How Steemit Got Me Blogging Again (And a Plea for Help)

It's been four months since I joined Steemit, and I've blogged almost every single day since then. Prior to joining Steemit, I hadn't written a blog post since November 2017 (other than for clients). For most of last year, I wrote a blog post, at most, once a month (on my own blog). I hadn't written daily in over two years. Suddenly, I'm writing daily again. Why is that?

Image from Pixabay.
Steemit offers me a number of benefits I cannot get anywhere else, even on my own blogs. Here's a rundown of several benefits the Steemit social media platform offers a professional writer like myself:

Instant feedback on my blog posts - I can't tell you how many times I've written an outstanding blog post on one of my web properties (I currently own three though I've had plenty more over the years) only to hear crickets for days on end. Even after sharing my posts to every social media channel where I have a presence (and there are plenty), I've had my best #writing completely ignored. Sure, I get a few likes on Facebook and some retweets, but I've had very few actual comments on my blog posts. On Steemit, this seldom happens. I get comments on almost every single blog post, and they're great comments that let me know what readers actually think about the content that I post.
An opportunity to monetize my content -

Image from Pixabay.
For most of my life, I've dreamed of being able to write a #poem or a short story, get it published, and be paid for my efforts. While this has happened on occasion, it's been sporadic. At 52, I have realized that much of my writing career has been in the hands of a few gate keepers who decide what is quality and what is not, what deserves to be read and what does not, and what should be published and what should not. While I see the benefits of this type of centralization, I also realize it has been a hindrance to many a great writer--including myself. On Steemit, I can publish a post and judge its merit by how many upvotes it gets and the value of those upvotes. Because every Steemit member can decide whether to give a full upvote or a partial upvote, and reward a post by choosing the percentage of upvote (which represents specific monetary units on the Steem blockchain), this decentralized gate keeping model means that my work is judged appropriately by the market and not by one editorial judge even though that judge may have a very keen eye. Granted, while my current rewards are humble, I can see the day when, through persistent and consistent production, those rewards could be well enough to sustain a decent income from writing about topics I care about while building my own publishing platform.
A community of like-minded authors - Steemit has forced me to improve my social networking skills. Writers on Steemit care deeply about plagiarism, quality writing, spam, and traditional ideas related to Web publishing. While other social media platforms give lip service to fighting plagiarism and spam, Steemit handles this commitment by putting it in the hands of the community itself rather than the aforementioned gate keepers, as opposed to how Facebook and YouTube, for instance, handle it. As a result, Steemit bloggers are more supportive of each other, more encouraging, and understand that what you mete out in the social circles of the platform come back to you in those same circles. Over all, it improves user behavior and leads to better relationships.
Focus - Where other social media platforms are designed primarily for socializing, something I'm not very good at, the focus is typically on frivolous activity that doesn't add much value to the platform itself. That's why you see so many cat photos on Facebook with 1,000 likes and silly memes that simply share the creator's prejudices allowing her to draw others with those same prejudices to herself for a meaningless discussion on why X is superior to Y. While such discussions may happen on Steemit, they aren't forced upon me by some mysterious algorithm. Instead, I can see the fruits of my labor in an increasing reputation score and know that as my reputation score increases my monetary rewards get bigger. This allows me to focus on the goal of improving my Steemit writing and social networking skills.
Diversity of content - One of the difficulties of social media in general is the level of segmentation necessary to keep all of your friends, fans, and followers happy enough to keep following you. Blogging, too, has this limitation. As a writer, I have varied interests. Not all of my fans, friends, and followers share every single interest with me. Therefore, it's difficult to maintain a diversity of relationships through the diversity of content that I like to produce on any of the social media sites I frequent, except Steemit. For instance, Taylored Content is my business blog, so I write only content that is related to and helpful for my audience of fintech and blockchain/crypto businesses in the market for content marketing. I also share that content freely on LinkedIn. But I seldom publish fiction or poetry on those channels. By contrast, my Facebook connections are primarily other writers and family. Therefore, I seldom share business-related content through that channel. Sure, Facebook and LinkedIn have groups, and I use them, but content on my personal feed on those sites I try to make relevant to the audience I have attracted through those channels. On Steemit, the content I publish is not an intrusion to anyone. Users have a feed, and if they want to read what I have written, they can check their feeds. Even links I share in the several Discord servers I'm a part of must be clicked on in order for someone to read the content, giving each of my fans a choice in whether to read a story, a poem, or a business-related content piece I've written. I consider this a benefit of the platform itself.

So these are just a few of the benefits of Steemit, for me. I estimate that I have written over 10,000 blog posts since 2006. Most of those were ghostwriting for clients, but I've also done my fair share of bylined writing. In all that time, I have not seen a social media platform conducive to the type of writing that I like to do--both for myself and for clients--and that allows me to monetize said writing with any real degree of measurement and reward. It's safe to say that I have fallen in love with Steemit.

Now, Steemians, I Need Your Help!

Having confirmed my love and commitment to Steemit, I'd like to ask for your help. I've spent the last four months learning about the platform, joining communities, and looking at my own upward progress, but I'd like to give something back. I'd like to be a larger contributor and engage in projects that are worthwhile and benefit other Steemians as well as promote the platform. I believe that doing this will in turn benefit me, which will allow me to give even more to the platform and to others.

In other words, I'm asking you to marry me. Not in a literal sense, but all of you collectively in a figurative sense. I want to take this relationship to the next level; go deeper, if you will.

To do that well, I need your feedback.

I'm looking for ways to be a bigger contributor overall to Steemit and be more helpful other Steemians. Here are some ideas I've come up with based on my skills and my interests. What I'd like you to do is, in the comments of this post, let me know which of these options you'd like me to pursue. Just to be clear, I'm not asking you to let me know which ones I'd be best at. Rather, I want you to let me know which ones you'd like to see me pursue and/or which ones you think would be most helpful or beneficial to Steemit and the community.

I hope it's clear what I'm asking. Here's an outline of some of my ideas.

Soliciting delegations - I have an opportunity with a growing curation account to solicit delegations for them in exchange for a percentage of profits. Sales, of course, is not my primary skill, but I have done it. If you want to know more about this potential delegation opportunity, let me know in the comments.
Delegating to causes - Now that I have over 200 SP, I'm beginning to take an interest in delegating. I'd like to delegate 10% of my SP, which currently is edging up to 250, to a cause or two. If you like this idea, please let me know in the comments and tell me what causes I should support.
Fiction/poetry writing contests - Some of my most popular posts to date have been fiction and #poetry. If I did this, I'd want to do so in a manner that is different than everyone else. For fiction, for instance, I could host speculative fiction contests. The #spec-fic genre includes science fiction, fantasy, horror, weird literature, alternative history, the punk genres, and such. I have not considered what a poetry #contest would look like, but my poetry tends to be more mainstream literary. If you favor this idea, let me know, and also let me know if you'd delegate or contribute SP to increase my voting power and rewards for the winners.
Promo-steem ambassador - I'm contemplating submitting an application to become a promo-steem ambassador. If you think I should, let me know.
Steemit tutor - Being sold on Steemit for authors, I could leverage Facebook and Twitter to invite other writers to Steemit and coach them on best practices. I'm not sure how I'd structure this just yet, but the majority of my Facebook followers are fellow writers and poets, and many of my Twitter followers are, as well. This would be a lot of work, but enjoyable.

Image from Pixabay.

Steemit reviewer - With this idea, I would write about causes, businesses, or whatever, in exchange for SBD, but would offer rebates up to 100% on posts that earn rewards over and above the cost. For instance, someone wants to promote their #business, or a book they wrote, or their new bidbot, they send me 25 SBD and I write about it. If the post earns 30 SBD in rewards, I send 5 SBD back to the "client." If it earns 50 SBD, I send 25 SBD back to the client. These may or may not be actual numbers, but this is the gist of the idea.
Small online business recruiter - Small online businesses often can't afford to pay for marketing and content services like mine. However, they're the ones who need it the most. Under this scenario, I'm thinking of a separate Steemit account where small businesses hold a portion of Steem Power that would be used to upvote content I write about their businesses.
Steemit literary arts journal - I envision a Steemit literary journal. Not just a curation trail, but an actual journal. Steemians could submit their #fiction and poetry much the same way Steem Monsters takes submissions for their contests, but I'd also take off-chain submissions from other writers to include in the journal. I know of many places online to put calls out for submissions, so this could be a way to attract new authors to the platform.
Decentralized literary arts journal - I'm not sure how this would look yet, but it would require cooperation from other literary-loving Steemians. Similar to the Steemit literary journal, except this version would include each co-operator to act as editor of a section of the journal with each contributing to the overall success and promotion of the journal.

Some of these ideas would require a lot more work than others. But I think they all have some merit. What I'd like you to do is give me your honest input about these ideas and let me know which ones you'd be most excited about seeing. Again, I'm not asking you tell me what you think I'd be good at, but which of these ideas gets you most excited.

Thank you in advance for your help. I look forward to interacting with you in the comments to hash out these ideas more in full.