Steemit Open Mic is growing and bringing musicians together and as more people join they have a few questions about the rules of entering the contest. There is a method to the madness or so the saying goes.
I thought I would make a post that explains the rules in more detail, why we have them in the first place, and how it helps the Steemit community.
If you have never heard of Steemit Open Mic you can find out more about it by following me and some of the musicians that have joined.
Now on to the updated rules to joining Steemit Open Mic.
Steemit Open Mic Rules
- The cutoff date for entries is Friday. The contest begins on Sunday and ends on Friday.
- Only 1 entry per person per week.
- "Steemit Open Mic Week 42" (or the current week number) must the beginning of the post title.
- Say the words** "Steemit Open Mic Week 42"** at the beginning of your video.
- Live performances only specifically made for this contest.
- openmic must be the first tag.
- Add a link to your post in the comments of the contest post.
- You must upvote this post.
- If your song is an original song then add the word "Original" somewhere in your title
Entries must follow these rules to be eligible for earning prizes. Let's go through them one by one and why we require you to follow these rules.
- The cutoff date for entries is Friday. The contest begins on Sunday and ends on Friday.
The number of entries is increasing and it takes time to listen to each one. Having the deadline be on Friday gives the judges time to listen to the entries, talk among themselves and reach a consensus on who wins.
It also gives us time to make a post with all the entries each week and post it on Saturday so people have one more chance to vote for their favorite performances.
When the cut off day was Sunday, the same day as the next week's contest, it was a whole day's work to respond and upvote each one. Spreading the workload over a few days not only gives us more time to listen and vote on each entry, but the votes we give out will be worth more because we had time to restore our voting power.
- Only 1 entry per person per week.
As the popularity of Steemit Open Mic increased, the rewards also increased to some of the people who entered. This lead some users to post multiple entries per day in hopes of getting more rewards.
Realistically it doesn't work that way and those multiple posts by the same users loses votes the more they post. By spreading it out to one post for the contest a week, the readers and followers of the contest get a better experience because there are many different performances by many different artists.
Less is more when it comes to music and limiting the entries to one per week creates a sense of expectation for the following week. People who like your music will look forward to your next post.
For an interesting story on how less is more when it comes to live music read How I Booked 300 Shows Per Year For My Rock Band - Growing Your Music Into A Business.
There's a saying in the music business that says, "Always leave them wanting more" so keeping it to one entry a week will help you in the long run. *Still don't believe it?^ Then read the story.
- "Steemit Open Mic Week 42" (or the current week number) must the beginning of the post title.
First off, when we scroll the pages of entries each week it is easy to spot a post that says "Steemit Open Mic Week 42" in the beginning of the title. So we will not miss your post by accident.
If your title is, "A Song I Wrote For My Best Friend - entry for open mic"
or
"Improv musical jam with friends"
it is possible we will miss the entry altogether and you will lose out on votes or possibly earning prizes.
The other very important reason is so that both Steemit and Steemit Open Mic will get picked up in the search engines over and over again from different blog posts.
That is important because Steemit Open Mic will have more search results as the contest grows. This will make the contest rank higher in the search engines when people type 'Open Mic" or "Steemit Open Mic" into a search engine.
Why would they type "Steemit Open Mic" into a search engine? That brings us to the next rule.
- Say the words "Steemit Open Mic Week 42" at the beginning of your video.
Over time people will begin seeing more and more videos with people saying, "This is for Steemit Open Mic Week blah, blah, blah, right at the beginning of the video.
Some will want to know what that is and will search for it on Google and find all these posts, your posts, of Steemit Open Mic entries and some will join when they see what is happening here.
Saying the words also helps to verify that this is really a video you performed for the contest and not some video you plagiarized from someone else. That's why the words must be said.
Adding an edit to a prerecorded video just to add the words is not good enough. It must be said by the person performing the song just prior to performing it. Recording the words and editing it to the beginning of a video still does not prove it was really you.
Also, by saying the words YouTube transcribes every word you say on a video helping your videos rank on Google for those keywords.
See for yourself. Go Google "Steemit Open Mic" and see what the search results are.
- Live performances only specifically made for this contest.
Steemit Open Mic is a live music contest that a performer is performing specifically for the contest. It is the only way we can verify it is really your performance. There have been many instances where people have entered the contest posing as someone they are not.
It happens all the time and because we are giving prizes there will always be dishonest people trying to game the system. For this reason, it is a live contest, verified live. If you wish to remain anonymous where a mask or keep your face out of the frame.
- openmic must be the first tag.
This makes it easier to find your post and to find the trending posts for openmic. If you make it harder for us to find you then you're only hurting your chances of getting your music heard and earning rewards.
This also allows us to track the total earning from the open mic entries in addition to the prizes.
- Add a link to your post in the comments of the contest post.
Adding a link to your post in the comments of the Steemit Open Mic contest page send us a notification that you entered the contest. Now we can click the link, upvote your post and comment on it. Forgetting to do this may make us not even know you have entered.
- You must upvote this post.
If you are going to enjoy the support of a contest and the benefits of having every entry you make upvoted by me in addition to possibly earning rewards, the least you can do it show your support by upvoting the contest pages.
Eventually, it would be nice if the payouts were covered by the upvotes we receive. Until then @pfunk and I are paying out of our own pockets or earnings we make from other posts not related to the contest.
I believe it is important to bring musicians together on Steemit and am willing to pay to see it happen but it would be nice if we got at least as many upvotes as we have people entering.
It takes a lot to keep this contest running and we can use all the support we can get. Your upvote goes a long way and is always returned on your post.
We vote on every post that has even been entered in the Steemit Open Mic contest on your post.
I do not vote on the links of your post that are added to the contest page comments because I don't want to take rewards from those pages. That is for the people who voted for the different musicians. But on your personal post you make for entering the contest we will always vote for you.
There is no favoritism this way from the judges and we can still show support to everyone.
- If your song is an original song then add the word "Original" somewhere in your title
We are currently paying a bonus to all songs posted that are original songs. By adding the word "original" in your title we can find it easier and pay you the bonus. We split the weekly bonus equally between everyone who posted an original song.
Here is an example of a correctly titled post with an original song entry. Notice that the words "Steemit Open Mic Week 42" come first followed by the title of the song and the word "Original" included in the title. This post is very easy to find and reward. We are working on automating the sorting process and if you do not title it corretly you could miss out on rewards.
A word about links
Each time you add the link to your post in the comments of the contest page you are affecting the page rank of the contest page in a negative way as far as Google is concerned. It is necessary to do so to inform us that you have entered the contest.
But this creates what is a called an outgoing link that weakens the page the outgoing link originates from while strengthening the page it links to, ie., your post.
We can counter that by adding a link to the contest page somewhere in your post.
For example, a paragraph in your post that talks about Steemit Open Mic and make those words link to the contest coming from multiple posts from each contestant each week would soon have all of our pages ranking for the search terms Steemit Open Mic.
Copy and paste the code below to add a link to the contest page but be sure to replace ADD LINK HERE with a link to that week's contest.
[Steemit Open Mic](ADD LINK HERE)
A simple paragraph like:
Click to read more about joining Steemit Open Mic
I hope this helps people understand the rules better and why we do it the way we do.
There are some exciting new developments coming soon for the Steemit Open Mic contest designed to grow it even more so stay tuned for new updates. Here is a sneak peak brought to you by @andybets
The closer you can follow these simple rules the better we can find and reward your posts so you are really helping yourself by following these rules.
Thank you SO much for your continued support and great music. Let's make Steemit Open Mic a growing part of Steemit history.
Wow! The amount of effort you guys put into it! It's pretty easy for us artists to pick up our instruments and belt out a 5 mins song. But you listen to all of them, make that huge ass post every Sunday, keep track of rules and upvote the entries!
Hats off 🙏🏽
Upvoted and Resteemed.
Keep Open Mic going. I will always be supporting it. If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know.
Cheers! ✨
Thank you for your continued and enthusiastic support.
me too ! i will make a special video to my youtube's channel to explain this principle and this rules in french in my youtube's community. i will put it in introducemyself (not in openmic!!!) i will think about that.... at de begining, we can think that i am a person strange who does not follow the rules, but in the end, you will end up knowing me and see that I am a friendly person... well i hope that ;)
Cordially
David
Son of Angel Momone
AM&D
I am the least musically inclined person but I upvoted this post cause this is super cool that you do this musicians :)
Thanks for the show of support and helping musicians on Steemit.
Did you know that @pfunk doesn't play music himself yet he has been sponsoring us since we started? How cool is that?
Wow the same with me i am out of tune but because of your awesome support to make this happened I am trying to sing even though I am not a good in singing for the happiness of and and for the support to your great hard work @luzcypher thank you with @pfunk. well done friends hope your always in great health.
Hi @luzcypher - From - @super-grand-ad
Followed you
You Do realise the above rules post is 6 months old ?
I got the same result when googling -
rules steemit open mic
You are the top google link
Is the 6 month old Open Mic Rules post the most up to date ?
Plus because the rules post is more than 7 days old, So
Please add in your post that voting on the rule post is
No good. As any new upvoted steem will not go to
The open mic pool. The best way to support Open mic
If that is what they wish to do? Is to send open mic .001 steem
Other then that, nice post.
Have a good day from @super-grand-ad
This is so cool. Thanks so much for running the open mic. I'm excited to post a song with my son in next week's contest. My new years resolution will be to regularly participate and it seems much less of a hassle than a live/local open mic. I've got so many songs I want to try! Great idea and Happy Holidays!!!
Can't wait to hear your music.
Here's my entry for week 50 - my first time! Thanks for listening :-)
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https://steemit.com/openmic/@emmacairo/steemit-open-mic-week-50-original-song-i-m-a-player-too-emma-cairo
Are arranged records counted as live records?
Here's mine! https://steemit.com/openmic/@corganmusic/steemit-open-mic-week-47-trouble-cage-the-elephant-cover-first-post-to-music#comments
Good to know about linking, I'll edit my most recent to put that in. Thanks for explaining these more in depth!
Adding a keyword link is not a rule but it does help all of us on the Google by linking to each other.
I doubt anyone is finding my videos on Google anyway haha, but it's hardly any work to add that link, so I'll make it a habit. And hey, maybe some people don't know about the open mic yet!
A lot of people don't know about it yet and there are always new people joining Steemit every day. Some are very talented musicians.
Yeah, connecting with more of them is always a good thing too.
Minnows grow up to be dolphins.
Very true, I'm working on it myself.
Very clear and concise. Great idea adding a link to the contest page on our individual posts!
It's not a rule but it does help us all in the search results and over time would bring in more users as well as get more views to your music.
Nice man!, great news!
Thanks for taking the time to read them
Good information about the system and of course all have the rules. I like to read your post. thank you
You're very welcome.
All of the above makes Perfect sense... Thanks for taking the time out to spell it all out for everyone...
Thank for reading them and being involved.
I like big butts.
I haven't entered the contest yet, but Istill like to support it with an upvote, and sometimes a resteem.
Thanks SO much for your support. It means so much to musicians on Steemit.
Upvoted and RESTEEMED :)
Thank you
Thank you for elaborating the rules @luzcypher. I am a little foggy about the technical aspects of linking on my page but will try to do so. And in my absent minded self I forgot to mention steemit as the first word in my introduction. So maybe I'll have to do another recording for week 43.
You can use this tool to create a link.
http://steemitcuration.appspot.com/urlformat
Just paste the link into the box that says "Insert URL's here" then click the Format button.
Scroll down and copy the code it will make and paste it in your post.
Thank you for the information
You're welcome.
Since I've never gotten Dtube to work, I assume that YoutTube URLs are allowed @luzcypher? If so, what is the current week? 84?
It must be a lot more work to run this now with so many entries. Thanks for keeping it up. I need to come up with some more original songs to submit.
Would it help to have a specific tag for each contest, e.g. openmic42? I see people use the openmic tag with no mention of this contest, so I wonder if they even know about it.
Rock on!
Sometimes people use the tag without knowing of the contest. I usually let them know about it and they end up entering.
Right on, yeah, I had no idea; scrolling through the tag and watching a few videos did not make it evident to me how it worked. I was waiting for some sign of the first people to make the week change and look closely for standards from there. I did record my original just for this openmic, but I didn't know I had to say the words, I thought I could reuse the video more easily if I didn't. But now I see the extra point of driving more traffic and music here by including the verbal announcement at the beginning. I'm in, and excited, but there's certainly a lot of great acts and I don't want to feel so much like I'm "competing" ... but maybe it doesn't hurt to play such a fun game by the rules :-) Thanks for all you're doing!
Upvoted, re-steemed, and sharing on facebook to bait more folks :-)
Thanks for the resteem and for playing. Hopefully, we'll see you next week.
I post a new contest each Sunday.
I post all the players for the week on Friday night which is also the cut off date.
And I post the winners on Monday
This post has been ranked within the top 25 most undervalued posts in the first half of Jul 19. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $16.47 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Jul 19 - Part I. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.
Wow, I come to learn why there are rules and I walk away feeling like an SEO expert! Didn't expect to learn as much as I did. Very Nice!
Thanks for taking the time to read it all. There is a method to the madness.
Stay tuned in for upcoming, exciting, new developments coming soon to Steemit Open Mic.
AWESOME!! Everything makes total sense, and I loved that sneak peek!!! Woooooooooohoooooooo!!!!!
Great, I'm glad it makes sense to you. Thanks for the feedback.
nice lay down of info for open mic my friend. Openmic is a huge energy burst for this platform and will be a driving force in its long term success. nothing but crazy love for you my friend
Thank @soundlegion. I'm loving what you're bringing to Steemit too.
BTW @lucypher, can we still use the openmic tag for other live performances even if we are not qualifying for the prices?
The openmic tag has always been for the open mic contest. That's what it was created for. People use it for all kinds of crazy shit, even stuff not related to music, but it is supposed to be for the contest only.
I have used it for older music live performances of mine, as i remember it was allowed to do so, but i'm asking because probably there is too much people using the tag and making the voting harder...
It has always been just for the steemit open mic contest. when people use it for other things it makes it harder to find entries to the contest.
Yeah but i mean older videos, as previous weeks there was stated that
"You can still post an older video if you want and enter so you can earn on your post, but prize money will not be paid out for those posts."
So i have used the tag for older videos before, but i am thinking if everybody use the tag for older videos, it could make very hard to find actual contest entries, so we probably better stop doing this?, just an idea, there could be proposed a new tag for older videos, so the openmic tag is dedicated to only new entries... :)
Oh, my bad. Didn;t mean to confuse anyone.
Back then people were grabbing videos they had made before they knew about the Steemit Open MIc contest and using them to enter the contest. I allowed it because the contest was smaller back then and I like to promote
musicians.
But the tag was created for the contest and it was always just for entering the contest, not to promote any video at all. People sometimes use it not knowing there is a contest behind it and I'll usually let them know.
Now that it is growing so fast it is even more important that the openmic tag is ONLY used for the contest. I can't tell you the extra hours it takes to filter out all the people using the tag that are not part of the contest. It really adds to the time requirements.
Yep that is pretty much what i was thinking man!... This has grown too fast and too big!, i remember when i first joined just 2 months ago, there was not so much entries compared to now, i used to check them all easily...
https://steemit.com/shoutout/@vocalists-trail/thursday-shoutout
@Vocalists-Trail gave you a shout out! :)
Aww, thanks a lot for the shout out.
Thank you for the shout out @wishmaiden
Omg i just found this one today and i resteemed it for future reference and hoping that i could participate in the next coming weeks. Great job!!! This made Steemit very cool for me!!!
The next week's contest will be announced Sunday.
Im gonna try this. Thanks for doing the open mic contest.
The cut off is tomorrow or you can wait until Sunday for the next contest.
Upvoted and resteemed.
Thanks for sharing
Hi @luzcypher, I only said "Open Mic Week 42" at the beginning of my video because last week a post you wrote said that, that was all I needed to say. I hope that my inadvertent omission of the word "steemit" doesn't disqualify me.
EDIT: It was Week 40 where you wrote, "That's why to qualify for prizes you must say "Open Mic Week 40" at the beginning of your video..." I hope that your omission there cancels out my omission here. Here's the link to that post.
https://steemit.com/openmic/@luzcypher/steemit-open-mic-week-40-see-who-played-this-week-at-open-mic-and-vote-for-your-favorite-steemian-musicians
and the link to my Week 42 entry.
https://steemit.com/openmic/@oliverwaterman/open-mic-week-42-original-study-by-oliver-waterman
Thanks.
As long as you say Open Mic and the current week it happens to be you're good. Just saying Open Mic will not disqualify you as long as you say Open Mic.
I'm asking people to say "Steemit Open Mic" so when people see the videos on YouTube they will hear about Steemit and possibly investigate it further and I'm asking that we title the posts "Steemit Open Mic" so it will rank on search engines. The more people we have joining Steemit the better it is for the platform so since we're making these videos anyways we may as well promote Steemit too.
https://steemit.com/openmic/@marcelo182/steemit-open-mic-week-42-my-original-song-for-open-mic
gracias por dejarme concursar, esto es genial..
https://steemit.com/openmic/@walnut1/my-first-open-mic-week-51
This is very cool, happy to have my first video out (sorry i didn't know there were rules so my future posts will follow all the rules from here on out)
Thanks for the help and info!
thanks @luzcypher
thanks for me to you @@@luzcypher
I'll probably join for this week. Thanks, @luczcypher!
Is there a time length minimum/maximum for submissions?
If you mean the length of the song, no time limit.
Each contest runs from Friday to Sunday weekly.
Yep, song length. It's going to be either drum covers or improv for a bit until I get my friend to join with keys for some originals. Thanks.
Look forward hearing your music. Welcome to Steemit Open Mic. I'll be posting next week's contest on Sunday.
Oh boy I better bookmark these
thanks to this post i upvote and i follow you immediatly
yes !!!!! i have read with the translate.google.com in french ;)
thanks to you
i put this information on a paper that i keep preciously for the next week ;)
;)
ange momone et david
Glad I found this, I’ll read over the rules again and get involved... quick question, does it need to be through dtube specifically?
Steemit Open Mic Week 66 : Psycho Girlfriend
https://steemit.com/openmic/@etherealcreation/steemit-open-mic-week-66-psycho-girlfriend-oringinal-song-by-busted
Steemit Open Mic
Wow... i m so glad i found this, this is an awesome program for me to be a part of. Tank u @luzcypher and others for organising this contest
https://steemit.com/openmic/@ramasai/openmic-cancion-sombra-en-los-medanos
https://steemit.com/openmic/@ramasai/openmic-cancion-sombra-en-los-medanos
Willy G - Its the Flu Post
where can free stylist sax players compete anyone? :)
excited on this one! :D
So much good energy towards building an honest self liberating community! i am very grateful having been exposed to steemit... Thank you all
hello guys.... question... what about if I don't know how to play an instrument? can I make a video singing over a pre recorded guitar?
Thanks for holding this contest @lucypher and @pfunk! https://steemit.com/openmic/@mountainjewel/tvbuvzye
Hi guys , my very first time here!! I hope you liked https://steemit.com/openmic/@carlosrada/steemit-open-mic-semana-71-no-mas-violencia-original
Hello, please I would like to know if I can post my post in this post ?, and thanks for the information, I was one of those people who used this equiqueta without knowing about this contest