Today I'm going to talk to you about one of the things that is closer to my heart.
I'm a blogger, and let me tell you something - Steemit is easy compared to the world of centralized blogging.
You lose a lot of money to everyone involved in the blogging world, being it ad networks, product providers, payment systems and whatever.
Through all of my blogging life I never saw something as easy as Steemit, and getting an audience here is a lot easier than anywhere else:
- By all means, if I'm wrong, tell me about the alternative;
Now, the issue is there's a HUGE pitfall here.
Steemit is easy... but it's HARD!
What do I mean with this? Read below and find out.
The Way to Growth: Persistence, Hard Work, Smart Work!
The thing I'm going to discuss is the thing a lot of people fail to realize.
My growth has been quite fast, and as my audience are mainly new STEEMIT users, they end up asking me about the secret to my growth.
Well, the secret is I avoided one of the main pitfalls of Steemit, and what makes Steemit - even though it's easy - hard!
That pitfall is... it's yourself!
People usually start blogging on STEEMIT with a lot of steam (pun intended) but they get really frustrated when they think they're not making progress, and eventually they stop caring.
Another common pitfall is that people want to get job level rewards and fail to treat it as a job.
It's all right for people to use Steemit as a regular blog, talking about everything they want... but don't expect to have a professional level brand or professional level results if you're not into putting some professional level work into it.
You'll see that my posts are consistent and they cater to the same audience mostly.
You'll also see that my resteems aren't that much.
Finally, you'll see that I mention I love memes, animals, food, drink and all that but yet I never publish a meme, a selfie with a dish or something like that.
This happens because I treat my blog as a brand - a personal brand with a personal touch but a brand nonetheless.
The reason my posts are consistent and cater to the same audience is because I don't want to alienate my followers.
The reason I don't resteem very much is because people follow me to see my content and I feel responsible for them getting that, instead of my friend's content.
Finally, you must work hard every day, so add that to the smart work required and you got yourself a winner.
Steemit is easy... but you get and you put in.
Add low effort for low rewards, add high effort for bountiful ones.
The Golden Rule: Don't Make Exceptions!
Finally - Don't make exceptions.
The branding, the marketing, the networking... all of these elements are vital variables if you want your blog to succeed. But there's something even more vital:
- Hard Work!
The number one reason people fail to work hard consistently is that they make exceptions.
Let me illustrate that by telling you just how I almost fell victim to this.
I'm a University Teacher and it's the end of the semester. I have a lot of exams and assignments to correct.
Turns out I finished work for today at 2 AM.
I felt exhausted and needed to get some sleep. I was preparing to go to bed when it dawned on me:
Shit! I didn't publish a post today!
Then I thought: Oh heck, I'll just publish it tomorrow.
NO! - I froze and thought - this is how it starts.
And indeed it is... you open a precedent, you make an exception, and all of a sudden you are no longer fulfilling your goals.
I have to publish something everyday, and so even if now the clock marks 3 AM, I'm still writing.
I need to produce!
I need to work!
Because I need to SUCCEED!
Think about it this way the next time you think about opening up a precedent or making an exception.
Don't fall for it.
Don't Resign, Don't Give Up: It's Easy... It's Hard!
Finally, to conclude this post, know that it all comes down to this:
Are you willing to work hard and work smart in a consistent way without shortcuts, excuses or giving up?
If you answered with yes - Congratulations.
YOU'RE JUST LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE.
Because the real test doesn't happen while you're reading this post or working... the real test happens at 2:30 AM when you finish a hard day of work and see the laptop tucked away staring at you.
Will you go to bed, hug your wife, kiss her and go to sleep?
Or will you drink a glass of water, wash your face, turn on the computer and begin writing a new post?
A NEW TESTAMENT TO YOUR DETERMINATION?
This is the real test.
Yours will come... are you ready?
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yes, persistence is the key to success on Steemit, not to mention thinking outside the box. With Steemit there are no inherent rules or boundaries to follow, yet collectively we create them here. Those rules ultimately work well with the content we produce, but not so well with promoting that content and really leveraging the system; that takes some business sense and creativity.
Agree Briggsy!
Nice seeing you around and dropping a comment!
Steemit has a lot of variables that work as if this was a business for those in it, so business sense, branding marketing and all of those are vital here as well.
Cheers
IT'S ONLY AS HARD AS YOU MAKE IT...
I think I have taught Max a little, maybe more like pointed him in the right direction most of the time.. Straightened the crooked path out a little? But Max has taught ME a LOT. I kind of beg to differ with him here, Steemit is not really Hard at ALL. Certain Elements have a "learning curve" but there is mucho awesome help available. MAX has set up a discord channel and given me highest honors, I can invite folks and have admin powers, did I mention Learning Curve? :P Seems like all the few things I am good at I can help Maxxey, and he's so good at blogging, building community, and many other Steemit-geared things which has really helped my efforts here. I know how to manipulate the Bot Systems now, I've made some huge payouts that are in the pipeline...
STEEMIT IS THE EASIEST THING I HAVE EVER DONE THAT WORKED AS ADVERTISED, PERIOD!
The above are the things we wish to pass on to everyone else, how STEEMIT WORKS. Once I convince him @minnowbootcamp has a good structure, perhaps he will be like the Schoolmaster? ;) QUALITY will be the word for the day, Every Day, quantity will be actually a non-issue. Gonna set up the 'Bot for once daily voting. But I'm off on a tangent again :P
Persistence is key to obtaining success on not only Steemit, but everywhere else in life.
True! Anything you put attention to long enough will eventually yield to you! But what happens is that people get used to a new level of comfort very fast and we always look and ask "What's next?". So we are doing insane amount of progress when we are being persistent but it doesn't feel like it. Because it's a very quiet process of moving forward.
Take for example book reading. 10 minutes a day reading doesn't sound like much. But when you look at it over a month you discover it's 5 hours of reading in a month! Which sounds insane! But it's true when you add up the numbers. So it's really the little things you do that makes the big difference. Mainly because you are conscious when you do them because it's a new pattern.
Yeah I agree.
Heck even I think am doing no progress at all some days.... sometimes I have to zoom out and remember how much I've walked this past month, because on the day to day ground I sometimes feel kind of stagnated.
Thank you for the insightful comment Phoneinf.
Cheers
That's a truth!
Preach!
Wow! This is a post I realised lately. There is no easy way on steemit. We do not have to treat it the way we do with other social media accounts. There are lots of effort and time we need to devote before we hit it. I like the way you narrate no exemptions, it is mostly what I felt before and feeling every so often. But every time I think about being lazy I regret the lost time I had being lazy then. A cup of coffee or a chocolate bar often does the trick even in the wee hours of the morning, and so off to the laptop. Thanks for sharing. This is what everyone new and old needs. Cheers!
On Steemit quality truly makes a difference because it get's rewarded more than on other social media sites. Most other platforms works based on numbers. Which is a very unnatural way for us humans to do things since we want to build trust and real connections with people.
With Steemit I feel it's much easier than with other platforms as long as you are genuine and real and bring great value to the community. I like being lazy it's one of my best skills in my tool set since that makes me think of creative ways to optimize my life more!
I believe so, and I hope new comers will get to know that as well. Post good, quality, hard worked content other than random pictures and videos with 2-3 sentences. That doesn't even constitute a paragraph:(
Yes exactly! There is lots of that going on. Random pictures and videos may give you 1 cent here and there but it's not a good long term solution. And for a person what it tells them is that the world is a scary place that there is not enough resources to go around so I need to find a way to game the system. All that it takes is just some real level of care for a few minutes. A few quality comments doesn't take that long to post but they can give huge rewards.
Since we humans are very good at rewarding content by giving a fair reward. If you put in a few extra minutes into something then you stand out very quickly. Since we humans learn to see patterns when there is little real value created. Real value take some sacrifice on our side with our time. But most of us have lots of free time in the modern world so we can afford to put some time in.
The great part about micro transactions is you can give out small rewards when you see something that you like. A few times of that to a person and they usually start to improve because they see that it gives them a reward.
Definitely! Good quality content may take some time to write about, but it says a lot about the author. I believe we all have to give value to others. This platform was made for that first and foremost, other than the rewards. It's only a bonus if people up voted the content. I believe what truly matters is that value, positivity, motivation etc that we impart to our readers. One single post can make a big difference in one's life and if that happens I know it's worth more than a hundred SBD's we can get. Cheers!
The ideal is that it will become so natural to exchange value between people that we will stop think about it completely. It will just be a natural part of a working system just like we take electricity or water for granted. And we are moving there!
The great part about humans is that we have reciprocal altruism which means we automatically do what's right in sharing value in a free system. Since humans are kind and loving naturally. As you said one post can truly make a difference in a persons life since we are dealing with real people on the Internet.
Now we are implementing the core layers that was missing in the other platforms the trust part, reputation and value exchange. Which means that it more starts to work like a tribe which is a comfortable system for us humans.
Wonderful discussion! I've upvoted this discussion to the top of the comments in order to let people read it.
Thank you so much for adding value to my post.
Cheers
I'm glad you took value of this post Chillin... and you and Phoneinf really added valuable points to the discussion... I'm upvoting you the "above" section of the comments.
Cheers
Thank you as well, these kind of post is what I have been looking for. Worth reading and contemplating. Cheers!
As much as what you say is true here, without disrespect, that is what worked for you @spiritualmax, I'm very happy to see this is happening. You are a good indicator.
Unfortunately we can't apply your growth on steemit to everyone. However you mentioned staying late after work kissing your girlfriend good night, I can sure relate to this as I too spend hours writing a post until 5am or waking up at 5am to write one, I'm sure you aware of this anyway you are a smart guy and I've enjoyed your input since day 1 almost. The test is the same for everyone that is a fact !
You have now a great support and harvest the fruits of all the work you put in to improve steemit and if it shows something here is that you are the proof that steemit rewards good if you put everything into it. You have almost 4K of posts/comments in just over a month this is huge max!
many like me have to deal with kids, animals, work shifts, sharing the computer with other member of the family etc... there are a lot of reasons out there that makes it difficult for us to be on steemit 100%, I won't spell all of them out, there is no point, but from what I can see you don't have young kids and this is a huge part of any parents life.
I don't want to sound like the guy that says "you have no kids so of course you can" because many here have no kids and yet haven't put sufficient work like you did for this great community, and I'm aware that you too have many things in your personal life beside steemit that take your precious time.
Maybe you have kids that are old enough to look after themselves or maybe you are a guy in mid 20's that has plenty of time in his hand and using it very well, I see so many mid 20's guys wasting their time instead of investing it in something like steemit ;-)
Before steemit my days were filled with family/work/choir/social-life/sex/internet, now I have to squeeze steemit in this and it's tough ! luckily for me I have a friend that supports me here otherwise I would have probably gave up.
We here to blog and make money with it. Your path is great and belong to you. Steemit is about commitment and work and the peeps that jump in the train have to understand that without support, commitment and an ability to blog you are not going to go very far on steemit and you should give up, this is not facebook or intend to be a "wanna be" facebook. Max you've shown a great growth and you made @underground's every SPenny worth it well done.
Like in spirituality we all have our own path
cheers
Without telling too much, I am working on a bigger, wider initiative with helping more new minnows at a time... You are 100% correct that each person's path will be unique to them, due to their drive, abilities, time availability and so forth. The @minnowbootcamp account will be the one to address that. Building rep and SP at the moment, but early followers will have a head start if they decide to join.
thx for the tip, I'm going to look into it I'm up for some action on steemit
You know what Shaun?
You're absolutely right!
I work 2 jobs, so I know what's being busy.... but I'm 29, and me and my wife have no kids as of yet.
This gives me indeed more time.
On the other hand, I can only write from experience.
Maybe one day I'll write from experience on what it feels like blogging while having to take care of the little ones.
Cheers
29 it's when I got my first one ;-) you are doing good, when women enter the dirty thirties the kid bell starts tickling, I'll enjoy reading you when you get there for now let's appreciate ^^
I practically did all the wrong things in the first month in Steemit.
I treated it like a virtual diary and just did a lot of the challenges, bad poetry and complained that no one was interested in my stuff.
2nd month i changed tactics and from posting 4-5 posts a day I took it down to 1-2 and talked more on things I really cared about and was commenting more on other posts. I actually made more by commenting on other people's posts than mine with the upvotes I get. More than the upvotes is the potential that by leaving a good comment that person will become interested enough to check your own posts and might become a follower. Nay an engager would be better.
Each post has my own brand of how I write and how i arrange my thoughts. I write with the standard that I want people to think about what I said, to reflect on what they do, learn from what I did and hopefully to inspire.
I love it when I read the comments from people. Engagement has always been a strength of mine in both my post and other people's posts. That is my personal branding of myself.
I have the same thoughts on resteeming because I don't want to flood those that follow me with endless resteems. I only resteem the daily highlights of @steemitfamilyph and teh New group I joined because I care to see their presence widen.
Thank you for your sharing and thoughts Max.
Yeap, you're one of the best commenters I ever saw!
You're truly talented at "posting" on the walls of others, and that'll get you a good number of comment rewards I'm sure, which is a great tool for bloggers to grow as I'm sure you know.
Thank you for the nice words.
See you around!
Cheers
Well done Max!
When I think "Well, I'm tired... Tomorrow I write a post" I remember that class, the class where you ask me "Why are you not writing in your Steemit account? "
I don't know if you remember. I explained that it was because of Eddisrupt and all the School Work. And you said "Hum hum... excuse..."
My reason was true but I understood the message ahah
So now I write one post per day. I know I know, you write 2 per day... One day I will do the same :)
NOTHING CAN STOP US!
Me after school ahah
Some very good advice there. Thank you.
Thanks.
Posting every day keeps your brand visible. My 'brand' is a bit higgledy-piggledy at the mo – wandering brain syndrome.
Yes, if your goal is to succeed at Steemit, you must get into that routine of being visible every day. I'd like to be successful here too. I also need the balance. I've got family, friends, dogs. If I don't put the 'work' in there, that side of life can suffer. It's a tightrope, for sure, but great time management helps us to also be available for loved ones AND put the work in here.
Thanks Max
Cheers
Anj x
Yeap!
Im sure that with added human variables like family and the likes things get harder. I have a wife, but I do not have sons or daughters, so I get more time than you, that's a certainty.
Thanks for the comment Anj.
Cheers
You should call this post:
"The road to super(fast) growth on Steemit" or "Taking the Steemit rocket" because that is what this is about, that is what you are doing.
Of course people do things at their own pace and - as you will probably know by now - I am more interested in more 'natural', organic growth. Which doesn't mean that, if people are following your advice, they will probably grow way faster. If they are interested in that kind of growth I won't blame them for it.
Anyhow, I know this post isn't directed towards me, but I still felt like responding. I don't need to tell you that you're doing very well but I want to point out one thing, even though it kind of goes against what you are writing here:
Don't forget to take a break every now and then - to recharge your batteries. Don't burn yourself out before you reach the moon / whale planet. I/ We won't like you less when you skip a day or two every now and then.
Bro hug,
Vince
Thank you for the kind words and for being concerned with me and those who never stop to rest.
Yes, if you feel close to burnout by all means take a rest... but know that many times that feeling is fake. Heck the less you work the less you'll feel like working most of the times.
So, although that is true, we must treat that with care :)
I wish to grow organically as well Vince, I don't wish to game the system. I'm sure you know that.
Cheers
Hey man! So I've been a little absent here the past few days, mainly due to my frustration with having bandwidth issues. There seems to be a roughly 10-12 hour period of every day when I can't use Steemit due to bandwidth glitches, and it's frustrating because it always falls in the morning when I am up and ready to use the platform.
I realized when I found your post that I was making exceptions, and my lingering disappointment with myself came fully into view!
You're an influence to many of us here and I came to your page out of routine and left, as usual, with much more determination!
Also I was unaware you were a professor until now. Very interesting. Thanks again for your ever-helpful presence
No worries Herbert!
Glad you're back.
Now, bandwidth space is earned with SP... the more SP you have, the more bandwidth you'll have, the limit gets constantly lifted as you power up.
Always try to conserve some bw to collect rewards since the act of collecting rewards expends a bit of bandwidth.
Cheers
See, I refer to my situation as a "glitch" because I've been informed of this several times, because I've bitched about it several times. My bandwidth delegation seems to have nothing to do with my use, nor is it consistent. I might not use the site all evening, then still from when I wake up until early afternoon I show monstrously negative percentages for my remaining bandwidth.
I guess my point is it is literally impossible for me to conserve any bandwidth because regardless of my activity level I am in the negatives for half of every day. I'm not all that concerned however and have faith as I grow in SP it will resolve itself.
Thanks for your help!
BW fluctuates during the day, sometimes you have more, sometimes you have less, that's why you can not move it and expend your limits because the limits actually came down during that time... sometimes i have Mb in Bandwidth sometimes I have 1.5 Gb...depends.
Thank you for this @spiritualmax! Tomorrow will mark my 28th day in a row posting on steemit (4 weeks straight). I made a goal for myself 4 weeks ago when I started steemit to post at least once a day for the first 4 weeks. And I've been feeling some of the frustrations you alluded to. But it hasn't stopped me! I have never blogged in my life but after these last four weeks I am hooked. Steemit for life!!
That's the right way to go forward!
Keep on grinding, I'm sure Steemit will reward you for your efforts! It always does... those who think it doesn't simply aren't putting enough hours :D
Cheers
I am learning a lot from you, you were mentioned in the post by @inquiringtimes claiming you are one of fastest growing steemian, I always thought that I came late to the party, but you filled me with hope. I am trying to comment more and more, reduced the time in chat all thanks to you. :) ... And I need your help..I wanna to know your strategy behind commenting, how you choose the content and blogger where you comment and are you comment like in paragraphs or just single line is sufficient ??
We are still early adopters!
If you want to see how I choose the bloggers I comment on and how do I do it, I wrote a post about it.
It's an advanced guide on commenting... find it by scrolling down on my blog!
Cheers
I think, main message for me "Finally, you'll see that I mention I love memes, animals, food, drink and all that but yet I never publish a meme, a selfie with a dish or something like that." :)) I have so much thing to learn. thank you for your explanation.
Well, it's like I say earlier on, if you want your blog to be a personal blog then there's no harm done in doing it. But if you want the blog to attract a uniform audience you have to treat it a bit like a brand.
Cheers man.
thank you. I am trying to be good
I would like to see "the complete guide to success at steemit" from your perspective... We could all learn a thing or two from you.
I can't really write that one up until I am successful myself now can I :)
Will probably do it when I feel successful enough to do it... I like to "preach" from experience.
Nice seeing you around IT
Cheers
I see you mention branding and it could be writting about things you are passionate about. With time people will notice you and you'll grow.
Thanks for the tips
Keep on the good work Sirkim!
Glad you keep on coming back, you're a regular here already and I love you for it :D
Hi @spiritualmax :)
Steemit can be called the main job. This is the place where to achieve results you must constantly develop and be sociable. If in a simple job you have a fixed schedule and after a working day you can come home and relax. Then on steemit your working day depends only on you. There are no days off.
And if you are approaching creating a blog professionally, it's really not as easy as it sounds. In my opinion it's better to write 1 good message a day than doing a few but bad.
Hey Frank!
Glad your reputation keeps on steadilly climbing! Good work!
I'm glad you liked it and agree.
I also agree with you that quality beats quantity!
Cheers
@spiritualmax
Hey buddy, I am a first-time blogger but I have tried to do most of the stuff you mentioned by intuition. In my first 3 weeks(from which one I didn't have access to Steemit) I got +50 followers which is a better result than I have imagined. However, I also realize some things I could have done better, for instance, not leaving today's work for tomorrow. Your post was so motivational that it deserved a 100% up. BTW what are teaching?
Hello Sofia!
Glad you liked them post and that you took value from it.
Congratulations on breaking the 50 follower barrier, now you only need to set the bar higher and keep on working to get that second barrier broken again!
Cheers
You've published this right on time, the kind of motivation i needed!
Your network marketing as your communication is good af !
Combine this two factors with persistense and sucess will reach to you !
Thanks man, glad you liked it.
Steem On!
Good going Max! It looks easy, but it takes grit and originality. Thanks for the tips and reminders! Cheers to much continued success
I look gorgeous in that artwork :P
Joking, not even at 1k SP here... but I'll get there.
Thanks for stopping by!
this was one of those feel good kinda posts for me. thanks :-)
Long time no see Christopher! What's rockin?
Ive been around on steemit, getting the hang of it. I ran out of bandwidth and had to power up to keep that from happening again.
It is very true that steemit can be hard. But luckily like anything in life I believe it gets easier over time.
Yes, it compounds so it gets easier!
Wow...this is really educative especially for newbies like me... Steemit is easy but seems hard for some of us. For instance,i find it difficult to keep being visible everytime... However,i am now encouraged by this great post. Persistence is really the key.
Thanks for this wonderful write-up. @spiritualmax
No problem Omoseni.
It's hard and almost impossible to be visible all the time. Some posts do better than others and that's ok.
Keep on working hard!
Cheers
Thank you @spiritualmax
Hi, you are indeed right. steemit is reading, documenting, correct comments, spelling, writing. we have to prepare ourselves very well academically to have a quality content. thanks for your good contribution.
Thank you, glad you liked it.