On Hive, one of the best ways to attract attention and grow an audience for your posts is to leave comments. This is advice that I was given back in 2017 when I was new on Steemit. Once I took that advice and began following it to the letter, I started seeing the first sustained growth on my account.
Being new back then, there were times when my post might receive just a few or even ZERO comments or upvotes, but the comments I left on the posts of OTHERS, would receive more engagement and even UPVOTES, than my original post did!
That's a helpful little factoid when you're new here on Hive.
After awhile it dawned on me that a comment was in essence, a miniature post, and should be treated like such.
So I began to apply the same care to my comments that I did to my posts. If you take a look at almost any comment I make that's longer than one paragraph, you'll see that I justify my text to mimic that clean look that I enjoy when crafting my articles.
Formatting matters, and a clean, justified comment is much more readable than the ragged text found in most responses. I also spellcheck longer comments just the way I do with posts, and have been known to go back and correct a spelling error that initially eluded me.
At times, you may even see THOUGHTFUL posts that you've left, receive MULTIPLE upvotes. I can still remember the time when one of my witty responses was voted up to over $1 (which was more than my post earned!). :)
So take care to actually READ the entire article and leave a thoughtful response that ADDS TO the discussion. Maybe you can help illustrate a point that the original author was making by sharing a personal anecdote. Or you might share a relevant statistic about how many people have been impacted by a subject and why.
Consider a comment almost as an extension of the authors post that adds insight or value. The writer will appreciate it, and you'll not only add value to his (or her) post, but you'll be getting the word out that you're a valuable member of the community on Hive. Do it.
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This is very true. When I first started on my main account (hello, this is @phoenixwren's alt), for the first several days I shot up in reputation because I was just spending hours reading and commenting on other people's posts. I think I went from 25 rep to 50 on the first day or something? It was fast. People seemed surprised that a noob was actually engaging on others' posts so I think they were dropping me upvotes on comments to encourage me. It definitely is a huge difference when you're new!
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Ah, yes. Seems like you joined Steemit just a couple of months after me, and got to experience that nice run-up in the token price. Those were the days!
Last year I completed my #500CommentChallenge, where I left 500 thoughtful comments in 10 days. It was supposed to consist of 50 comments per day, but life intervened and I quickly fell behind, and had to really push in order to make it.
Now, while I did complete it (and had the sore hands to prove it), I did see some engagement, but nothing like as if I'd done it in the Steemit days or the early days of Hive. We've lost so many people since then due to shunning and downvoting gangs, that comments are down even for the big accounts, such that even I had to cut back (See my last post for example, on domestic violence which as of this writing got exactly zero comments aside from my Ecency notification. If a subject like THAT doesn't get any traction, nothing will).
I was surprised (but not really surprised to learn of the existence of "a list" where if your name was on it (for God only knows what reason. Maybe they don't like your race, or religion, or your politics, who knows?). you were denied support on your posts. It's childish and short-sighted.
We're not gonna grow with stuff like that, it's akin to chopping off your nose to spite your face, or throwing out the baby with the bathwater. We're better (and smarter) than that.
Hopefully things will get better in the future, because I really want a bright future for the community of Hive.
A list like that, really? Frack. I've seen an individual who claimed on their profile that they would downvote anything non-Christian, anything Pagan, Hindu, Muslim, etc. Thankfully they were a small account, but like, really?
I've seen plenty of people's politics I don't like here and I just mute them if they keep landing in my feed. It isn't hard to just "not for me" and focus on what IS for you.
In the land of "censorship free" you gotta learn to curate for yourself.
This was from a well-liked Hivian who found herself on a 'do-not-upvote' list. And when she inquired about it, they told her that she'd been placed on "the list" by accident, and that her name would be removed.
I've been here since July 2017, and lurked since spring 2016. So I'm not surprised at the existence of such a list. So I've seen a lot. We've lost a ton of good people over the years to such short-sighted mistakes, and will continue to do so until we awaken.
I don't even expect upvotes anymore, and sure as hell don't expect to trend no matter how good my writing is. What did George Carlin say? "It's a club and you ain't in it!" Even anomadsoul once referred to people like me as "outcasts"
So be it.
I don't want to be like those people spending their days cooking up ways to limit the growth of Hive so they can keep their piece of the pie.
I want to see Hive grow.
Luckily, I'm a good writer and can write anywhere, and in fact, am a "whale" of sorts on other platforms.
Now I write on Hive because it makes me a better writer and for my own edification. Steemit/Hive saved me from Blogger where my work was copied and I had no ownership stake in anything. So, upvotes or not, I love this intersection of crypto and blogging on the blockchain. :)
I've been here since Sept 2017 (this is my alt account, main is @phoenixwren) so yeah, have seen a lot of drama too, I just hadn't heard about such a list. I knew various people or groups had blacklists, though, like Hive Watchers, and I think, was it Marky Mark had a blacklist? I don't remember.
She didn't mention, but I'm sure it wasn't him. He was one of the only whales that spoke to me when I attended one of his livestreams on Discord. The others ignored me, so I was pumped when he responded. Marky's a good guy.
I think it was like, for known scammers or something, not anything petty.
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I used the same strategy by engaging with other folks' posts in an effort to gain visibility but also so that I could try to learn more about various authors.
The thing not to do is leaving ingratiating comments and/or commentary that amounts to shallow platitudes. Those really get on my frigging nerves!
That's why I placed a focus on leaving thoughtful comments in this piece rather than just a quick, groveling drive-by. Those just don't work and add nothing to the discussion like a real, well-thought-out comment does.