I'm not so sure if experiment is the best way to describe steem. Experiment suggests it's a let's "see what happens" scenario and steem seems more permanent than that. Maybe work in progress is a more apt way to describe it?
I've been around for a little while and like most have had my highs and lows however, in the main, I would have to say it's been a pretty interesting, positive and enjoyable experience.
The engagement with many people from all walks of life and from around the world is one of the coolest aspects of steem and I've been fortunate enough to gain a few good connections with some great people - You know who you are. I've also lost connections of course, some I lament and others I don't think about at all.
My blog presents many varied things: My daily activities and life, hobbies, travel, thoughts and opinions, business-related information, history, some [probably bad] poetry and creative writing, humour, emotional stuff, family, [occasional] rants, art, music...All sorts of things. I've really enjoyed the interaction too, commenting and bantering back and forth with those who take the time to read my posts and engage.
The blockchain has gone through some recent changes and seems to be evolving into a better place for everyone, an environment where real work gets rewarded and those inhibiting progression and stabilisation of steem are being re-educated and brought on board. A big shout-out to you if you are in this category, and welcome to #newsteem it's a brave new world.
I'll be honest with you, I used to only look through my own feed for things to vote upon, only finding new work through re-steems from those I follow. The new tab was a monumental waste of time for me and as a content-creator, someone who has a corporate job, loads of hobbies and, life in general to deploy, I rarely found the time however I've been changing my ways, like many of steem.
I'm a manual curator for the @curangel project and have been actively seeking new work to promote, not only with an upvote from myself and curangel, but with some commenting and a little cross-promotion directly with some of my followers as well.
If you're not familiar with the project take a look at the introduction post. You can also visit the team at Discord and say hi to whomever is around - Usually one or two of us are there.
So you may be wondering what this post is all about? Well, I wanted to identify a few things I look for in a post when scrolling through searching for work to curate. I don't simply promote a great picture, a bunch of words or video; I take a little more care considering my name gets attached to the post-promotion via @curangel and so I felt now might be a good time to open up and give you guys a clue about what I look for.
Passion and personality
Yep, that's number one. I need to feel that you're passionate about your work and what you present. If I see that shine through, a whole raft of other things fall by the wayside. It doesn't matter if you're writing about pimples or that time you went to the Amalfi Coast - Just apply passion and your own personality to your post and a lot of the other elements will fall into place.
Shpelleeng and punktooaychation (Spelling and punctuation)
This is a little difficult as there are so many here that do not call english their primary language. I make allowances for it though and won't penalise a post if I feel some effort has been made to present it well. Many curators might not count this element as very important however my brain simply rejects poor spelling and punctuation and these days with spell-checkers and online resources understanding the basics shouldn't be too difficult. Learning the difference between you're and your isn't a difficult task and will help your writing look better for instance. Of course, having said that typo's and mistakes happen - to all of us.
In-focus photographs
We're not all accomplished photographers, or have the right equipment - Certainly I'm not! However a poor quality supporting photo is a sure way to demonstrate a lack of passion in an authors work, in my opinion at least. Take a little more time and care and your post will shine a little more brightly. Whilst on photographs...I like to see people use their own where possible however when using stock photos credit the owner! This is important. I do reverse-photo-searches to check for uncredited photos so take the time to credit the owner of the images you use.
Plagiarism
This means using content that is not yours: Words, video, images etc. These days it's likely to earn you a few downvotes and could potentially turn other users away permanently. Cut and pasted text is not legit and will attract the scorn it deserves. If you want to quote a phrase or passage do so but credit the author, put it in italics or quotation marks. Also, avoid using nothing but quoted text as your whole post. That doesn't show passion and originality, only laziness. Like the images, I do text-searches for plagiarism, like all curangel curators do. You're an individual human-being, be that way here on steem too - It will gain you far more of the right attention. I want to see your personality.
Words and overall effort
This one is difficult to define exactly. A rule of thumb for me is that I look for words. A single sentence saying, "I went to Paris," followed by 37 photos of Paris won't capture me - I'll probably not even click through to the actual blog. How about a sentence or two on each picture; Where it was, some historical fact, a funny anecdote or story. It shows personality and passion and will help engage me.
If you're posting a video that probably took you a lot of effort to prepare that's cool...But add some words to set it up, draw in the reader and make them want to click the play button. You're trying to create a brand here and some effort is required.
I tend to write really long posts but I understand many can't, or don't want to, and that's ok. It's important to play to your audience and a stupid fart meme might be what your current followers want to see however here, if you want to drive your earnings and exposure further, you need to do a little more work - Unless $0.00 payouts are suitable for you. My friend and steem-champion @justineh said it well in this post so take a read if you like.
You don't need to write Tolstoy's War and Peace every time you post but a little passion, personality and effort will pay dividends.
Engagement
For me this is a big one. I like to see users engage with others because that's what communities do. Reply to people who comment or they may fail to do so again, and comment on other people's posts, with validity and personality. One thing I learned very early on is that an account that may not look big could be attached to a massive user trying to fly under the radar somewhat. Essentially you don't know who it is that's commenting so a policy of responding to all replies and making some of your own is a good one.
Have fun when you post
I've posted well over once a day for every single day I have been on steem. 829 days and 1201 posts so 1.44 posts a day. It's a lot and takes effort. You don't have to do so though...Just have fun. If it becomes a job, a chore, then your passion for it may wane and fall away which will probably see your post-quality suffer. Just have fun, post about what you enjoy, what you're passionate about. My brother @tarazkp often reminded me to have fun with it, especially in the early days, and as soon as I forgot about the reward-factor and began to write for me, for fun, things really took off.
Oh, one other thing...Posting hourly is not legit. You're better to aim for one legit post a day rather than 7 really bad ones. It looks spammy and will turn curators away generally.
I believe we are on the precipice of some great growth here on steem and with less reward-pool-abuse through bidbot use and circle-jerking there's a real opportunity for the smaller accounts to gain a few extra steem for the wallet; Steem that may be very handy to have at some point. Further to that, and I believe more importantly, is the opportunity to be seen, to build relationships and to establish a strong presence now for the future to come. If you see it as building your own personal brand I believe you're on the right track.
My suggestion to new users, smaller accounts and those returning, is to engage with others, not just your immediate friends group, to post with passion and get actively involved with your own journey here. It takes a little effort, just like it does in real life, however the rewards will come.
I'm pleased to be involved as a manual curator for curangel and hope to promote your post someday.
Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default
Even so the number of times I've seen speelug errors in news articles (in the Apple news app! From newspapers!) because the spelling is correct but it's the wrong word has been entertaining, guess it's either getting missed in the proof reading or they're relying too much on the checkers XD
Also I am going to tease you mercilessly because you use apostrophes in plurals a fair bit ;D
like there, drop that apostrophe XD
Your posts are pretty comfortable to me XD (but my idea of long seems to be different from most other people's)
I was pretty glad you decided to be a curator, I think you've got a good eye for good stuff. Must be from all that shooting ;D
Some people are perfect; Obviously I'm not, as stated in my post.
I never finished high school so I write at year 9 level. I think the main points come through in my post though.
The internet is full of people willing to point out other people's faults so I assumed someone would find something wrong with my post. You get the prize for being first. Maybe in different circumstances I would have had the chance to gain a better education, but through circumstance I was forced to find my own way.
I've never pitched myself as a good writer or someone whose example others must follow.
Yay I get a prize! I don't usually get prizes XD
Don't feel bad, I know plenty of people who have finished school and compared to them your writing looks top notch. And if it's any further consolation I did finish school but you'd probably never guess it from the way I talk XD (Discord is generally close enough to how I talk, with asynchronous conversations like this one I can pretend I'm much more intelligent than I am).
You don't need to pitch yourself as a good writer, your storytelling skills do that for you. And don't take me teasing you too seriously, I'm a brat :)
I don't feel bad, I'm a reasonably successful person when most of the usual metrics of success are considered and am proud to have acheived that through hard work and effort, somewhat against the odds.
So yeah, there's not much of a prize I'm afraid...You win a 1 week subscription of Woman's Weekly magazine...From 1987. Congrats. 😂
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I like how the recent changes have pivoted the incentives to encourage more human curation and interaction, which really just mimics real life social activities, right?
We talk to each other in person, we exchange ideas, we bring up other people and their ideas in our conversations. That's how it should be.
Before these changes, all we had were trending posts that had no real people behind the "trending" and little to no engagement. It was unsustainable.
I'm even more optimistic about communities. I've been waiting for them since 2017. It was obvious how they would improve engagement and social interaction, not to mention how they would organize discussions.
I'm generally more optimistic about the Steem ecosystem now.
I agree and hope it continues moving forward. I'm pleased to see those using bidbots changing their ways also. Thanks for commenting.
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Hi @galenkp!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 4.666 which ranks you at #1727 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has not changed in the last three days.
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 90 contributions, your post is ranked at #19.
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