You might have seen it already. The trend from normal social media, especially Twitter, is here on Steemit. Newbie Steemians are doing follow for follow without knowing that it doesn't work on Steemit. It is a fact that having a good number of followers is helpful in getting your message across and get upvotes. But...
- It doesn't mean that follow for follow works.
- It doesn't ensure that your followers will get, or even want to get, your message.
- It doesn't guarantee that you will end up getting more votes.
So, why does follow for follow not work on Steemit? Here are the top five reasons why you are better without the follow for follow trend.
1. Blind Following
One of the biggest Steemit mistakes people do is blind following. When you follow for follow, blind following is what you are doing. Blindly following others is destructive because it floods your feed with low quality posts.
Know who you follow. Follow quality Steemians and interact with them.
This is how blind following works.
2. Mass Following
Mass following means following huge number of people. It is different from blind following because it concerns the number of people rather than their quality. But, blind following which results from follow for follow is the ultimate culprit behind mass following.
I have seen people who follow thousands of profiles, may be in the hope to get followers back. But it not only fills your feed with crap but also those followers you get are useless.
The best followers are the ones who follow you out of liking or inspiration because you shared something which they found useful.
3. No Value Addition
When someone follows you to get a follow back (without having a look at you) , will he or she care about your blog or content? Absolutely not! Tell me honestly. Do you care about the thousands of profiles you follow just because of follow for follow?
Do you have a large number of followers who add no value to your blog or content through their detailed comments and deep interactions? Well, if you have, rethink about your strategy. Stop the follow for follow and start adding value to the platform.
Steemit rewards value addition. If a person adds no value to Steemit or you, why follow him/her?
PS: You can have a look at my comments to see how I interact with fellow Steemians.
4. Getting Useless Upvotes
Have you ever noticed the relation between the number of upvotes on your posts and the reward your posts get? I am more than sure that your rewards are nowhere near your desired level even if you get a good number of upvotes.
Why does this happen? Because the people you follow have an almost useless vote. They do not have enough reputation which means that they didn't get any rewards themselves as well. They have less or close to zero Steem Power and having no Steem Power means close to zero worth of upvote.
Even if you get a lot of upvotes, you will not get much reward because those upvotes do not have much worth.
Because you deserve it may be!
5. Repelling Good Steemians
Last but not the least, the worst consequence of "follow for follow" is that you automatically repel good Steemians. Why would @timcliff @blueorgy @aggroed @dragosroua @meesterboom @kus-knee and so many shining stars of Steemit interact with you?
PS: For God's sake, please do not send them follow for follow requests from here.
Stop the follow for follow trend. Start interacting in a valuable way and you'll find yourself in good environment on Steemit.
Conclusion
I am grateful to @dragosroua for covering the 5 stupid situations generated by Steemit growth in which he covered follow for follow at number one (and you must read and avoid the other four too)! My post is inspired by his great reasoning. I have spoken about "following" behaviors earlier but not with such detail as in this post.
This post hopes to achieve the following aims.
- Practical advice to my followers to avoid the useless practice of follow for follow.
- Educating new Steemians so that they could have a better start.
- Creating a better community by getting rid of unwanted behaviors.
- Reaching out to maximum people so that they can benefit from it (not possible without your resteems).
- Stop the "follow for follow" trend and start sensible following behaviors and practices.
I hope you liked this post. I am thankful to you for reading this and grateful for your upvotes and resteems.
