Yes, I know that I just did my 400 follower post last week, but now I have 100 more, so here we go!

Since I have already done some excellent posts on gaining followers and how (not) to commit steemicide, I thought that I should share a little more insight into the steemit system.

THOSE PREVIOUS POSTS ARE LINKED HERE, TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR YOU TO CHECK THEM OUT NEXT, AFTER YOU ARE DONE WITH THIS ONE:

400 Followers - Advice on How to Gain Some More

How (not) to Commit STEEMICIDE

Though I do not subscribe to the mentality that steemit is a scam, it has at times been referred to as a lottery. There certainly are many similarities, and perhaps viewing the platform from that angle may provide some seriously game-changing insight on how to proceed on this site.

Let's face it, one of the goals on steemit, just like one of the goals when playing the lottery, is to make some money. If you'd like a little insight into how to maximize your potential on steemit for that result, this may help.

YOU NEED LOTTERY TICKETS

You cannot win the lottery if you do not have a ticket.

Plain and simple, that is a fact. In real life, you’ll have to get a lottery ticket in order to have a chance at winning the lottery, usually by purchasing one. Thankfully, on steemit, you do not need to buy a ticket.

“Lottery Tickets” generally come in five forms on steemit. Just like a real lottery ticket, each lottery ticket on steemit has the potential to get you a payout, and sometimes, it can be a big one! Of the five kinds of lottery tickets on steemit, one definitely has better odds than the other kinds, so I’ll start with that kind of “ticket.”

STEEMIT LOTTERY TICKET TYPE 1 – POSTS

The first kind of lottery ticket that you can get on steemit is a post.

A post on steemit is a lottery ticket because it enters you in the “lottery” on steemit. Once you make a post, you have a chance at getting paid for that post. You have no guarantee of anything, for such is the lottery, but a chance does exist for you to “win big”, or at least win something.

Now there was a time when almost any post on steemit had some pretty good odds at getting a great payout, but things have been constantly changing. Now, though any kind of post is still a valid lottery ticket, you may want to be sure that if you're going to have as many as you can, they are still the best tickets possible.

When dealing with an odds game, which the lottery is, the more chances that you have to win, the more likely that you are to win. Even though a single lottery ticket may only have a 1:1,000,000 chance of winning, if you increase the number of tickets that you have to 4, you then have a 4:1,000,000 (or 1:250,000) chance of winning. Though the odds are still not the greatest, they are four times better than they were.

I used the number four in my example for a good reason. Each user on steemit is allowed a maximum number of 4 posts in any 24 hour period. (Resteemed posts do not count, but there are also not "lottery tickets".) There are many important things to consider once this is understood.

First, I would not ever recommend making more than 4 posts within a 24 hour period, unless you are willing to risk decreased payouts. A "fine" in the form of lower payouts will be the result, and since you cannot guarantee that a well-written, time-sensitive article will get a great payout, I'd suggest waiting to post it.

Of course, just because you are allowed up to 4 posts within a 24 hour period does not mean that you have to make 4 posts in every 24 hour period. There are many reasons why having less lottery tickets may be best. If you are simply unable to come up with four original ideas every 24 hours, then I would recommend not even trying. However, some posts, like entering contests or photo posts, may be easier that attempting to write long essays or complete projects to post.

What I certainly do recommend is that you use whatever posts you actually make wisely.

Make every post count, and do not plagiarize in an attempt to "fill your quota."

The main point to understand here is that though every post may have a potential to strike a good payout, not every post will. If you fool around with putting poor posts together, you will often just be overlooked again and again. Remember, though we all have a desire to see steemit succeed and reap some sort of tangible reward for our time and investment, the whales may have all the more reason to see steemit succeed.

What then do you think that they are actually looking for?

Is the goal to just create a social media platform that is full of random, poorly-put-together posts?

Of course not! There has to be something that you actually are bringing to the table. This is why certain introduceyourself posts got such a big payout. When someone who is well-known joins the community, they are bringing something to the table. Their fame, followers, and expertise are all things that they are bringing to the table.

For most of us, we are not well-known and do not have a great amount of followers that will come after us and help build up the community. However, we all do have something to offer. If you have not yet done an introduceyourself post, or if you have and desire to do a reintroduceyourself post, think about how you are going to present yourself. In essence, you are in the business of marketing yourself at that moment.

Share why you are here, and what you plan to focus on. What skills, insight, experiences or other valuable things are you bringing with you?

If you are already past that stage, demonstrate it with your posts. Well-written original posts are what adds value to the platform. Whether or not they all get paid out accordingly does not matter. If you are only posting excellent posts, then you simply are using better lottery tickets. One good lottery ticket is a better bet than four junk lottery tickets any day. Though the four junk posts may have a greater probability in a random scenario, steemit is not entirely random, so the one good post is just more likely to succeed.

Another thought to consider here is the blockchain, and the specific blog attached to your username. Every post that you make will be recorded forever on steemit. When someone encounters you on this platform, all of your posts are there for them to explore and discover. When you have posted a high volume of junk for a long time, it presents a very different character than someone who has seriously put some effort into making decent posts. The payouts attached to the posts will eventually not matter much. It is the posts that convey the true message.

Obviously, I have a had a reasonable amount of success on steemit. From the moment that I first set foot on this platform, I was running very hard at putting out posts. At first, they were random, and some may have been lame attempts to get noticed or make a quick buck. That's the honest truth. A lot of users go through that stage at first. However, I soon realized that I would need to make some attempts at putting out great original material, if @papa-pepper was going to succeed long-term.

In the midst of putting out great material, there was still the mentality that each and every post had the potential to get a great payout. For newcomers, the more posts that you put out, the more likely you are to get noticed. Once someone notices you, what they see becomes important. You each need to find your own balance of quantity and quality. I recommend skimping on the quantity to preserve the quality.

When you show up as a nobody, you must work your way up, since you have not already done so. Please note that I used the term work here. To use posts as "good" lottery tickets with great potential, it will require work. If this sounds like something that you are not up for, then just skip to the next section, and use the other kinds of lottery tickets instead.

Personally, I treat steemit like a job, a real job. Real jobs used to be task orientated. If you got the task done correctly in a short period of time, you got X amount of dollars. If that same task took a lot longer to complete, you still got X amount of dollars. This type of labor/wage system increases efficiency and competency. The modern, "normal" way of getting paid for a job has become the "hourly" method. For each hour you work, you get X amount of dollars. If a job takes you six hours, you get X times 6 dollars for your total payout. If the same job takes you twelve hours, you now get X times 12 dollars for your total payout. Basically, you can double your money for the same amount of work as long as you are willing to waste time. I find this system lame in general, and I am glad that this is not how steemit works.

Therefore, I work hard when I can afford to, and do not post until I am ready. A half-hearted attempt at a post will never have as much potential as a stellar effort. Sure, sometimes a lesser quality post will get noticed instead, (such happens in a lottery), but you still need to maximize the use of your posts.

When you buy a Power-ball ticket, do you buy six tickets with the exact same numbers on them at once?

It sound like a strange question, but of course I have a point. In that type of lottery, you need different numbers on different tickets, otherwise you just have a stack of the same ticket, over and over again. If I am fishing and trying to catch something I may need to cast my bait in a different location, or use a different lure. If your main hobby is taxidermy and no one seems to care, try sharing about something else, in a different category. This can be more difficult to do, but it can also be worth the effort. My posts seem to be quite diverse, so I can catch a lot of attention from some different areas. Also, many whales and others have some favorite categories. If you happen to post in one of those categories, it can be like finding a better fishing hole, or picking a better lottery number.

Remember, there is a whole stream of new posts constantly flooding into the sea of steemit. The more of those posts are yours, the better your chance is to get noticed. However, if the user noticing you does not like what they see, you've not only "wasted" that post, it has had a negative effect.

Think about what you actually are bring to the table on steemit, and what you actually have to offer. Once you know that, then proceed on showing us what it is!

Try to add a benefit to the community by your presence here, perhaps it will pay off!

Many of the well-paid authors on steemit now post once a day or less. This is because they have already built a following and have gotten noticed. Until you progress to that level, you may want to post more frequently if you are able, and get noticed sooner.

STEEMIT LOTTERY TICKET TYPE 2 - COMMENTS

The second kind of lottery ticket that you can get on steemit is a comment.

Of course comments are not as likely to get the same payout that a post can get, but sometimes, you'd be surprised. I have personally had a comment payout just under $20. Not too bad for a few simple words, huh? I have even seen one user get multiple payouts for multiple comments on the same post that were both in the hundreds. Yep, it happened.

More recently, I saw that I got a payout of more than $1 for a comment on a post that only made a few cents. It seems strange and wrong, but it can happen, so technically, a comment is a valid "lottery ticket" on steemit, and you have no restriction on the amount of them that you can get.

If you seriously plan to use your option to comment on posts as a way to get more "lottery tickets", then please allow me the opportunity to offer some advice. If you poke around on steemit a little and observe the posts where comments actually paid out and make a bit, perhaps even a few bucks each on a single post, you will see that often, those comments were on posts from highly visible users.

If a whale, or a user who often has high paying posts, has put out multiple posts where the first few comments have gotten some nice payouts, you are reasonable to assume that it may happen again. It seems that each user has the option to upvote any comment with the same power as they can upvote any post.

If I upvote a post of yours at full strength, it'll go up $0.01, just because of my single vote. If more users have already voted on it, it may jump up by a greater amount, but my full-power upvote on its own is worth a cent. The same is true of comments. If I decide to upvote a comment at full strength, it will be worth a cent as well. The higher a users upvote is worth on a post, the higher a users upvote is worth on a comment.

If the users vote is worth $1.58, then you have the opportunity to earn $1.58 just for leaving a comment on their post, if they choose it upvote it at full strength.

Please be aware though, many users will choose not to vote with as power on a comment as they do on a post. Personally, I try to vote on a lot of posts each day, and try to help out as many users as I can by doing so, without completely depleting my voting power. Since your posts have a greater potential to earn more than your comments, you will see that I am way more likely to upvote your posts at full power than your comments.

I usually choose to upvote most comments at 1%, because I try to respond to every comment that I get. If a post like this ends up with 100 comments on it, about half will be mine. The upvoting of the comments allows me to have a visual verification that I have read it and replied to it. I have noticed that some other users appear to be doing the same thing.

Some people may not like this approach, but you should understand. If I upvote every comment to my posts that I actually like (and I like a lot of them) I could completely deplete all my voting power just by upvoting comments on my own posts. That would leave no power to vote on your posts with. Though a 100% upvote from @papa-pepper would register on your incoming vote log on https://steemstats.com it would not really affect your post payout as much as a real vote from me at 100%. I hope this makes sense.

Since your posts are more likely to have multiple upvotes, my vote is likely to affect its payout a lot more that it would the payout for your comment.

Of course, not all users vote on comments this way. Some may not upvote any comment, unless they really like it. Check some posts out, many will have no replies with any votes on them. Others may just have a few. If you actually want to attempt to make some real money by using your comments as steemit lottery tickets, commenting on these posts will not help you much. The probability of success on these types of posts are very low.

However, comments on high paying posts from whales or well-known users has a greater potential for success. In order to make your comment have the greatest opportunity to pick up some steem, here are a few things to remember.

Comment on posts from authors who have been known to have excellent payouts.
Comment on them early, within the first 1/2 hour of posting if you can.
Make sure that your comment is well-written, well thought-out, and valid.
Commenting on posts that pose new ideas or that request help "brainstorming" are good options.

The reason to comment on posts from authors who have been known to get great payouts is twofold. For one, a user will not get an excellent payout on a post without getting votes from whales. If multiple whales are upvoting their posts, this means that multiple whales may notice your comment, giving it a better possibility of getting an upvote from one of them. Secondly, more users are likely to vote on the post. If a post will get 400 upvotes before is pays out, that means that 400 users have the opportunity to see your comment and perhaps choose to upvote it as well.

But commenting early, within the first half hour, it gives you the most exposure time. If a post has already made a few dollars, or even many dollars within a short period of time and your comment was the first one on the post, every user who upvotes it from the bottom of the post can see your comment. Of course, many users may upvote posts, especially this particular kind of post that I am talking about, without actually opening the post or reading it, so that type of upvoter will never have any chance to see your comment. For those who do read first and then vote, a well-written comment left early has a good potential to perhaps gain a few votes.

One more piece of advice is that if multiple comments have already been left by the time you comment, but none of them have any upvotes, you have the power to bump yours to the top of the list just by giving it a vote yourself. This may seem like a crafty way to attempt to solicit a vote, and it is. I am not making any moral or other judgement on it, I am just stating that if your goal is to make your comments the best lottery ticket that it can be, this method is an option. Some users use this method, and you may choose to as well.

A comment on a post that is poorly written or does not actually pertain to the post will not help you though. If you are going to attempt to leave a great comment in an attempt to get a great payout, then you may need to read the post first!

If a post poses a new idea or a concept that is cutting edge or controversial, providing some tangible suggestions or adding some applicable information in a comment is a great way to have more potential with your reply. Also, if the goal of the post is problem solving, your comment could do quite well if it actually solves the problem.

Above all, don't be "that guy" who just leaves a lame comment on every post attempting to get paid. People will most likely notice, and it may not work. Sometimes when a see a manufactured, mass-produced comment on my posts, I'll ask a question, like, "Really? What was your favorite part?" Often, I will get no reply. Whether the user was trying to get an upvote, a follower, or engage me, it doesn't work when I receive no reply.

Hopefully this has provided you with some insight into how to potentially get paid with a comment.

STEEMIT LOTTERY TICKET TYPE 3 - UPVOTE

The third kind of lottery ticket that you can get on steemit is an upvote.

Although the amount of full power upvotes that you have is limited, you can still do a lot of voting, especially if you have a slider bar to determine what % you want to vote at. Every time that you vote on a post or a comment, you not only have the opportunity to get the author paid a little more, but you also have the opportunity to get a piece of the payout pie.

As most of us have already noticed that when a post pays out, about 25% of the total payout goes to those who upvoted that article and about 75% is paid out to the author. Those who upvote a comment or article are the curators. Therefore, the name of the game is "curation."

Curation is the type of steemit lottery ticket that I have the least amount of familiarity with, so I will simply scratch the surface here. Many of you already know way more about how it works than I do, and, for the rest of you, this can either be used to just expose you to the concept or be used to inspire your own investigation and research into the matter.

Since the total payout of a post will pay a portion to the curators, you now have an opportunity to get paid without needing to make posts or comments. If you are a little short on words, this becomes and awesome option. Bear in mind that the more popular posts with larger payouts are the posts that will have more to share with the curators.

How then do you decided on what to upvote?

If the goal of your upvoting strategy is solely to make money doing it, this is the best plan that I can come up with.

Only follow whales and authors that get consistently excellent payouts.
Check your feed often and vote within the fist half hour on every post that you can.

Yep, that's about it. Technically, if you voted around the 30 minute mark on an unnoticed post that got excellent exposure and upvotes late, you would have a bigger "piece of the pie", but such is difficult. I prefer to use my upvotes differently than this, but my personal goal with voting is not to attempt to make as much as I can by doing it.

That is my choice, and I have made it, but your choice may be different.

To find out who the authors are with consistently high payouts, just find some posts on the subject. Many users are crunching data to determine all sorts of things, so hashtag "steemstats" is a great option for where to look for this type of information.

STEEMIT LOTTERY TICKET TYPE 4 - CONTESTS

The fourth kind of lottery ticket that you can get on steemit is a contest entry.

Entering a contest is a great way to get another lottery ticket. While the previously mentioned tickets each have varying payouts, a contest can have either. Some, like my Scar Story Contest, are funded by the post payouts, so the final prizes are always a mystery. Other contests, like the Steemit Photo Challenge run by @jamtaylor, have set payouts.

When you see a post for a contest that has $150 for first place, $100 for second place, and $50 for third place, you now have a "lottery" on your hands. The only way to get a lottery ticket for this lottery is to enter it.

I have made some great money just by entering contests. One of the most recent was a $10 win for guessing a random number. These types of contests are easy for any one to enter. Others, may be more difficult. Either way, you cannot win if you do not enter, so get some lottery tickets by entering some contests.

Though many contest are subjective since the one running the contest has to determine the "best" entry, they can still be a great time, and they are definitely a opportunity for you to win, if you enter.

I consider entries to contests to be a double ticket, because they have the opportunity to "win the lottery" as both a post and an entry. Recently, @meesterboom had a $200+ entry post to my Tattoo Story Contest and @matthewtiii had a $200+ entry post for my Papa-peppers Super Hot Pepper Challenge. It is highly unlikely that @meesterboom will win more in the contest than he got paid for his entry to it, even if he takes first place. As for @matthewtiii, his $200+ entry post was for a chance to win 10 STEEM Tokens. How well did that work out for him.

I hope that you can realize what a great opportunity entering a contest "lottery" can be.

Look in tags like "contest", "challenge" or "competition" for some great opportunities to enter some excellent contests. Like the lottery, you can't win if you don't enter.

STEEMIT LOTTERY TICKET TYPE 5 - BOUNTIES

The fifth kind of lottery ticket that you can get on steemit is a bounty.

A bounty is a little bit more difficult, but the payouts can be huge. Many users are offering bounties for various things. Some are simply to help with a certain task, while others can require a great deal of programming skill. They can be as simple as creating a logo.

Like other "lotteries" you need a ticket to win, and if you don't try, you absolutely cannot win. Many may be "way out of your league," which is fine, but others may be right up your alley.

Check the "bounty" tag and see if there are any that you could win.

CLOSER

Obviously, that was a lot of information to take in, but you can always re-read what you want to later. My goal here was to encourage all users, but especially those who may not realize all these options. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, there is a draw to steemit that includes actually earning something for your time here. That may be why most of us showed up on this platform in the hopes of getting paid, one way or another. Some of us have succeeded in various ways, while others are still struggling.

It is the freedom of each and every user to determine exactly what they are going to try to get out of their time here, but if earning something is one of your goals, the insight provided above may help.

If you are one of the 509 users who have chosen to follow me or upvote my posts, I am incredibly grateful for each and every one of you. My time one steemit has been a great blessing to my family, and I appreciate all that I have been able to accomplish.

As always, I hope this post helped, and if there is anything else that I can do to help you out, please let me know.

How to Play the STEEMIT LOTTERY - 5 WAYS TO WIN! - The 500+ Follower Post from @papa-pepper