Roaming around different communities for the past few weeks made me realize an explicit guide on how to use communities would be helpful for newbies. There are so many new things for a newbie to learn on Hive as our blockchain is not like any other social media platform out there, so today I'd like to explain you, why we need communities and how to use them.
The Purpose Of Communities
The purpose of communities is to organize topics on our blockchain. Having dedicated communities for each topic can help you find what you're looking for, without being forced to scroll through posts you're not interested in. We have general communities as well, where you can post about any topic you want.
Where To Post?
You have two options:
- You can post on your blog, which means your post wont appear in any community and will be visible to your followers only and by searching for tags.
- You can post in a community.
Getting followers is a process and takes time, so as a newbie, it is in your best interest to post in the appropriate community in order to get exposure and get followers as well.
How To Decide In Which Community To Post
This is not an easy task at first, but you'll get the hang of it in time. First you need to decide what your post is about and try to find the appropriate community, based on the community rules, but more about this later. Many times a post is not just about one topic. In that case try to see which topic takes up the majority of your post. This will help you avoid breaking community rules.
Let me give you an example. Let's say you go to the market and photograph what farmers are offering that day. In which community you think that post would fit? Well, let's see. You have photographs, product descriptions, so you can post in MarketFriday, which is a community dedicated to markets, as well as in photography communities if there are no specific requirements, like "black and white" or "macro" for example. Please note, just because your photographs have some tags, doesn't make it finance related, so please focus on the main story and not some tiny details.
How To Find Communities
We have several frontends on Hive, among which I can mention PeakD, Ecency and Hive.blog for example. Each frontent has a different layout.
screenshot of Hive.blog frontend
As you can see, each frontend has a search box and that search box will be your best friend in the near future, trust me. So let's say you want to post your music performance and don't know which community to choose.
Just type "music" in the search box or any keyword you think describes the topic of your post and you get a list as long as my arm. From here, you're on your own as you need to select which music community is the one that fits your topic.
How To Decide Which One Is The Best Community?
Each community has its own rules, so it's recommended you read the rules and act accordingly. However, apart from community rules, general blockchain rules apply too, like no plagiarism, no identity theft etc.
You may also want to check pinned posts in a community as in most cases you will find community rules and guidelines there.
Crossposting
Because we have so many communities on Hive and sometimes one topic would fit in more than one community, devs have implemented the crossposting option.
What does crossposting mean? This option makes it possible for users to (cross)post their post in another community, without doing two or more posts with the same content. You post your post in the first community, then crosspost to another community. Although there's no limit to how many communities you crosspost, please don't abuse the option. Your followers will see your post in their feed as many times as you are crossposting it. Seeing the same post three or four times in your feed can become annoying.
Also please note, rewards on crossposted posts are denied, you will only be rewarded for your original post but not for the crosspost. Last, but not least, you need to respect the rules of the communities you are crossposting to.
Cross posting from the other communities to get visibility from OCDs subscribers is okay as long as the original is posted in the appropriate community. OCD community rules
This means, regardless of the topic of your post, you can crosspost to the OCD Community to get more visibility, but only if the original post is in the appropriate community.
Read more about cross posting here -> Cross Posting And Reposting Explained, Using PeakD
Tags
Tags can have an influence on how many communities your post shows up. This means even if you post in one community, but use another community's tag, your post may show up in the community of which tag you used.
This is why tags should be relevant to the topic of your post and should not be abused. Please don't use tags that have nothing to do with the topic of your post.
The number of tags is limited to 10, but there are dapps, frontends that allow more. Regardless, it is recommended to stick to 10 and not abuse tags.
Community Frontends
Some communities have their own frontends, like:
https://leofinance.io/
https://www.proofofbrain.io/
just to name a couple. In these cases, instead of posting from PeakD, Ecency or Hive.blog, it's best to go to their frontend and post from there as they have their own community tokens as well and you may get better rewards using their frontend. Some communities are penalizing post that are not posted from their frontend, meaning you get less community tokens if you post from another frontend.
Details To Pay Attention To
Once you posted in a community, you can't move your post to another community! Don't try to edit your post and choose another community as it doesn't work that way. If you posted in the wrong community, leave it, you'll get it right next time. The most elegant way to handle the situation is to leave a comment on your post, explain what's happened and pay more attention next time.
Please don't delete any post with the purpose of reposting it to another community as that can be considered abuse! Unfortunately there are users who are doing this regularly, to get better rewards. As I said earlier, If you posted in the wrong community, leave it, you'll get it right next time.
Constant abuse of community rules and ignoring warnings from moderators can get you muted by the community admins.
Communities should be chosen based on the topic of your post and not based on the possibility of getting voted by whales or curator groups.
Most communities have a Discord server as well, joining them can help you get answers to your questions, if you have any.
I hope I covered everything you need to know about communities. If not, please leave a comment so I can answer your questions.
Happy blogging!
I really like the cross-posting feature, especially when you could also do it on other people's posts. Unfortunately the "declined payout" option makes it a no-go for most users who have autovote followers on hive.vote as it would mean you punish those supporting you with getting no curation rewards on the cross-posts, needless to say not something anyone wants. Thus I wish @peakd/ @jarvie/ @asgarth would give people an option to set beneficiaries to something else such as the DHF or @null on cross-posts.
There is of course a work around for wanting to give cross-posts, especially good usage of them more value, such as creating a new account just for that. (Think for instance an initiative where a new account of ocd would cross-post great posts they find in niche communities not in their incubation and feels not only does it deserve some more rewards but also views thus wanting to cross-post it onto the ocd community, this not only gives the post more attention but may also bring consumers to a new community they didn't know existed and would enjoy being subscribed to.)
Or also just encourage them to cross-post into ocd for curators to easier find any posts they may be missing out on from communities too small or just starting out.
Anyway for the last example it may be a bit impractical as I think cross-posting other's posts isn't possible anymore since the first iteration but my point still stands about not just declining rewards on the crosspost to punish autovoters.
Thanks for this point of view.
I'm going to write a detailed post about crossposting today as many have asked about it in comments. They don't know how to use it, so I suppose a guide would help them familiarize with it.
And let's hope the dev department is going to think about what you said here.
I'll check out for this. I guess the list should be out by now. Meanwhile, is it save for newbies to cross-post?
It doesn't matter if you're a newbie or not, what matter is to read the community rules of the community you want to cross post to, to see if it is allowed and to choose the right community, based on the topic.
Cross Posting And Reposting Explained, Using PeakD
Here's the guide on cross posting, if you're interested.
Aright. Thank you so much @erikah
My pleasure.
Looks like I've gotten myself some autodownvoters so let's burn their vp today so there's more rewards for everyone else in the pool. ^^
Yeah, I guess that's something recent as I haven't seen it till now.
Don't the rewards on cross posts filter back to the original post? Does that all to to the author without any curation rewards to the voter?
The cross-post is pretty much just an empty post with a link to the original but frontends view it as the original, @peakd started it and hive.blog embedded it as well and potentially others. That empty post has rewards declined but it still creates a post in the other community so if you have autovoters they can't differentiate if it's a real post or a cross-post so they're going to blindly vote on it and have all their returns declined, hence sending them to the DHF or null instead would fix the issue of autovoters not getting punished when an established author wants to use the cross-post feature.
So no rewards go to the original if the cross post is voted on?
Yes, peakd shows the original posts' upvote button on the cross-post as well as the full preview of the original post when you open the cross-post, but on the blockchain level the post itself is just an empty one posted on that specific community with rewards declined and usually a link to the original in the body.
Wow. Thanks for the insight. So in essence, you don't support crossposting?
We do in the OCD community but we prefer the original post to be posted in the appropriate community so they get the metrics of activity, rewards, etc.
~~~ embed:1546861806169243651 twitter metadata:aGl2ZV9kYXRhfHxodHRwczovL3R3aXR0ZXIuY29tL2hpdmVfZGF0YS9zdGF0dXMvMTU0Njg2MTgwNjE2OTI0MzY1MXw= ~~~
~~~ embed:1566095483147370498 twitter metadata:bGlzc2V0dGdvdmluODZ8fGh0dHBzOi8vdHdpdHRlci5jb20vbGlzc2V0dGdvdmluODYvc3RhdHVzLzE1NjYwOTU0ODMxNDczNzA0OTh8 ~~~
The rewards earned on this comment will go directly to the people( @steemadi, @hive-data, @documentinghive, @lisliam ) sharing the post on Twitter as long as they are registered with @poshtoken. Sign up at https://hiveposh.com.
are this guides here on peakd or only on X? I don't use twitter
Hi this was a great guide. i have a question though. how do we get good curators to curate our posts and earn better rewards?
That has to be earned and there's no guide to it. Be active, engage with other users, make quality posts, that's all I can say.
Very cool guide Erika! Just sent the link to a friend of mine who joined us here on Hive recently :) Thanks for putting this useful post together!
Thank you my friend! I did my best to cover the topic the best way I can.
It is pinned in OCD community, in case you need it for newbies. :)
Hi Erikah 😃. This is great information, very useful for when you are just getting started on Hive. Currently I think I know all these issues, but it sure took me a long time to understand almost everything. Thanks for sharing it so many newbies can start their blogs on the right foot.
I also want to thank you for suggesting the Daily Blog community to those who write content that fits there. Several users have come to this community after your recommendations for them. I really appreciate it 😘!
Greetings and have a great day ❤️.
We agree on that! It took me a while also, to figure out these things and I thought why not put together a guide for newbies to help them navigate easily.
And you're welcome 😊 I've been redirecring users towards your blog as that had been the most appropriate. I believe together we can do more 🙂
Oh so now I understand why I have seen some blogs that don't have any rewards and those are because they are being crossed posted. Thank you for this article anyway. I learned a lot from this, specially that I'm still learning and this information was added in my knowledge about how Hive communities work. I literally realize that each topic must be posted at the right community. Following and reading the rules is a must. Thank you again ☺️.
You're welcome! I'm happy it helped you :)
Very informative post! I still wasn't so sure about cross-posting as I used this feature just a couple of times but now it's clear, I guess. 😁
Thank you for putting all this info together, it is useful for everyone, not just for newbies. 😊
You're welcome and I'm happh you find it helpful 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing, it's very informative and I learnt alot. I never knew about the cross posting feature but I learnt it here. I have been using tags too but didn't know how to chose the tag relevant to the contents of my post. I was just randomly using any tag that comes to my mind. And many more new things I learnt here. I appreciate you🙏
You're welcome and I'm happy to know it helped. It is wise to pay attention to these details as once you've done something wrong in a community, you can be muted.
Let me know if you need more help and happy blogging :)
That's very true.
Alright, sure I will. Many thanks. I appreciate 🙏
This post is very informative I especially appreciate the Info about how cross-post does & doesn't work This is a very amazing article that helps to research HIVE communities
Thank you so much for sharing this Intersting post .
My pleasure. Yes, crossposting is a tricky thing not many understand :)
good information, it helped me a lot
That's great to hear. Use it as it's going to help you a lot in the future.
Good
Thank you so much for this informative newbie guide. It is truly helpful to us who are just new in Hive...Before I did a mistake of posting my blog in an inappropriate community but when I was told about which community it fits, i learn to read community rules so I would know what certain topics is allowed in a certain community.
My pleasure. It happens at the beginning, but now you know how to search for the best community and use it. It is really important to post where the content belongs as otherwise your post is going to be ignored.
Search first to see what is available, read the rules and then decide :)
Yes, it's really important. I will always keep that in mind for my future postings.
Thanks for sharing this @erikah you have really done well to explain all this into details I will surely take everything into consideration.. Kudos to you
You're welcome. I hope you're going to use the knowledge and find the best communities for your upcoming posts.
Sure I should.. and I should be careful with that also. All thanks to you.
Thank you for putting this all together, Erika! The misunderstanding of communities and how to tag properly seems to be a continuing problem, but, the learning curve is very real for the newbies and this will really point them in the right direction. I say newbies, but in fact, the information is great for all.
I want to thank you for the MarketFriday mention!
My pleasure! You know how it is, sometimes it's a misunderstanding, other times it is intentional, hoping to get better curation, which obviously not only wrong but also pointless. The post is pinned in OCD, so whenever it is needed, it can be linked in a comment to newbies.
I have used your community as I've has similar cases in the past.
Noted. Thank you. I have seen it myself and try to herd them this way when I do. Most communities have rules/guidelines and I don't understand why people don't check the instructions before deploying.
Thanks again and have a great day.
Sorry @erikah, my free time has become even more limited. I am forced to make a selection of the profiles I follow. I'm taking care of the profiles I follow badly and I've decided to follow fewer people. I am giving priority to Italians (those of the same nationality as me). I hope you understand. I apologize again for the Unfollow. When I get back to having the time I had 6 months ago, I will follow you again.
Hello @stefano.massari! Very nice of you to reach out to me and notify me. Thank you! However, don't worry about it, just do what you need to and what makes you happy.
Good luck!
thanks for understanding.
Thank you for this article. As a new bee here, I am still learning about the hive communities.
My pleasure. It's a process, it takes time, but you'll get there :)
This is useful to me too, @erikah. Thank you so much for the time and effort to educate and to share this knowledge and info with us. 😉👏
My pleasure. Keep it at hand in case you need to guide newbies. It's easier to link a post, then try to explain it every time :)
Thanks for sharing this wonderful content, it has been a little while I have been on hive but but didn’t know much not until reading this ,most especially the crossposting . I will start using the frontend community where I post from now hence forth.
You're welcome. Use it wisely as this is what is going to make or break your journey on Hive. I have another post on cross posting, a more elaborate one, here.
To break my journey on hive is all I want . so nice of you , I will check it out too. Thanks
I love it. Thanks for compiling this. Should be a great resource for newbies.!!!
You're welcome, that was the main idea, to help newbies learn.
Thank you for posting this Erika. It's very helpful to newbie and also to me who is still confused on where to post my article sometimes
My pleasure. It can seem difficult at first, but trust me, if you search the communities, read the rules and make yourself a note with the communities you like, it's going to become a habit.
To be honest you just opened my eye to an opportunity, Cross posting that sounds very interesting, I will begin to crosspost and Thanks for giving the idea of finding our right niche.
You're welcome. There are some newbie guides listed in my posts as a footer. Have a look, maybe you can find something to help you.
Where can I find it am interested?
Thanks a lot
You're welcome.
You've done a great job. There are a lot of people new to Hive right now and there will continue to be. I was actually thinking of publishing a post like this, but I don't need to now. I will reblog this post so that it reaches all the people I know. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you! As you say, there are a lot of newbies that need some guidance and it's best to explain things to them, otherwise they will not be able to evolve. Thanks for the reblog and have a nice day :)
Wow!... Fantastic post!... Very useful for recent users and even for other "not so recent" users... Excellent work @erikah friend!.... Thanks for sharing!
Thank you! I'm glad you find it useful.
Thank you for this ma'am it will help a begginer like me
You're welcome!
Been here do long and i knew i could crosspost frim a community I post to my blog but not between communities, thanks
No matter for how long we're here, we can't always know everything :) Besides, things are changing constantly, devs are working on making the platform better, there are always new developments, so it's useful to make a recap from time to time.
Thank you for this informative post @erikah I've learned a lot from this. I still have some things need to understand especially on posting to communities and through this 0ost, I able to understand as it answered my questions in my mind.
Thank you 😊
My pleasure. No worries, it can be confusing at first, but you'll get the hang of it in time and we're here to help :)
That's why I really appreciate some hivers coz they're willing to help especially newbies and you're one of them. 😊
Thank you. I still have lots of lesson to learn here. 🤗
This was such a great post for me to find. Now I can finally start to feel less and less like a Hive n00b, and more of an hiver? note to self google what a person using hive is called
Again thank you for an excellent post =)
You're welcome and I'm glad you find it helpful. There's another one coming today (hopefully) on crossposting, so stay tuned :)
Sweet, looking forward to reading it =)
I rember how much I had to learn when I was getting on board almost 5 years ago, but now the newbies have even more to figure out! You did such a great work with this guide!
Thank you! Oh God! While writing this post, I remembered how complicated the whole platform seemed back when I joined and looking back, it was 100x simpler compared to what Hive is now 😂
So I understand what newbies are going through now and that's why I want to help. After all, our blockchain is as strong as the weakest link.
Absolutely! It's even a good guide for the older people because we all learn new things daily. Keep up the great work! 😊
Thank you my dear friend 😊
This is really helpful for me who struggles in hive. I am new in the blockchain so your blog would help me a lot.Thanks @erikah
My pleasure. If you let me know what you're struggling with, maybe I can help.
It's very frustrating to be in a new environment without adequate information and guide as to how to get oneself acquainted with the environment. I'm a newbie and this is one of the best articles to help new users like me to get our feet strong. Thank you for this compass for new users to improve and succeed here on hive.
I'm glad you find it helpful. It can be difficult to learn everything at the beginning, as Hive is a very complex place, but we're here to help. This post is pinned in OCD community, so whoever needs help, you know where to get this post from :)
Also, if you have further questions, let me know as I can do more posts, to explain what newbies need to know :)
And happy blogging!
Thank you for the support services 💕🙂
My pleasure :)
This was so needed and nicely put together Erikah! I know a lot of people will benefit from this for sure. 👌🏽
I'm glad to hear that. It is pinned in OCD if you need it in the future 🙂
Great! We need to get this added to the Newbies Guide as well! Not sure if we have a community section on there yet but I’ll check. 😉
I'm sure there's a way, somehow 😏
And I'll find it 😄
Great post Erikah. It is so great when people find a need make a great informative post like this! Thanks!!
Thank you! I've been guiding newbies lately and it's difficult to explain each of them in a comment how things work and also see many have no idea, so I hope this helps.
It is great! And it is even nice for those of us that have been around a long time!
For us it's common knowledge, for them it could be life saving 😉
Helpful post! I especially appreciate the info about how cross-posting does and does not work. Cheers!
I'm glad you find it helpful as that has been my goal all along. Crossposting is not largely known and not many understand it.
Have a nice day/everything 👍
Muchísimas gracias por este gran trabajo de tanta utilidad que nos muestras.
Yo aún me encuentro algo perdida en cuanto a comunidades se refieren, debo poco a poco tomar el ritmo. Pero gracias a este tipo de ayuda, personas como yo que tenemos poco tiempo podremos avanzar y seguir creciendo.
Gracias, éxitos para ti, y muchas bendiciones @erikah... 😚😘🥰🤗🌹❤️✨💫
My pleasure. Yes, communities can be confusing at first and I see many don't know what to do with them, so I thought I would explain it to help. Let me know if you have further questions so I can help :)
Thank you so much for the willingness to help, how beautiful you are God bless you.
If there are little things I do not understand the post, I will try to read it well and learn, (the translator does not make it very clear hahahaha), with respect to the cross-publication to reach the view of the ocd, I do not have it very clear. But I will try to take things calmly to learn well.
Anything else I will let you know, I guess I can get you in the ocd discort?
Blessings and have a nice day @erikah ✨
I'm going to do a detailed post about crossposting as I see many are interested. If you don't understand what the post will say, let me know as I can get you a Spanish speaker to summarize and help you understand. And you're welcome :)
Thank you very much for your willingness to help, I will be attentive to your next publications.
Although I do not know why some people say that it is not very advisable to make these cross-publications, and I know that there are communities that do not accept it. I will still keep my eyes open.
Greetings and blessings. @erikah ✨
Dear a question. In a publication I could put OCD as a label or is it bad to do that? Would it serve to have more reach in a publication, or it is not allowed?
Thank you very much in advance.
Have a good night @erikah.✨
It's useless as OCD (or any other curation group) does not vote/curate based on tags. Tags should be related to the topic of your post, that's the purpose of having tags. Tagging curator groups and/or whales to get better votes is a waste of time and sometimes it is also considered abuse.
That is exactly what I wanted to know since I am relatively new to the platform, I only have a short time. There are many things I don't know yet.
I am really grateful for your prompt response, so I avoid making a mistake, and I don't want to do that. So far I'm doing well with my few publications, I'm trying too hard to do something wrong.
Thank you very much for the information @erikah.✨💖🌹
Yeah! Amazing post! This article helps us understand how to research HIVE communities. Thank you for sharing this information very clearly
My pleasure, I'm glad you find it helpful.
This is a super duper post @erikah dear. I will reblog this so my newbie friends could read this great post about communities... Thanks for sharing and wish you a lovely evening!
Thank you dear Mers! It is pinned to OCD and my profile as well if you need it later and another one is coming :) Have a lovely day.
Thank you dear, anxiously waiting for the next one.... wish you the same!
i appreciate you taking time to help us with that useful information
My pleasure, we're here to help.
Hello @erikah, thanks for sharing. This post has important information.
I didn't know it was better to publish on his own frontends.
I have a doubt, How does #HIVE help create more new communities?
My pleasure.
I'm not sure what you mean by that but let me try to answer it anyway. Creating new communities is open to everyone. However, creating a niche community that exists already will not help much. So if you want to create a community, make sure to create one that does not exist.
Very good article but how do you do crosspostings?
Thank you! I think I'm going to write another post and explain crossposting in details as I see many are interested. Stay tuned :)
Helpful and educational.. Well done.
Thank you.
@erikah te felicito aquí podemos encontrar información muy completa que nos sirve de mucha ayuda,gracias bendiciones infinitas
🌹🙃🥰🌹🙃🥰🌹🙃🥰🌹🙃🥰⭐😃🌼👏👏🌼😃⭐🌹🥰🌹😃👏🌼🌹🙃⭐😃🌼👏⭐🌹🙃⭐😃👏🌼😃😃⭐🌹🥰🙃🌹⭐🌼👏👏🌼🌼😃⭐🌹🙃🥰🙃🌹😃🌼🌼😙😉☺️⭐⭐🌹🌹🌹🥰🙃🌹⭐😃🌼🌼👏👏🌼🌼🌼😃😃😃⭐⭐🌹🌹🌹
My pleasure, I hope it helps :)
This is eye opening. Thanks for the information, I now have an insight on how to identify community that best suit each content I creat, thanks
You're welcome! Use it as posting in the right community is key here.
Thank you for sharing @erikah. You are such a nice person and one of my list of being a good blogger since then.
Oh, my dear friend, I don't know about being a nice person 😁 but I'm trying to help as I've seen newbies need guidance. Thanks for the nice words and nice to see you again. Have a nice day :)
Thank you for being nice.😍😍😍
Saludos gracias por compartir esta valiosa información muchas desconocía ahora entiendo @erika muchas veces me he decepcionado por la falta de recompensas y quizás por las novatadas bendiciones
You're welcome. Well, rewards are never guaranteed and posting in the wrong community can leave you without rewards, but also posting in the right community does not guarantee you get higher rewards.
However, if you post quality content, engage with others and you are consistent, rewards will come in time.
Happy blogging :)
Thank you for writing this up. It's good to have a post to refer people to for a better explanation than a quick comment can give. This is one of the areas where I think even older users can get a little confused.
I recently posted into the wrong community accidentally. My fat finger must have hit the wrong community on the list on my tablet and I didn't realise until it posted and loaded me into that community. Thankfully it was a community that the content could still fit, so it wasn't going to be muted and I know enough from the side of curating and running a community not to delete the content and cause other problems. I was also able to get it reblogged by the community account where it should have gone. Not everyone has the perspective or option, though.
My pleasure. Unfortunately you can't cover this much in a comment and also can't write a comment of the length of a post every day, multiple times, so a post helps a lot.
I did the same once, posted in Silver Gold community, instead of Sport Talk Social as I did not scroll down enough, but I left a comment on my post, apologizing and they did not take it as offense. I did it this year, with my rep over 77 😂 It happens.
Thanks for the amazing work done. It is so useful to newbies and everyone.
My pleasure.
Fantastic post! I'd be grateful for any information on how cross-posting works and does not work. Cheers!
This is an extremely useful post. This is an excellent piece that will aid in the investigation of the HIVE community.
Thank you for sharing this informative article.
Thank you! I see many are interested in the crossposting option, so tomorrow I'm going to do another post and detail everything about the matter.
This post is pinned in OCD community if you ever need it for your newbie friends. Spread the word, help others as only together we can have a strong community.
Happy blogging, keep up the good work as I know you've been putting out great content :)
Thank you; I will keep working hard and giving my all. Thank you for your assistance. God bless you as you travel. I'm looking forward to the next post. I wish you luck and hope that we will all be strong and victorious in the future. Thank you very much, @erikah.
Thank you and God bless you too :)
Wow, thanks for the enlightenment, I really gained alot from here, thank you 🙏
My pleasure, hang tight as another one is coming tomorrow about crossposting :)
Thanks for sharing your article post. It will help a lot for me, and I will understand it even more so that I can have a lot of ideas
The main idea is to help newbies and oldies as well, to understand how the chain works. You're welcome!
This has done justice to my errors all this while now I can understand better how things work that my h @erikah
I'm glad you find it helpful :) Happy blogging!
You are welcome friend