How You Play The Game Goes a Long Way With Steemians
Most who read my blogs know I am a pretty easy going guy who believes strongly in good karma and helping out Steemians as much as possible. Not a lot rubs me wrong honestly, learned a long time ago not to take the little stresses in life to heart much nor let anyone harsh my mellow as they say. Lately though there has been a few nagging issues with how people go about gaining their fellowship on Steemit and though I hate to bitch, today I think I want to enlighten those that might be missing the concepts of proper etiquette on how to grow and be a success with Steemit. Today I will try to tackle the key issues I see with improper tactics to grow your crowd of followers.
BEGGING FOR A FOLLOW FOR A FOLLOW IS LIKE SHOOTING YOURSELF IN THE FOOT SOMETIMES
I will admit this before I even begin putting anyone down for the constant "I Followed You So Please Follow Me Back" comments....early on I did this improper etiquette myself. This seems to be a common mistake made when your new to Steemit. To grow your followers by assuming a follow for a follow is enough is thinking small scale with such a huge crowd of users, and more coming in by the minute. Steemit is based on content, decentralization and its truly first about upping your game as a content creator to give people something they can't find anywhere else. I get it, we all start small here and would like a bit of help but that is why there are groups out there like mine @steemitbc so you can grow while you work. Begging for follows puts people off it appears here on Steemit so to be a success don't focus on numbers of followers, focus first on providing quality content so they will come in on autopilot which to me seems less work in the long run anyways.
SO YOU CONNED ME INTO A FOLLOW FOR A FOLLOW BUT AS SOON AS I ADD YOU, YOU DIP OFF MY LIST?? DAMN YOUR FOOT MUST BE BLEEDING BAD FROM THAT BULLET YOU FIRED OFF
This one burns me the most as a guy trying to entertain and inform my followers. I take a lot of hours a day to think of new and unique articles, and I spend even more time researching all information so everyone gets as much truth as possible when I begin to type out everything for my followers and for Steemit. Sometimes the upvotes are nice but having real comments hit my posts is even better because I am a social being here so when someone comes to me saying great article, chats about it and claims they will follow me...well when I go on my daily routine to sift through 20 pages of followers I am always honored to make that new bond and fellowship with that person by following them back.
Lately though, I am seeing more and more of this follow/dip off game. This is becoming a tactic to gain a follow with a common return of betrayal and deceit that has to be one of the worst etiquette breakages going around Steemit recently. As soon as I follow these guys back, within hours to minutes they dip off my follower list. This keeps happening more and more lately to myself and other users I have chatted with about this very subject.
It appears there is a crowd believing they can con people into following them by pulling this charade, but they don't actually want to follow you so they dip out after conning you into that add. Well my friends so you know, that game is long over for this guy. I have come to a conclusion to add content I enjoy and when I find these games I just unfollow for the simple fact its a bad way to gain my respect because you don't gain a thing by that impolite way of getting your numbers up. I take great pains to put my followers ahead of the crowd when I choose who to upvote, my list is huge so I have an every few day random look at my follower list to hook my supporters up with big 100% upvotes so dipping off my list honestly didn't end up doing much more for you than remind me who not to follow in the future. This to me is basic mutual respect, you want my follow and you ask in a nice way through conversation and engagement, you gain it...but if you are only blackmailing me into it thinking I don't figure out the tactic...you my friend have pulled the wool over your eyes not mine.
UPVOTE FOR UPVOTE IS ALSO NOT FAIR TO ASK OF OTHER USERS
I have also noticed a lot of new users running around to whales and half baked users like myself with a little SP to remind us that they upvoted our articles. While that is deeply appreciated and hopefully done always because you enjoyed the work put into our writings, its not a guarantee of a return right away.
Since HF19 a lot of us in the middle grounds of SP and voting power are with serious tied hands to spread around the upvotes. I have literally tanked in earnings per post honestly since HF19 which is bothersome to me but I blog on due to love for this platform. The situation though means that everyone has to be extra careful in how they upvote right now. I follow some guys I love reading from and even them I have to be limited when and if I can upvote them because I want to give them the best earnings I can share with them. So everyone needs some patience in this area right now, getting mad at others because of a direct upvote return back does not mean they used you or you betrayed them, it just means they can't or just didn't find content to be worthy of dipping down 5% more of their voting power at the moment.
This is a big area everyone I think needs to remember, there is no entitlement here for earnings. I have literally gone from $100 posts to around $1-$4 post lately and my content has not changed in any form. Its just not being spread around well I think so when you ask for an upvote for an upvote at this stage its probably making people feel bad that they have no voting power to return. Bare with people, upvote when you respect the author's work but remember its not entitled as a rule to return the favor around here unless they work that way on a personal level.
GAINING FOLLOWERS IN THE RIGHT WAY
I want to end this with positive avenues you can attempt to grow your crowd of followers. First you should consider your content and ways to up it every day you sign into Steemit. What worked yesterday may not work today so you may need to consider spicing it up or changing it up so you shock and awe your readers plus attract new ones. Second option is to not run around begging for follows but instead go to other profiles and actually engage the content creators. Make friendships, bond with like minds, and do it out of genuine care to meet other Steemians. If you engage users in the right way and keep up a relationship, its bound to happen you will gain a life long follower and that is way better than any number milestone you can get.
In the end its up to you to find your place within this great community. You can either annoy the hell out of people or be a person helping and creating great unstoppable content. Every new user has potential to be a whale here, but any whale will tell you it takes proper dedication, a bit of etiquette, and care for this community to make it long term. I wish all of you the best with Steemit, now get out there...get that game face on and make this work for you, not against you!!!
~sflaherty
⇧[this is a good place to ask for follows, below your own content]⇧
If you truly want help growing your followers, join my project Steemit Blogger Central which is a community of Steemians looking out for each other. Our SLACK is where we gather for live chats and article sharing:
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