to believe, but could happen) then you'll need to decide if you want to keep writing about it or focus on other topics that get more attention.
If you look through all your content and you think it's the same quality, on similar subjects, and other people are doing well with those types of posts then it's time to consider timing.
TIMING
If the bad one was posted at a different time, then maybe that is the reason for the performance differences.
@dynamicgreentk and I were talking about timing last week. There are some posts on Steemit that say 1-4 or 1-7 pm Eastern US time is the best. But I think most of those were created a long time ago.
The assumption in them was that most Steemit users are in the US or Europe. I searched to find a post that broke out the geographics of current users but I didn't find anything.
But it seems to me, anecdotally at least, our Discord group has people from all over the world so I'm not willing to buy into that assumption. My best performing posts that haven't been promoted were done late at night - 12-2 am Eastern US. And that doesn't line up with those recommendations.
So I search through Steemit some more and found a post from just four days ago that had an interesting tool. Now I just found it literally an hour or two before class so I'm sharing it without having evaluated it completely. It's called Steem Activity and this is the post I found it in:
https://joticajulian.github.io/steem-activity/index.html
You type in your username, no need for a password or anything, and it will give you some information on your voting [NOTE: in class, I said this first chart reflected your posting, which was wrong].
You can have it analyze your voting over the last week or up to 4 weeks. It shows the value of the upvotes you made and what times - at least that's what I've seen described these charts mean. You can see my votes are spread out over the course of the day. I'm not voting at any one particular time.
The page itself doesn't have much explanation though. You can read more about it in this post:
Steem Activity developer's blog
Below that chart on the webpage, you'll see something a little different
The second set of charts is based on when your followers vote.
So you can use this information to try and narrow down the best time to post if you want your followers to see it.
Of course, if you're trying to make the trending page and aren't interested in the timing for your followers none of this matters. You're basically down to trial and error in that case.
But this tool is something to look at.
During the class, we were privileged to have @josephsavage offer some advice about the tool and timing.
He said that "if you have a lot of followers, it will smooth out, but it makes sense to post when more of your followers are online to have a better chance of them actually seeing your post. Especially while you're small; your followers may be following many more people than how many followers you have."
He also added that some voting is done "around the clock" like @steembasicincome which can also throw off the patterns too.
His final suggestion was "you don't want to set a post for while you're sleeping, for example, because there are advantages to responding to comments quickly (especially when your post is fresh). If you build relationships with your commenters, they are much more likely to keep upvoting your posts later (or even put you on an auto-voter)."
I think it is still worth comparing post-performance though using timing as one of the measures. Just to start learning what works best for you, since this is such an individual platform.
So all of that was just the first thing to look at when trying to figure out what posts work well and which ones don't do as well. The next thing you can try for poor-performing posts or even one you haven't posted yet but want to make sure it does well.
#2: Ask for a critique or feedback of your post
If you feel you wrote a really good post and it isn't doing well, it might be worth asking someone you respect for their opinion on it. Or if you have a post that you want to make sure is really good, you can have someone look at it first.
But if you ask for feedback, you should be prepared to hear it. The best feedback you can get is honest, which means you may not like what you hear. Asking for feedback isn't about ego boosting, it's about learning.
Depending on who you ask you'll get different feedback. It's up to you to take it and decide what to do with it.
But in general, if you get all glowing feedback - or all negative - take it with a grain of salt and ask someone else to look at it too.
One of the quotes I remember from Jack Canfield's Success Principles is about feedback. I don't think the quote is his, but that is where I remember it from. It goes something like this:
If someone calls you a horse, they're probably crazy.
If two people call you a horse, it's a conspiracy.
And if three people call you a horse, you're probably a horse.
The point is that the more feedback you get, the better position you're in to understand where you can improve.
Since a critique (and the feedback it gives you) can be harsh, painful, maybe drive you to tears....I'd recommend NOT asking for people to critique your post by commenting. Because those comments can stay there forever and are public evidence of your blood and tears. Nice people too, probably won't be honest in those situations, because they don't want to hurt your feelings publically.
But if you're ok with that, then, by all means, do ask for it.
The first piece of fiction I posted to Steemit I said it was ok to leave me feedback. The thought of it still makes me nervous but I got only good comments. But as nice as that was to hear, I feel there must be something I could improve.
It's also important to be clear what kind of feedback you're asking for.
Do you want just a general word usage, grammar review, format sort of thing, or a more in-depth analysis of the whole blog?
I can't speak for anyone else here, but I know I'd be happy to critique posts and provide feedback via direct message - unless the person is willing to share it with the class. We're all here to support each other, so I'd bet there are others who might be willing to give a read and provide feedback too.
There are some other discords that do critiques too, but I haven't looked at their process other than to know they have a process...
I've had my work peer reviewed (copywriting work) and it can be hell, but it's good to learn from each other. And the final product is almost always better.
#3: Read AND analyze successful people's posts
You probably already follow people you like and read their work. Take a step back and look at what they are doing so you can learn from them (especially if they are successful at the metric you are using to evaluate your own posts).
Ask yourself what about their posts makes you want to read them and comment? Do they have great headlines? Great thumbnail picture, more pictures, well-formatted, a "good" length, funny, - answer whatever you find that brings you back to their posts.
Obviously, you don't want to copy what someone else is doing, but you can learn the sorts of things that work on Steemit by studying other writers.
You can incorporate what you learn into your own writing and become more successful too. And if you try to do something that works for them, but doesn't work for you then don't waste any more time on it unless you think it is really something you want to master.
All that is assuming you are commenting and reading because you like their content, not just chasing a whale or looking for followers.
And the winners are...
Finally, it's time to announce the Introduction Post contest winners!
So there were three entries into the contest, and all of them were well-written. They shared their journeys so far in life and their reasons for being on steemit. We're blessed to have you all on the platform!
Since there were three, I'm awarding a first, second, and third prize!
The winner gets 3 shares in sbi shares, second gets 2 and the third will get 1.
I appreciate how much time it takes to write a post, especially an intro post that you know a lot of people are going to read.
In third place is @kchitrah . She shared her life story -so far- and her existential battle to answer the question "Who am I?" Very cool!
In second place is @ryl. She used great formatting and pictures to tell her heartbreaking story. But through it all, you can feel her positive attitude that carries her through it.
That means first place goes to @evlachsblog !
She had an attention-grabbing headline (at least for me - my name was in it!) and did a lot of work to make header banners for her sections to make them easier to read as she shared her love of children and teaching
You're inspirations - all of you!
Here's proof of the contest winnings being transferred:
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