As I near my first 100 followers within a week of joining the platform I have been carefully planning a strategy which I am going to use to build up my Steemit profile. I hope that this will be useful for new members to perhaps get ideas or for experienced members to critique. But this is my personal strategy and I will be interested to come back in a year’s time to look at the results. Every 3 months I will also share a strategy update post which will outline what is going well and not so well, and perhaps any tweaks I have done to it.
Again I would like to thank @pennsif for bringing me on board!
The important point is that you need to be willing to adapt, businesses that don’t adapt to changes suffer greatly, people who can’t adapt to a new home also suffer greatly. It is adaptation and flexibility which will be a cornerstone to my strategy.
(Thumbnail used under creative commons - credit to gotcredit.com)
If you haven’t seen my 2018 goals on Steemit as a YouTuber post then here is a very brief summary:
- Upload YouTube videos a week before release on DTube
- Create 5 high quality posts a week (minimum)
- Reach 1,000 followers by the end of the year
I will refrain from adding any income goals because the truth is I have no idea at all what will happen and also with Steem being a cryptocurrency it is almost always changing value. However I believe that what you earn is a byproduct of what you do, create or give. Unfortunately YouTube is failing me and many other creators with that one.
My strategy consists of external and internal methods. External methods involve the following social media accounts:
Instagram - 1,811 Followers
YouTube - 71,215 Subscribers
Facebook - 72,827 Likes
Many of you will be aware of @steepshot which is an Instagram alternative that let’s you earn Steem. That is of course a huge pull however Instagram is huge platform with around 500million daily active users on the site so it is a great way to build up a following there and then channel people over to Steepshot or Stemit. Here are the steps I will be taking:
- Continue actively posting on Instagram for another 6 months to build up a following whilst in the meantime start getting a feel for steepshot
- If I enjoy the Steepshot experience then I will add a link to my Steepshot account on my Instagram bio with the attraction of Steepshot exclusive content
- Aim for 2-3 posts a week, nothing major but I want to keep it ticking over
YouTube
I owe a lot of thanks to YouTube, it has made everything else possible. It was quite simply a catalyst for opportunity, which has led to many things from freelance videogaphy to presenting on national TV. But creators are getting frustrated with monetization and censorship so along comes Steemit as a ‘knight in shining armour’ to offer creators something very different and truly unique. I still see a future with YouTube, but I would rather put 12 eggs into 12 different baskets rather than 1 basket in order to become more resilient and be able to bounce back faster if one of the main channels collapsed.
My latest YouTube videos:
I want to approach YouTube in a more direct way than with Instagram. Here is my YouTube strategy:
- From February onwards, I will upload a video on DTube a week before it goes on YouTube. This will be mentioned either in the video description, a pinned comment, in a video itself (call-to-action) or by adding a pop-up box in Premiere Pro
- Create a high quality exclusive series just for Dtube and announce it on my YouTube channel
- Use 10 past videos to reupload onto Steemit/DTube with a written article. This is to build up the content on my channel and to hopefully attract other Steemit users. I will do the reupload of my old videos as a series.
Thanks to a viral video (see a post explaining what I learnt from it here) my Facebook page is now my biggest social media channel. However I feel that the the bigger my Facebook page gets, the less people Facebook lets me reach unless I pay them, and there is a time and a place for promoting posts but not if I want to just share a video. In fact videos uploaded directly to FB are the only thing Facebook’s algorithm seems to really like, so that is what I have been doing. Often I will post a similar video on both Facebook and YouTube.
Here is my Facebook strategy for Steemit:
- Experiment with using it as a ‘middle-man’ and announce that a video is now available on Steemit but hasn’t yet been released on YouTube. I will aim to do this at least once a week.
- Add a link to my Steemit profile at the end of one post every 2 months (I don’t post that much on FB)
An example of one of my Facebook posts:
Collaborations
These are great because you can utilise the internal and external power. I hope to maybe do a collaboration with @daddykirbs on Steemit or YouTube and then we can both try and encourage our audiences to come over to Steemit. I will be working on recruiting some more homestead/gardening/permaculture YouTube channels to Steemit because the more people who see the name Steemit pop up, the more likely they are to give it a go and trust it. Also I would love to collaborate with @halcyondaze :)
Internal (Steemit itself)
My main focus on Steemit itself is to deliver quality content. I will measure this by the number or interactions my posts get. I plan to experiment with many different methods such as a well thought out comment on 50 posts a day for 7 days and measure the impact. Community building is key, and I am a member of a few Discord groups now where it is fantastic to meet and speak to fellow Steemians.
As for internal strategy in numbers I want to create a minimum of 5 posts a week (preferably 7) and also interact with as many other people as possible.
I want to concentrate primarily on homesteading and gardening as primary post tags however I do want to contribute with business posts from time to time sharing my successes and failures with content creation and social media.
A typical week using this strategy could include:
- 150 Well thought out comments on 150 different posts
- A reupload and post to DTube
- 3 Exclusive photos on Steepshot
- Upload a new (exclusive) video to DTube
- 2 Call-to-actions from either YouTube, Facebook or both
- 1 Homesteading post
- 2 Gardening posts
- 1 Business post
Estimated time spent = Probably too much, but hey, I might as well be doing something constructive in my evenings.
This is the strategy which I am going to attempt to use beginning the 1st of Feb. I have no idea what will happen but I will learn something from the process and whatever I learn I will share with you.
A warning to myself
I need to warn myself to not get drawn into Steemit 24/7, I still have other projects going on outside of Steemit such as creating courses, writing a book and a handful of freelance marketing and videography work. Having literally just turned 19 I want to keep doors open, and I am going into this with an open mind and as things constantly adapt I will need to evaluate my next moves.
I really hope you enjoyed reading this post :) Do you have any kind of Steemit strategy?
This is a much better plan than mine, which is just to post neat stuff until people notice me.
As long as it is great then I am sure it will work
VERY good business (steemit) plan!
All spelled out and now ready to take action!
I always have some kind of strategy or plan in place; I treat steemit as a business so I have to make sure to have all my ducks in a row.
Thank you very much @goldendawne! It is all about taking action now, and it will be a challenge but I am very willing :)
Wow! Wonderful and well thought out plan , all you need to do is work the plan, the goals you have set are achievable, and yes it will be hard but after 21 days(becomes aa habit) easy peezy, am motivated to make my plan as well, and I will, thank you for the encouraging post.
Thank you, @cmbugua! Yes there are many things I need to do to make a habit. Thank you for reading and commenting :)
Hi Huw, this is an extremely well thought out plan.
I will be very interested to follow progress.
Thank you @pennsif :) I am sure I will bore you with it in person ;)
My brain works like yours! This was a great read, your experience adds a layer my inexperience cannot. I took some notes and am currently devising my own plan of action here. Thanks for sharing
Thank you so much! I really hope it works out well for you :)
Good luck @huwsnursery I'm sure you will achieve your goals here on Steemit :)
I really like this well thought out and detailed plan of attack (so to speak) for 2018. Seems like it should help your online presence grow very well. :)
On a side note, if you are going to be busy on Steemit you might like to consider joining the ever-increasing group of us playing @steempunknet (you can read through the informatie posts on their profile page) as it adds another layer to the place - not only with a lighthearted bit of fun but with the opportunity to earn a little more here. It is super easy to begin, and there are a superlative bunch of people in the Discord channel https://discord.gg/y5rjyYQ (like me!!! :D ); and it takes up little time. Plus, you get to battle people, lol.
Anyhoo, I can tell by your plan, and by the network of excellent people (like pennsif) you are finding, that you are going to do so very well here. :)
That's a good head you've got on those shoulders ;)
I agree with you on the YouTube issue, and after today's email I got from them (along with @geordieprepper it seems to) I posted a video on youtube I never thought I'd ever make. Plus, I steemit posted about it too :)
Well, it would be rude not to ;)
I am following you as I find your posts interesting, however I will tell you I have chatting with someone from Florida who is huge into permaculture. You should connect . You will have so much in common. Look for @Cheneats. you will be amazed.
Reads and sounds like a great plan.
Very organised!
If we're talking about strategies that don't involve timing the market and only looking at internal use of steemit, then the only advice I have for you is to read as many guides on how to use bots and using things like https://www.minnowbooster.net/ and other bots to boost your visibility. And once your SP is high enough, well, every single post on the front page is auto/self-voted, if that's any indication of whether or not people do it.
There is no telling how long this Upbit interest in sbd will last, so it's hard to know how much sbd you should re-invest in the bid bots. In dollar terms it's a gamble on whether or not the price of the steem/sbd payout you get at the end of the 7 days is higher than the initial sbd it cost to bid, and a week is a very long time in crypto terms.
Thanks for sharing this. I love it when people have a message and a strategy to deliver it. I've only been on Steemit for about a week and when I talk to people about how gain traction, many of them tell me "just post quality content and let it happen naturally". Of course, posting quality content is vital and you're not going to go anywhere without it, but to just cross your fingers and hope that enough people are going to stumble across it until you reach critical mass is naive.
Thank you for laying out your strategy!