Respond To Comments And Interact With Your Readers.
This is usually the basics for any blogger, professional marketer or friend you have. Steemit is different in many ways and also makes our approach and habits different compared to other social medias.
While we have several established Steemians who're still trying to respond and upvote all or several comments each time they publish a new article, we also have authors who never or very rarely upvote or respond to their readers.
The question is; Why?
Are some people so desperate so they're trying to earn money on Steemit by neglecting all their readers so they can focus on their rewards?
Come on...
That won't work. Your readers are the most important asset you have on Steemit. Even if you currently have support from whales or dolphins.
A dolphin or a whale are similar to other users in their voting habits. They upvote what they believe in, care about or upvote articles they believe deserve rewards. For some reason. Just like any other minnow or Steemian does.
If you don't interact with people at all, you're also not likely to be rewarded at all. Which means, no support from whales or dolphins to begin with.
That being said...
I do know that some established Steemians are trying to upvote comments and respond often, but they miss out on multiple comments due to their lack of time. It's basically impossible for some Steemians to spend 2 hours responding to all their comments they got on their article yesterday and write a new article today.
One solution for this would be to not publish a new article before they've replied to all their readers comments. But that would also mean less earnings as they won't be able to earn anything from the article they where supposed to publish but couldn't.
However, this could help them to build their following even further instead... Which would give them a chance to reap the rewards in the near future instead.
Anyhow, many authors aren't looking for future earnings. They aren't looking at the "bigger picture" so to speak. They want as much as possible as quickly as possible, which basically means that they're trying to publish new content as often as they can, to build their following during the same time they reap the rewards from the upvotes they get now. - And that's perfectly fine and this is the approach many authors have today.
If they publish new content and are able to reply to all or most of the comments they've got, they're obviously growing their account now and for the future at the same time. - And that would not only help themselves... That would also help others.
How Can I Be So Sure About This?
In a previous post of mine called: My Votes Aren't Worth Much But I'll Stop To Upvote SHORT Comments...
@sift666 replied. Here's what he had to say:
He continued with this:
Note that he's talking about upvotes here and not authors replies to their comments. However, all of this got me thinking... And I started to look into this.
I've noticed not only established Steemians. I've noticed both new, old and also heavily invested authors who doesn't seem to bother at all. They don't bother to respond or upvote... And I can't explain why.
- What I can tell you, is that I think it's a dumb decision.
I Am Not Talking About Responding To ALL Comments At All Times...
First of all, we can't reply to each comment we get, at all times. That would be too time consuming for all of us. Some comments aren't necessary to respond to and others are spam or a simple "thank you", which isn't necessary to respond to either.
I don't require or recommend authors to respond to comments they get on their old articles. And I am far from being some sort of "saint" on this subject. I don't respond to all comments I get. I don't upvote all of them.
Especially not comments from old articles. There's no right or wrong here so everyone is allowed to do as they please... But I personally believe that authors would benefit from upvoting and responding to more of the comments overall.
Not only will that give them more followers and support in the long run. It will also encourage readers to leave comments too... And that's what we all should be striving for, as that will lead to a better experience for all of us.
Authors. Try to encourage your readers even more. A simple upvote or a comment takes you a few seconds and could have a huge impact on your future support... It will also make Steemit a better place.