Steemit is better than ever

Higher Steem Price
It's hard not to get excited about this. It means the payout fund is more, so more money for posts, but also that the platform is gathering a bit of momentum.
7 Day Payout Window
This is a recent addition to Steemit. Before this I would generally get rewards in the first 2 hours and there would be no change after that. Now Instead of the 2 hour window there seems to be an additional period where whatever you have earned in the first 2 hours will continue to increase. I am planning some detailed analysis of this in the coming weeks.
New Users
I am seeing many new users each day and I even got a friend @bitgeek to sign up.
He didn't take much convincing when he heard about it to be honest. Is the problem with Steemit that no one knows about it? Once you get it presented to you it's a no brainer.
According to @arcange s great daily report there are hundreds of new accounts for the last few days, Steemit Statistics - 2017.05.11
Potential Users
I explained the concept to another friend who uses Instagram a lot and he is very interested. Yet another friend will be joining me on my weekly Steemit visit to Pubs in Dublin next Monday. Read my last post The Irish Pub & A Dirty Old Town...

Ok this has not happened today but this past week has left me feeling very positive. It feels like the Steem train is gathering momentum, among my friends at least. Maybe they are seeing my tweets!

Advice for New Users

Having just helped a good friend @bitgeek set up an account I wanted to share the advice I gave him based on my own sign up experience.

Choose a good user name.
I hadn't appreciated that I wouldn't be able to change it when I was signing up. If I could do it again I might have used my full name or the handle that I use on other sites, or something catchy.

Do an Introduction post.
If you put effort into introducing yourself to the community you might get a good head start.
Some whales may vote for you, and you will also get some followers. It can be hard to get noticed at the start. When introducing yourself remember, a picture can paint a thousand words. My advice would be to include a picture that gives a insight into your personality. If your a surfer include a picture of you riding a wave, or something like that.
Good intro posts generally get a big payout but at the risk of creating inflated expectations don't expect such large payouts for your initial posts. You will have to put in some work to get regular rewards.
Persevere
It can be hard to get noticed, and your first few posts may only get few votes.
I put so much effort into my first post and it only got 18 votes.
Stick at it and make some regular posts on a topic your passionate about. If you appear regularly your likely to attract followers.
Begin Marketing Your Posts
Post a link to your post on Steemit Chat. And introduce yourself there in a sentence. If you know any uses already on Steemit maybe get them to post your introduction in here.

Helpful posts to get started

Thank you for reading this. I write on Steemit about Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Travel and lots of random topics.

Images taken from https://pixabay.com/