Recently, after reading all the complaints about the curation reward system, I decided to investigate what is going on here to see how things are changing. Many feel the system is broken with the rich getting richer. Whales have all the SP and they self and circle vote themselves even more of the reward pool. That is the common knowledge.
I explained my findings in this article here:
The only problem with that viewpoint is that it is incorrect. Whales, as a whole, are suffering from dilution as more people sign up here and get active. This is only logical. When there were 50 accounts, they shared in all the proceeds. Now that there are 450K, those same 50 are not getting 100% of the reward pool which means others are (I know there are more than 50 whales, that is just an illustration).
So if the system is not broken, what is the solution.
Steemit operates on the premise of Post, Comment, and Upvote. These are the directions. Steemit is based upon these three actions being taken. What I am going to propose will radically alter how each of you approach's Steemit.
I do not think we need to cover the Post part of the equation. People seem to have little trouble posting anything on here. Even the first day, a new person is posting away. Where the issue lies, in my opinion, is in the expectations. Said newcomer puts up a couple posts and expects $10-$100 to roll in. This is not going to happen unless you bring a big following with you.
The second area is commenting. Steemit is awful at this. You want an example of a site that does fantastic in this area take a look at Reddit. Many threads on that site have hundreds of comments. You can read actual conversations taking place. On Steemit, it is the exact opposite. Why is that? I will answer that and tie it in momentarily.
The final piece if upvoting. I wrote a number of times how people need to use their allotted 20% of votes daily. Are you doing this? If not, have no worries, I will present the solution for that.
I read an article by @cryptoctopus yesterday that really summarized how I feel the process needs to work. It all starts with the commenting. People need to post comments. This is crucial and vital to the long-term success of Steemit. Most posts either have no comments or just a few. Steemit is a site that needs interaction and it only comes from commenting. I tell this to every new person I encounter. Forget everything else, go out and comment on articles you like.
Of course, if you comment, an upvote is most likely in order. Here is where we see the genius in what @cryptoctopus wrote. Getting an upvote and a comment from a reader is nice but it also up to the author to empower his/her followers. How is that done? By upvoting all the comments. Each person who posts an article needs to go through and upvote the comments.
Why would you do this? Simple. If you are upvoting your commenters, over time, their SP grows meaning their votes are worth more. Of course, it does not take a genius to figure out that more powerful votes mean that each time they upvote your article, you are getting more money.
Here is the article:
@cryptoctopus/the-virtuous-cycle-of-upvoting-your-comment-section
He calls it a virtuous cycle. It captures the self-serving essence we all have while having us focus upon the benefits of others. It is the atypical win-win situation.
In looking through his posts, I noticed that he does not just randomly upvote everything. He upvotes quality content. There are many vote scalpers out there who will posts the usual "great post, thanks". Those get omitted. He looks for quality content. @zer0hedge, another blog I follow, does the same thing. While he will upvote every comment, he will really reward the ones that people put effort into. Of late, I started to do the same thing as these two.
What is interesting is that in looking through the comment sections on these two blogs, I noticed that many people started upvoting each other's comments. On a few of the posts, I saw comments that had 10 or 15 votes for $12 or so. That is more than most people make on their articles. Basically, while you might not get a heavy hitter to your blog, especially when new, that is not to say that will not see a well written comment by you on another blog.
I was able to experience the benefit of this when I went and posted a comment on a particular article. A whale answered my comment which did not do anything for me financially. However, I noticed the value of one of my posts really jumped. As you can guess, said whale went to my blog, read an article and gave it an upvote. That was a pleasant (and unexpected) payoff.
It is said in marketing that you will have to contact someone 7 times before they will remember your company. The same is true here. If you comment on someone's blog, do not expect that individual to remember you from that one interaction. This is especially true when you are dealing with those who are 75 or 100 comments on each of their posts. It requires repetition. However, I am finding out it can be done.
I did not mean to turn this post into a self-help guide for success on Steemit. My goal was to keep it more general. Anyway, it works since the success of the individual on Steemit will translate into overall success for the whole.
Remember this post then next time you feel that the whales are taking an unfair portion of the pie. I can tell you that they are willing to upvote a small percentage of the VP for quality comments. If we want the percentages of the SP spread around, we all need to put ourselves out there and claim a piece of it.
If you found this article helpful and informative, please give it an upvote and a re-steem.
AND START THE PROCESS BY GIVING IT A COMMENT!!!!
Pictures from google images.