To be honest I find it very challenging yet totally engrossing, I can't remember spending so much time learning something new outside my required job for a long time. Everyday I learn something new, not only on steem but outside the blockchain as it has helped me reignite other passions I thought lost and not worth pursuing. Now I can pursue them and share my experiences and learning's with other Steemians. In turn they challenge those learning's and push me to see things from other angles, its a new fun way to learn.
The topics discussed daily here never cease to amaze me and the more I get involved in the community the more interesting things I find. Below are some key things I have learnt over the last month, it is by no means exhaustive as that list grows daily if not hourly at this stage.
Posting v. Commenting
Early on I found a post on the benefits of commenting on posts and some advice on upvoting people who comment on my posts to encourage engagement. I can't tell you how happy I am I did as it set me up to build a community and understand the value of comments and the necessity to do a combination of both.
I don't really check my statics all that much but after reading @whatamidoing's blog It's a great time for new users to earn SBD by leaving GOOD comments, it got me thinking about my habits and how I've gone to date. The below data is from steem.supply, a page that shows what the expected payouts will be for comments & posts, along with heaps of other great information.
As you can see, majority of my #steem comes from comments, close to 80%, that's not because I don't post as I aim to post once a day and I generally succeed. Missing only 3 days since my intro post which was about three days after I started on #steemit. Some days I spend commenting more than others, it depends on what flows through my feed and how much time I have.
HINT: Make sure you interact with your community and respond to comments posted on your posts as many curators are looking for engagement and its the best way to gain followers and potential upvotes.
Community Building
Building relationships in any environment is key and steemit is no different. There are many ways to do this and I have already listed some above but one I have found to be more personal is within the external community's that have flourished from steemit. I am talking about the Discord and Steemit.Chat rooms. Its relatively easy to sign up and from there easy to join the rooms, keep an eye out on posts for links to associated rooms. Most rooms have an associated steem account. One of my favorite interactive groups ATM is @thesteemengine. They only started 11 days ago and have great traction on steemit and fantastic interaction on their Discord server. Check out this post to find out how to get on the train.
Voting Power
I wrote a post about this the minute I figured it out as its a key difference between other social media sites and steemit. Steem & Voting Power, how not to waste it. There is a limited amount of voting power, in the beginning you can vote 10 times every 24 hours without diminishing it too much, more than that and your vote reduces in value until its worth zero steem.
Note that it may still help peoples self-esteem to see an upvote regardless of the value associated with it, so I'm not telling you not to upvote, just to be aware that there is such a thing as voting power.
There are loads of associated places you can find your voting power. We originally found ours at steemnow, again a page that shows a heap of great information. I am to keep my voting power between 80% and 90% but as you can see for below sometimes I fail at that, its very hard keeping to 10 upvotes a day with so much great comment to interact with. I struggle reading posts and not being able to reward them for there great effort.
Like I said this is far from an exhaustive list, it's simply some keys things I found valuable and that have helped me hit my goals of getting to 100 followers and 100 SP within a month, both of which I achieved, hence my survived and thrived title above.
There are many that have done better and many that have done worse but that is of no consequence to me, I will continue to engage, upvote and support those who deliver great content to the blockchain and I will continue to invest in the forum because I believe it worth my time and effort. Steem is a huge ocean and I am only just dipping my toes in the water. So many have helped me learn and I believe in paying it forward so I hope these musings for lack of a better word help you grow and I look forward to seeing your posts in the future.
A shout out and thanks to everyone that has upvoted, resteeem, commented, replied and engaged with me over the last month. You have taught me lots and I look forward to continuing to get to know you all better and learning more each day.
Happy steeming and don't forget to pay it forward by sharing your knowledge!
Below is a list of some of the amazing steemians that have helped me along the way, I apologise if I have left anyone off the list.
@shai-hulud @gogogadgetupvote @taskmaster4450 @khaleelkazi @hitmeasap @galenkp @tarazkp @nolnocluap @mejustandrew @acidyo @ethandsmith @ocd @mikepm74 @whatamidoing @arbitrarykitten @thesteemengine @anomadsoul @choogirl @curie @firepower @fulltimegeek @howtostartablog @steenbusiness @teamaustralia @themarkymark