I tend to comment more than I post on Steemit. It's not because I lack ideas for posts - I have a long list and not enough time in my day. But commenting has always been important to me, so to date, out of my 580 posts to Steemit, only 73 were posts to my profile. The rest were comments.
Why invest in comments?
In my experience, there's no lack of reasons to comment on posts by others. Having an opinion is nice, but contributing to the discussion is always nicer. And on Steemit, can turn very profitable. Here are my five top reasons to comment more than I post:
1. You get followers
No, I don't comment asking people to follow me, and I discourage (and downvote) such behavior. I do, however, tend to follow users who contribute to discussions and have something interesting to say about things I and others have published. So very often I find that my number of followers increases after I make a particularly insightful comment on a post by a popular author.
2. Comments get upvotes too
Comments make SBD and SP. Sometimes more than posts. It's easy to forget, but there's literally no difference between a comment and a post in terms of payout. This can be a wonderful oportunity for new users to gain some SP and SBD before they start posting content of their own. Just to demonstrate, here's a screenshot of my author payouts. It's not a lot, but it's money and SP nonetheless.
I also make sure to upvote useful comments same as I would posts.
3. You meet awesome people
Commenting in threads has gotten me talking on Discord with some amazing folks. Regardless of their voting power, some of them have been able to take advantage of my skills to develop some cool Steembased services like @utopian-io and @minnowbooster . On the Writer's Block Discord, I've made some really cool friends, and I hope to continue chatting and sharing ideas with them regardless of my activity on Steemit.
4. You learn stuff
Sometimes making a fool of oneself in comments is a good idea. People replying might have a solution you haven't thought about or insights you may have missed.
5. You contribute to the community
Steemit, as a platform, is not a very social one. Interaction between users is done mostly over Discord and at events (I am looking at you, Steemfest attendees, and I am green with jealousy). The only place users can interact and engage with one another on the platform are the comments. And it's sad that so few people make use of it.
Get commenting!
So let's start today. Go to your feed, and pick 3 posts to comment on that you might have something to say about. Don't just write "nice post" or "great photo". Try to give a bit more insight. In a week, check how this has contributed to your number of followers, upvotes and payouts.
And of course - tell me what you think in the comments! I might even upvote them. :)
Cover image via Pixabay, as always.
