"Steem has so much more to offer than the current trending posts" ~ @pharesim
Lets examine the Steemit Trending Page for a moment.
It has it's good and bad points.
On the good side, it does entice new users to register for an account. Came for the promise of money and stayed for the community
On the not so good side, the same people ride that page day after day, month after month, with some of them spinning posts reworded from last weeks post.
There's many minnows who publish original work every day. Innovative and interesting posts. We write. And not to mention the creative process- thinking of the subject, weaving the words, etc- is truly hard work. Original content is what makes a site great. Originality is what makes a community grow.
There is a lot of really good content that never gets upvoted because everyone used their votes on those few trending authors.
Steemit has so much more to offer than the Trending page!
After you've been here for a while, you notice you're not heading for the trending page as fast as your imagination took you on your first days at Steemit. And you get frustrated. It's natural.
But you, Minnow, have a lot of power. You don't even realize it.
If you look at the top people on the Trending page, you will see they each have a thousand votes. Only a small percentage of those votes are from whales. That means that hundreds of minnows voted on that post. We got them to the trending page.
WE gave them those rewards for that post.
WE can rise each other, the same way we are rising the trending authors.
I know you feel like your $0.01 vote means nothing. But all those one cent votes paid that trending authors rent in one day...
Every time a minnow votes for another minnow, they take a little away from the trending authors. By voting on your fellow "smaller fish" you are helping each other grow.
Minnows supporting minnows builds the entire Steemit community and we rise together, faster!
Guys, we really have a a stellar amount of power.
With great power comes great rewards. Lets use our power to our mutual advantage.
The cool fish at the @MinnowSupport Projects mission is to "Accelerate the minnow growth through community accounts, and social interaction generating friends, resteems and upvotes." Run by @aggroed @ausitbank @someguy123 @teamsteem @thecryptodrive @theprophet0 @canadian-coconut @followbtcnews @netuoso @reggaemuffin @drakos @rondonson @swelker101 Give these guys a great big Thank You for their tireless and often unappreciated work to help minnows grow to be whales. They really do a lot behind the scenes. Check them out and show your appreciation :)
Peace Abundance and Liberty- PAL Discord channel is a wonderful resource, and if you haven't already, please register. You will be glad you did! While you're there stop by and say hi to the mods @discordiant @gmuxx @rhondak @swelker101 @sammosk @crimsonclad and @r0nd0n They all volunteer many hours to keep everything running smoothly.
And please vote for #MinnowSupportProject members and PAL moderators as witnesses. They totally deserve it and will serve us well.
Learn more about Minnow Support at their website
Minnows Unite! STEEM ever onward and upward :)
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Please Upvote and Resteem :) 
I appreciate your support and ♡ your comments and questions :)
I agree with everything. I just found two scientists writng about their theories and getting only pennies for it. Whale shared and upvoted one post from one of them and make him more vissible on Steemit. I scrolled thru his wall, only pennies for two months. Why am saying this?...it takes time to be noticed. That guy wrote fow two months and did get noticed. So guys don't give up and don'tbe fooled by trending posts. It takes time to get there. So relax, write about your passions and don't care about money, it's free in the end. Eoy your ride on Steemit.
Well said.
It does take time. But it also takes support :)
It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a community to raise a Steemian.
:)
Key word on Steemit...patience.
All good things take time :)
Great post, I totally agree. At first I thought I should just vote on popular posts (or those that I thought would become popular). But the curation reward for minnows is so low that it's not worth it trying that.
Now I only upvote posts that I think are good, and mostly by minnows. It's more important to support fellow minnows than whales, and you make friends doing it too!
That was exactly my line of thinking when I began here two months ago :)
I did not know that about the curation reward! Where can I find information on that?
This would be a good start: https://steem.io/getinvolved/paid-to-curate/
Thank you for this link!
Good writing
Glad you like it :) Thank you!
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by 343281547886542810 from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews/crimsonclad, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
Good point, I think somehow we think if we vote for the whales they will vote for us. Which is probably almost never the case. Best is to write sensible meaningful comments on their posts and try to get them to follow you...Have a great day!!!
I think it is more effective on the dolphins. They usually dont have this huge of a following and most of them engage more with their followers.
But I think your approach is right. If you want to succeed $$ wise you should focus on brining value to the whales and so much that they cant ignore you anymore.
If you just want to express yourself, well... you dont need them.
Yeah you are making a great point here. Now, I am curious what would bring value to the whales. Best way to find out is ask them I guess. Find them and ask them. You know any?
No, unfortunately not.
But in my opinion, it is the same what brings the most value to every post which are genuine comments, upvotes and resteems in this order.
I feel my posts are most appricated when sombody comments on it and showed he/she really read it. As whales are humans, too I think it will be the same for them.
But when you look how many comments they get, it will get hard to be noticed. This is not so much the case if you focus on the hot tab of a topic you are interested in. (I dont really like new sooo much till there is so much nonsense posted, which I understand is a problem for minnows to get out of there)
Of course an upvote is nice and so is a resteem but there I think you have to watch out to not overdo it and that the content you are resteeming is kind of similar to your own to not annoy or irritate your following.
I am still new here also so take my 2 cents with caution.
Yea, getting noticed is the difficult part. I read some highly undervalued posts that offer compelling content from consistent authors that just seem to be lost in the dust...
Good point... thanks for sharing. Have a wonderful day!
Before I forget... can I ask you a huge personal favour @flipstar?
well...depends what it is
Who do you know right now that is a whale?
Well said. That is a much better way to get the whales to notice you, while using your upvotes for the little guys :)
Thanks. I think my best upvote so far was for a comment. If I remember correctly it was around 33 USD. Are you a little guy or a whale?
Oh I'm tiny. lol. I celebrate my two month Steemitversary next week ;)
Good luck, have a great day!
Thank you, you as well! Great talking with you :)
Have a great day! Following you.
I can't even remember the last time I checked the trending page. I really focus on my feed and then moving out from there to see who the people I'm following are interacting with.
That is what I do too! Like ripples in the pond...
Exactly and this helps me find more people that share the same interests as the people I am following.
I'm more likely to check hot, or new. I like upvoting good content I catch on "New". Also, i have a few tags I visit too. Spread that minnow love.
Spread that minnow love.
I like that!
I'm the same- new and hot is where I tend to visit after my feed.
Nice @arbitrarykitten. I admire your hard work and so with others the likes of @agroed, @ausitbank,@gmuxx,@someguy123, @teamsteem and others for making this platform possible in helping minnows to grow. Your efforts is greatly appreciated and we salute you guys for a job well done. Thanks.
Thank you so much :)
I am truly happy to be here, I love you guys. I am proud to be able to contribute with such a wonderful and supportive community :)
Apparently I'm classed as a minnow, so I'll chirp in here. I agree with everything you said. The last time I looked on the trending page was at least a year ago. I swear there is nothing of value to me there, I don't like any of those posts, and most of them are tough reading, technical heavy, or just some bullshit that I'm not interested in. I do understand that is me, though, and a load of other people may think I am wrong, as can be shown by the thousands of upvotes.
I'm playing the long game though. I'm quite positive that in a few years the gap between minnow and whale will become even wider, when adoption becomes more widespread and everyone and their dog comes for a chance to find their glory, and of course, stay for the community.
I do believe Steemit is going mainstream soon. How long in soon? At least in a few years. It already has google and facebook running scared. We have a system here that laughs in the face of theirs. Google with adsense that pays a pittance to its publishers and facebook which blurs the boundary between publisher and advertisor whilst facebook sucks up all rewards. When people finally realise that 0.01 is far better than 0; post a hundred times and that's $1, some people do that in a day on Facebook.
Alas the gap will widen, the whales will stay the same and mass adoption will be widespread, making more bottom end users (minnows), which means in time, thousands of votes will become millions and minnows really will rule the roost, if we realise this of course.
You and I are still classed as early adopters. I was, you are too! You wait. 3 years from now you'll have thousands of steem and because everyone wants in on it those STEEM will be bloody priceless :)
I truly believe Steemit is the future. And we have not even begun to realize what this platform can do!
I'm serious when I say the potentials are boundless
Now I am reading all these posts about how people are putting Steem logo on their vehicles and laptops- gathering many inquiries per day...
It's growing faster and suddenly. And it's only going to continue. I, too am playing the long game. And to be quite honest this is the first endeavor I can say that about! Steemit has gotten under my skin! STEEM is my blood- I bleed blue ;)
Same! I've even integrated Steemit into my website. When I get my courses up and running I'll have an option where you can pay by steem :)
Nice!
I feel similar, but I think that this is actually the biggest problem with Steem atm. The most trending should be our go to page for the most interesting topics. To be fair, I dont think the content on trending is bad, I just feel very reluctant giving 3 cents to a post that is already recognized, while I see Steemians and good friends producing really good content where 3 cents increases their payout by 10%.
That is why I would never bite the feeding hand (Steemit). I earned 10x in two months compared to what I earned while making youtube for 2 years. I deactivated youtube monetarisation for all my recent youtube videos. It is just not worth it and I hate adds.
Yup, every day you started earlier is a natural advantage you have to all later adopters. That is also why i don't hate whales for being whales. Most of them supported Steem in the early days and that deserves to be rewarded. They literally build the platform as we are using it right now.
To be fair, I dont think the content on trending is bad, I just feel very reluctant giving 3 cents to a post that is already recognized, while I see Steemians and good friends producing really good content where 3 cents increases their payout by 10%.
This ^
Precisely.
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by ArbitraryKitten from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, and someguy123. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you like what we're doing please upvote this comment so we can continue to build the community account that's supporting all members.
Minnow support has my vote. And not just because I am a minnow. I believe in the mission, and when I am a whale one day I will continue to support :)
What really needs to happen is the auto voting bots people use need to be kicked off the system. How much better would it be if people actually had to come to the site comment, click vote etc. It would be a much better community then it is right now, seriously the bots are taking over.
Oh man. Right??? It's a real shame. And it seems like the bots have grown massively in proportion in recent weeks.
Honestly when I started almost 2 months ago , I used to go on the trending page , then I stopped and upvote content that deserves to be , not because it's popular . What interest me an what people put hard work into , that's what will make the community better
Exactly. I see some trending post that people have upvoted simply because it's a "top user" but it has no compelling content. Sometimes it feels like people don't even read half the stuff they upvote... Case in point- Read this article I wrote to help new users write a good introductory post. Then read the comments...
I remember reading that post of yours few days ago , but now is actually when I saw the ridlicious comments , I am sorry but is it wrong if we flag the comments :( it gets me mad or ask for follows under the content , I just tend to ignore now
Personally I just ignore the followbeggars. I have noticed they learn real quick that is not how they are going to get anywhere so they change their plan of action rather quickly. I save my flags for genuinely offensive content. The follow beggars are just new and naive. They really aren't hurting anything- just annoying lol They do learn quick tho :)
For sure :)
Nopw the followbeggar bots? I hate those. At least if you're going to beg do it in person after a thoughtful comment!!!
GRRRR!!!
It's okay , they will get tired one day and leave the platform if they aren't able to learn right from wrongs , they won't receive attention and go bye bye :D
I really don't know what to think about trending page, I post every day a different post, about random stuff, original tex and photos, I spend time editing my post and making it look better to make it easy to read and more likable. I've been on trending page (on the trending page of my first # of the post, not general) and it didn't help that much to make my post grow in real readers.
I just love that quote from @paresim, and couldn't agree more with it.
I think in terms of the psychological aspects of a newbie going onto the page- at first it's inspiring. Then it becomes frustrating.
I was on the trending page once, and I think it did help as far as getting noticed. But that also depends on timing..
That quote by @phaesim inspired this article :) It is a truly powerful arrangement of words ;)
I usually just go to my feed and try to make sure I am following the right people. Have a great day!!!
that's basically what Im doing right now lol, you too.
Good move. So I appear in your feed? Good to know LOL.
Thanks so much for commenting and have a great day! Following you.
Good one. I agree with what you said. Build connections with fellow minnows and give support to each other. That way we build a community that grow together. It is nice to get upvotes from whales but don't rely on their support all the time.
Right. And by "buying local" you keep the revenue in your community
;)
Yup exactly :)
Well, let me start of by saying that it is great to see so many people trying to build communities that support minnows. @MinnowSupport is really great from what I have read so far about them. I might get involved with them in the future.
Anyways, I am known to be a Buzzkill so hear I go....
No, it does not. There are a lot of curation-trails that essentially put hundreds of votes on one post using Streemian. You also have auto-voting smurf-accounts and all that good stuff. The voting counter is actually not a good indicator for how many people read your post. Number of good comments is a much better indicator ;)
Just to bring up something positive. I fully agree on this statement. I tend to bitch a lot myself without realizing that I could be involved in constructing alternative solutions.
I want to keep Steem Projects on Steemit and not discuss and manage their details outside of the blockchain.
Good morning Sir Kill of Buzz ;) It's a pleasure to meet you!
Can you explain what a smurf account is?
Good morning dear Kitten, in video games it is common practice to have multible accounts. Usually you have a main account and multiple smurf accounts that you use to try new stuff and not meet skilled opponents that would exploit every mistake you make.
In League of Legends I am Heggal and my smurf is TahmIsLove. I got my main account recently banned for 14 days so I just played on my smurf TahmIsLove. It is pretty annoying level up a new account so some just buy accounts which is illegal at least when it comes to the policies of the game creators.
I am telling you all this because I think Steemit has very similar account creation behaviour but "lacks" clear rules about that. @Jesta and @Kingscrown smurf accounts (40-50 rep) were a few of the first people I interacted with on Steemit. Not 1000% sure that i met Crowns Smurf but I am 100% sure about Jestas.
Smurf Accounts are not necessarily a bad thing, but we need to be conscious about them.
A very good question... for a random cat ;).
Okay, copy. My boys have multiple accounts for their games for this reason. I have just never heard the term.
I don't think they have either- or it would have reached Mama's reality ;)
Being illegal... What are the punishments if you are caught?
Why thank you kind Sir. This random cat is a lover of information and, to be completely honest, the eternal knowledge seeker.
:)
It depends. The cases are judged by Riot Games - The Creators. There have been popular cases of people being banned completely from the game most prominently Tyler1. I got banned for toxic behavior btw, I lost a ranked game on purpose.
Followed you.
Wow, that's big.
Do those who are banned from a game come back with a spun IP address?
Toxic behavior! Shame on you, there are children playing!
... Alas, that is what I should expect from those who hail from the land of Buzz...
Ditto, Sir Kill ;)
It depends. At first your account will get temporarly banned after that you might get your account permabanned. You are still allowed to create new accounts. If you got enough banned accounts you might get banned as a person. There is still VPN tho.
Riot had to let Tyler back into the community cause people loved him too much
And no he did not reform after this video it took him almost a year to get unbanned and the video was shot before the ban.
Following you dasdeutchesman. I like the way you think. I avoid joining any group that uses bots for buying votes and I don't like using external programs either. I really wish people would remove their votes from witnesses that promote vote-buying. I believe it really hurts the platform as a whole.
I am still new to Steemit, but I have been working on posting original works and feel like I am not getting anywhere. I am starting to look at some of the whales and those who are trending to find out how they got there. Mostly they have a lot of followers and a lot of Steem Power. I like this idea and I will work to vote more for the minnows. Thanks for this post.
I find that I make the least from curating (voting on posts), although some people claim to do quite well from doing it. I guess I'm just not skilled enough to be a good curator, so instead of curating with the intention of earning curation rewards, I simply vote to show I appreciate their comments.
The next higher earnings come from my posts. Although I have well over 200 followers, I still make mostly around 5 to 30 cents per article. Nothing worth getting excited about, especially after spending hours on some of them.
Where I seem to make the most earnings from is by commenting on posts that I am passionate about. By being passionate about the topic, it seems that passion is somehow conveyed to the reader and they up-vote my comments if they appreciate what I wrote.
Although I personally have not won at contests (I don't enter many), there are quite a number of contests you could enter and increase your earnings that way.
Keep at it @n4t3w and in approximately a year you may be surprised at what you were able to accumulate during that time. If you wish to earn faster, you need to invest your own money because around here it seems the more you have, the more you earn. I haven't quite figured out why it works that way, but that is how it seems to me. I used to think that the more Steem Power one had, the greater the amount of rewards one got regardless of the SP of the voter, but that was not correct. It is probably because the people with more SP have been around long enough to make friends with others who have a lot of SP and they support each other. That is why minnows need to flock together and make the numbers of small votes count as if it were 1 big vote!
I wonder if part of the reason the big posts get so many minnows to vote for them is so that they can get curation rewards. Minnows see that those posts are doing well and hope to get something by voting for it. To be honest I have done it, in part to learn how everything works.
I will keep at it. Thanks for your support and ideas. I will keep working at it.
Yes, absolutely. I'm quite confident that is the reason. I did it as well. However, if you vote too early, your curation award goes to the author. If you vote too late, you get very little or nothing. I find that most of the time these articles attracting a lot of votes already have a lot of votes on it before the half-hour penalty time is up, so trying to find that sweet spot where your vote actually earns anything significant is a rather daunting task. Too much trouble for me. When I look at my curation rewards they are mostly around the 1-3 thousandths of a cent! I prefer to look at the other side of it and know that when I vote on someone, I am gifting them 2 cents! As the value of Steem rises and my SP goes up, that gift will also go up.
That is why minnows need to flock together and make the numbers of small votes count as if it were 1 big vote!
Right!
You are so correct - I have heard numerous times by fellow Steemians how my passion and energy show through the computer screen! I've been told they feel it!
I love that <3
I upvote based on what I think is fair remuneration for a post, if I see a fairly standard post at $300, the author doesnt need my extra $0.06 upvote, I can use that with more impact elsewhere. Of course if the post is truly outstanding, then I would still upvote.
I never check the trending page, I dont care what other people think is good, you will find me lurking the new page much more often :)
Yessir, I totally agree. And of course if the post is stellar then yes. I believe that ^ is what this platform was intending when it was created. But a great many jumped on the popularity train and upvote the trending authors believing (hoping) they will upvote them in return- which is hardly ever the case. Just because you follow the popular kids down the halls doesn't mean they notice your little self, lol!
Great points. The majority of my votes go to supporting other minnows. I never even look at the trending pages actually. I've found some really excellent and undervalued bloggers along the way.
Right. There is so much here and it makes me sad that so many good writers get buried and lost in the shuffle
I am a new comer.
Welcome to the community! It's great to meet you :) And I have followed you
Well you earned my penny vote :)
Well thank you my friend :) I am happy to have provided good content for you!
https://steemit.com/@mohamed101 upvote please :)
I completely agree. I tell folks all the time. Stay tru to your content and your reward will come. Their is no right way necessarily on STEEMIT, just your way and the only rule in my opinion, persistence.
True ^ All this.
But I believe all of us working for the good of the platform is important, too. For growth and potential. The collective consciousness
I dont really check trending anyome either.
Mostly I am checking hot since new is often flooded with really bad posts.
But to be fair some of the authors deserve to be on the trending page. I dont mean the ones with the generic content which reminds me of instagram but there are some really talented people there also.
Saying this I agree it can be frustrating if you feel your content gets overlooked all the time but as I see steemit it is about building relationships to your audience and of course building this audience in the first place.
I am right there with you with the Instagram feel!
We can do it! ✊
Yes we can!
thanks, very helpful post once again
Thank you kindly ;D
This post has been ranked within the top 80 most undervalued posts in the first half of Aug 09. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $12.91 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Aug 09 - 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.
Aw. Thank you for the heads up. But now I'm sad :/
Personally, I don't even look at the "trending" tag. I look at the first 200 or so "new" posts and the posts of people I follow.
I don't upvote because something is popular, I upvote because I found value in it.
I think this is a great initiative!
I don't upvote because something is popular, I upvote because I found value in it.
Perfect!
Thank you <3
This is a noble cause. I promote the idea of supporting each other as minnows. Whales will upvote quality work.
Exactly :)
Congratulations @arbitrarykitten!
Your post was mentioned in the hit parade in the following category:
Wow, we really think alike. I've talked about how unless people are posting about Bitcoin and Steem, they're not really going to see big results and how the balance of upvotes needs to be readjusted. Personally I'm not all that interested in Cryptocurrency and I chose not to write about it for that reason. And taking the time to make thought provoking articles just to have them skipped over is frustrating. Anyway, really good read.
Thank you ! And wonderful meeting you!
The crypto article definitely have their place here, however, a variety of other reads for in between are a necessity for the platform to grow.
You are really an excellent writer and an amazing publisher. I could read your articles all day. You are doing a great work, keep it up.
Thank you so much! That means a lot :)
wow great post im still figuring how all this works but i think u helped clarify some
Oh Good! If you have any questions please ask :)
And welcome to the community!