If you haven’t read about this open source steem marketing project yet - check out here for all of the juicy details.
In the first chapter of “A Musician’s Guide to Steemit,” we walk potential new users through some of the most lucrative opportunities on Steemit. This acts both as a way to get people excited about Steemit and as a useful overview of the music-related organizations on our platform.
Here’s the repository for the project: https://www.penflip.com/heymattsokol/the-musicians-guide-to-steemit
NOTE: I’m sorting out some issues with Utopian right now, hoping to sort it out in the next few days. Hold off on submitting any content through there right now relating to this project - I will post an update soon.
With no further ado, here is the text to Chapter 1:
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Chapter 1: Opportunities for Musicians to Earn Money on Steemit
Soon you are going to learn how to create a Steemit account. You will place your first upvotes, leave comments and make original topics all of your own.
It’s going to be a lot of fun. You’ll start earning your first few bits of Steem right away and the income stream can slowly grow from there. In the process, you will make lots of new friends and unlock previously unidentified creativity within yourself.
Before all of that, I want to walk you through some of the biggest opportunities that exist on the Steemit platform. We will revisit each of these in more detail later on, discussing exactly how you can get involved and start earning from each one. The purpose of starting with this chapter is to help you see how big the Steem opportunity is.
Once you see the different aspects of the Steem platform that can help musicians, you’ll have all the more motivation to get started on the right foot. This is a great way to enter the Steem ecosystem with gusto.
Where Do These Opportunities Come From?
Before looking at each opportunity individually, it is a good idea to address how these projects emerge on Steem.
Steemit Inc, the parent company that handles the development and management of the steemit.com website, is not responsible for the majority of the music projects taking place on the site. Instead, these are all community initiatives started and maintained by normal Steemit members.
In fact, I’m writing this book as a voluntary task. I decided to organize the creation of a Musician’s Guide to Steemit because I wanted to help new people join our community. This book, and all of the opportunities within it, are the result of a voluntary / community-minded organization. Cool, right?
When you do end up reaching out to some of these groups, keep that in mind. Nobody is being paid a salary to operate these initiatives. It’s all about building something great for musicians, so let’s work together to make it as awesome as is possible.
Steemit Musician Opportunity 1: Steemit Open Mic Week
The Steemit Open Mic Week is one of Steem’s biggest and longest running musician initiatives. It is responsible for a ton of original music content on Steemit every single week.
The leaders of Steemit Open Mic are @luzcypher and @pfunk. The former organizes the event each week and makes all of the posts. He also distributes the rewards at the end of each week. The latter is a major sponsor for the organization and provides additional guidance and logistical help.
Here’s how it works: Each week on Monday, Luzcypher posts the new week’s Open Mic thread. He reminds Steemit of what number the week is and re-posts the rules for the group. Basically, all you have to do is create a video recording of yourself performing a song.
The song can be original (encouraged) or cover (also OK). If you don’t have any music gear, you can even record a solo vocal performance. All that matters is at the start of the video you have to say: “This is Steemit Open Mic Week Number 50.” (or whatever number it is).
Open Mic week is great because anybody can participate. All you do is make a new post with “Steemit Open Mic Week” in the title and with your video in the post.
Lots of Steem’s music influencers browse the Open Mic tag to look for new users to support. It’s how I got my start on the Steemit platform. It’s also a great way to search for other musicians to become friends with. Just watch other Open Mic performances and leave comments on the ones that you like.
By the way, there are fabulous prizes for participating in Open Mic. A panel of judges selects their favorite performances each week, with a total of 420 steem being given away each week! Everybody who performs an original song gets at least a small prize.
Open Mic is good on so many levels. The stakes are low, so everybody can participate. The pace of once per week is a good way to push yourself to keep making music. Lastly and best of all, it’s an easy opening to join the music community and make new friends on Steem. I’d recommend Open Mic as the starting point for anybody who performs with a live instrument.
Steemit Music Opportunity 2: Curie Curation Group
The Curie curation group, centralized at @curie, is one of Steem’s most influential and powerful curation groups. They offer powerful upvotes to users with a reputation of 56 or lower, with the goal being to support new users who are still adjusting to the Steem platform.
Curie was one of the first organizations to support me on Steem. I can still remember waking up to a $20 reward on one of my new posts (which would be more like $150 in today’s prices) and being so happy! As humble as it was, I had never received that much money for sharing music content on the internet before.
You can’t officially submit your content to Curie. They have a large team of curators who scour the Steemit platform for new posts to support. Each curator receives a small reward for finding a new post to upvote, so they look everywhere!
While there are no guarantees, here’s a strategy that in my opinion is quite likely to earn you some Curie upvotes in your early days of Steem. Create posts that meet all the following criteria:
(1) High Quality, Original text (500+ words with at least 3 separate sections)
(2) High Quality Imagery (Photos, or a video)
(3) High Quality Audio (iPhone Video/audio is OK - the quality can be in the performance)
if you have those three things in each of your posts, plus a good title and intro photograph, you are very likely to receive a Curie upvote within a few posts. That can be worth more than $100 today!
For example, let’s say you are a singer who plays guitar and does some electronic production. You could post a live performance of a song you enjoy, show a few photos of your production setup, and have 500 words about your process for learning new music, how this song felt to perform, etc… That would be a great post.
Of course this is a lot of effort - you’ll need to spend at least a few hours, possibly a few days, to prepare such a great post. But that’s what it takes to earn that $100 - and in the long run, you’ll get better / faster at creating this content. It always takes work, but it does get easier.
Think of Curie as a way to earn bigger rewards in the short term while developing a more fully-realized style of content to represent yourself / your brand. It’s win/win, so definitely consider aiming for Curie upvotes if you are serious about Steemit.
Steemit Music Opportunity 3: Illuminati Inc.
What is the mysterious Illuminati Inc? Lurking in the shadows of Steemit, some say they control the real wealth behind the platform. Other whispers suggests that they are the “janitors of steemit”, whatever that means.
All I know is this: Illuminati gives away up to 10 $20 upvotes on Steemit every day exclusively to music content. These votes are available for all users, no matter if you’re a new user or a long-standing Steem pro. All that matters is the quality of the content.
Illuminati’s post standards are a lot like Curie, but less extreme. For text-only posts, you should aim to have at least 400+ words and a few high quality images (either original, or at least with the source labeled). Journalists are a big target for Illuminati - if you create original record reviews that have some effort put into them, you can earn votes for sure.
With live performances, Illuminati focuses on new content. If you link to a YouTube video that was uploaded more than a week prior to the post, it is generally not eligible.
Overall Illuminati seeks to fuel the entire Steem music ecosystem with some extra vote support for all kinds of music content. Educational, journalistic, original music, covers, whatever it is, they want to help. They’re especially concerned with the kinds of content that is NOT currently supported - so for example while Open Mic and Curie both support a lot of singer-songwriters, Illuminati tries to extend that vote support to include more electronic musicians as well.
One thing is for sure - Illuminati’s mysterious power seems to be designed to help the forces of good music. They’re voting some of the raddest music, from vaporwave to free jazz to math rock and beyond.
Illuminati is a @curie subcommunity, so if you see a Curie vote on your content and you are above rep 56, that is probably what it is. The best musicians on Steem right now are earning weekly Illuminati votes - you could join that cast of characters.
Steemit Music Opportunity 4: Steemit Music League Challenge
This is Steemit’s biggest competition for electronic music producers. Each week they provide a different theme, often including audio samples to work with, and all participants are encouraged to take that and run with it by creating a fresh beat.
The beat-making culture of the internet is a huge part of the pulse of electronic music right now. What was once an obscure niche of music has turned into the backbeat of the internet, with Dilla-esque grooves lurking around every corner all over the web. SML is Steem’s place to participate in that.
As the weeks roll on, regular participants earn points and work towards earning real Steem and SBD prizes. If Open Mic isn’t your bag because you do not perform with a live instrument, this league could be a great place to go.
I do have to note that the founder of this club, @chiefmappster, has had some drama. There was a big post back in the day with audio proof that he was claiming to be a representative of the Steem Poker League (SPL), which was not true. This led to some general claims that he was a scammer.
But, I (@heymattsokol) have kept an eye on the SPL - and to be honest, I don’t see any signs of foul play. I think participating in the SPL is fine and it looks like @chiefmappster is doing a good job of running it and building up an electronic music community here on Steem.
Act with caution, but definitely check it out if you are a producer. Even if you don’t participate directly in the SML - you can use it as a place to find other producers and reach out them individually for collaborations.
Opportunities Abound on Steem
As you now see, there are many avenues to pursue serious music success on Steemit. You can share original and cover songs via Open Mic, create beats with Steemit Music League, or invest time into longform content to try and earn big Illuminati and Curie votes.
Steem is your oyster. As a musician, you may be used to having to fight and claw your way into every gig you get… but it’s different here. In a decentralized system built on abundance, you have clear and accessible paths to income.
All that’s left to do is start. In the next chapter I will walk step-by-step through the process of creating your Steemit account.
As of right now, it takes about 3-5 days for new Steemit accounts to get approved. This is to stop scammers from taking advantage of Steemit’s financial reward system. If the idea of Steem excites you, keep reading and get signed up NOW so that you can start posting by the beginning of next week.
The hype is over… time to act! I’ll see you in the next chapter.
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That’s it for Chapter 1. One down, ~6 to go. :-)
If you have feedback, please share it in the comments. All feedback is greatly appreciated, especially if you have time to read the whole chapter.
If all goes to plan, this will be done by the end of January and we can start advertising it on social media via Facebook ads in early February. So exciting!
Cheers,
