Pick Your Circle Carefully:
On Steem people love to talk about content, but social networking is actually about...
Well, Social Networking!
When you land on Steem you will naturally begin to create a community network, by the type of content you post engage with and the groups you associate yourself with. If you are new or fairly new, pick wisely. Your understanding of Steem might be influenced by who you spend your time with.
What you focus on grows
We had an interesting conversation in SteemSpeak recently where a couple of people who spend their time "Cleaning" the site were telling us how much scam and spam there is. It is my opinion their view is influenced by how and where they spend their time.
I feel like spam and scams are dwindling, but that is likely based on where I spend my time and energy. I flag comment spam and the commenters seem to notice and stop posting on my blog. I upvote and engage with thoughtful comments on my blog and I am so impressed with the comments right now. I think Steem's end users are the best they have ever been.
I find many interesting posts, blogs, memes and casual users on Steem and I enjoy reading these posts. Some can't find a single thing they are interested in. That is fine, I've always said Steem will not be for everyone. However, why would you run a Witness Campaign on a site that has nothing that interests you? Why would you continue to post on a site you consider to be spammy or scammy.
I enjoy some debate and a flushing out of ideas, but at this time I am overloaded on listening to complainers, so I am focusing my energy on those who are excited about the future of Steem, who recognise it isn't perfect, but are working on solutions.
Some of you might think my attitude stems from relative success, I would say, I made 95 posts that didn't earn a single thing and 100s more that earned pennies. I would say that any success I have came from the attitude that if I just kept doing the right things success would follow.
Successful people figure out their environment and learn how to work in it.
Things can be difficult and yet not broken. Those who do not want to develop their own skills try to move the playing field down to their level. The proof that people can be successful here is clear, people are feeling and accomplishing success. If you don't see this, maybe you are hanging out with the wrong crowd.
You can complain about how things have developed, and spread the word that Steem isn't fair. That's a big surprise, I bet your family, school, work, Nation wasn't fair, either. Life isn't fair. Live anyway.
If your content is focused on others' behavior or trying to sway others to see the problems, that is great, you will find an audience of people who will follow you, but where will you lead them?
I'm done entertaining the complaints, and complainers they are bringing me down. Maybe I will miss seeing the problems, but I will do it with rose colored glasses firmly in place.
What you surround yourself with does impact you, so surround yourself with positive people.
I'm done listening to arbitrary rules on what is good and bad content, actors etc. Just find a way to make a space for yourself and earn a little or spread your message a little or develop your craft a little. Or find the problems and earn complaining, whatever floats your boat.
Where you see problems I see opportunity! Keep in mind, with all this complaining Content Creators on Steem are earning much more than they would in the rest of the world. Most are not under compensated they are so envious of those who are earning more, they can't see the forest for the trees.
You are free to move around the blockchain.
I pay attention to what’s happening, that is I read witness blogs and Steemit’s corporate blog and adjust accordingly. I see Steemit as a social experiment, we are being rewarded for being social. I’m not that social because as an introvert I need lots of quiet time to create content and recharge my batteries. No other social network does this!
I work with the minnow people exclusively who support my blog and show promise, I sometimes find interesting people from browsing the new postings too. But to conserve energy I support people I know who are consistent commentors with large rewards. This attracts comment spammers which I happily flag. I post a warning at the bottom of my articles, if they read my article they would know better😂
I’ve seen many of my minnow friends grow into dolphins, I feel proud I was part of their success.
yes yes yes minnows will get plenty of help when they actually produce good content and pay for advertising :D Also there will be PLENTY of great ways to make money on dtube dlive etc
anyway @whatsup it was fun talking to u about hawaii lava with @bleepcoin and @fyrstikken on https://steemspeak.com
oh SHIT it was the #bogdanoff twins who triggered the volcano!
I tried lookin up the hawaiin volcano stuyff and i found this video instead about This big awesome fat Hawaiin guy wrote that rainbow song dude
everyone cries when they hear that song now u can cry when u watch it knowing the singer died in 1997 he was hawaiin i hope the lava doesnt upset his grave site ;) :troll:
Anyway we should tell Minnows who wanna make money they can go film the lava in hawaii :D XD
seriously minnows need to FIGHt for our attention! I had to work HARD to earn my Steempower! Why should anyone have it easier than me? LOLOLOL JK it wasnt THAT hard but i was early i dont want minnows making mroe than me hahaha nah just kidding but i want minnows to REALLy fuckin have to be workaholics to get ANYWHERE near me wiuthout spending teh same time UNLESS the are mroe skille dthjem me!
i want this place to have a learning curve and i want this place to be POPULAR and it WILL be :D BECAUSE I SAID so!
Steem is going UP
I also love seeing all of us who struggled through our minnow time starting to see results and being able to help the next round of people.
I also think with experience, comes less cut and dried opinions and more just hang in there. :)
I'm in the @whatsup circle! :) lol
This environment is challenging especially since people come here thinking they can make a career out of it. Perhaps maybe about .01% can. Hopefully I'm in the minute minority.
I've had a similar experience to you in the early days. It was months before I made much Steem, but I concentrated on making it a fun experience as I liked the idea of the platform. People turn up expecting to get paid immediately, but why should they get paid? It is supposed to be about adding value by posting, commenting or curating. I can write a bot that says 'Nicccee post', but that has no value. I could follow 2000 random people, but my feed would not be interesting to me. People happily use other social media sites with no chance of reward because they are entertaining. Steemit can be that too with the bonus of possible rewards. You just have to seek out the interesting people, and they are not necessarily those paying huge sums to get on the trending page. Anything that's really worth while tends to take some work.
Yeah, we stuck it out and ground it out. I admit, I complained a few times, but I also got over it and moved forward.
negativity is a disease and i see a lot of it on steemit. it is hard to make a change unless you are feeling positive. criticizing others makes us even more negative!
that being said, there are many reasons that we have to be concerned about steemit and the least of it is money making.
Consider that there are many kinds of competitors slowly emerging. How aware is the steemit community of being able to pull ahead. in today's world first mover advantage is over priced.
if we have to maintain our superiority then it comes from great curation and setting the bar high.
if we are just another social media site with blockchain/money as the only difference then we will be found out sooner than later.
Steemit SMTs are game changers but i have to confess i have not read the white paper yet. planning on doing it this week.
hope we keep working and improving as a community constantly
This, right here, is significant on Steemit and in life. Like tends to attract like. My comment section is very rarely clogged with meaningless spammy comments, and most of the time gets lots of deeper meaningful comments.
Without doubt, Steemit has had — and continues to have — a bit of an identity crisis, but I think we may finally be "growing up" a bit.
Even a year ago, I remember a lot more "quality content" vs. "making money" talk than there seems to be today. I think we've moving from being more of a social blogging site to being a social content site... with Dtube, Steepshot and various other front ends. I happen to love social blogging — it was that "feel" that inspired me to even create an account here — so that tends to be the sphere I roll in.
I will still complain from time to time — typically about scams, because they tend to harm people — because I believe we must focus on our own reality while still staying in touch with the greater reality. So I stay aware of the situations that might get in the way of my own enjoyment... because, dammit, I want to continue having fun here. And I will point things out, just like I will ask the person at the park to pick up after their dog because other people use the park, too. But I try not to obsess over it. And I don't go LOOKING for dog poop to be angry about!
And now I will end by saying "nice post!"
Now that you mention it, I do see less spam. Especially in the comments.
It's true that the group you choose will define what you see and shape your perspective. I am surprised, however, that some people don't find anything that interests them. Every subject imaginable is right here on this blockchain. Maybe they aren't looking hard enough...
I wrote a post a couple of hours ago primarily to newbies acknowledging that there are problems here, but we at the heart of Steemit make this place special, so it was funny to read this as this post complements what I was saying.
Have a great day @whatsup! :)
There is way less spam! :)
It's an interesting thing. With each post I put on the blockchain I get at least 10 notifications of new followers, all dust accounts created around the same time frame. At the same time, my post engagement has been getting lower and lower. I guess since my posts tend to be pretty random I don't have a consistent circle. That's certainly an attitude I can understand.
I've pondered this choosing your circle subject many times, but I have a hard time not being completely random. hahaha
I think it is all about just doing you and not worrying too much about the payout of the post. We just need to teach people that STEEM is about sharing what is on our mind, the post payout should not be the end goal. Just a happy result of the hard work of creating content.
I'm pretty random too, I mostly do commentary, but I throw in random. As I've made more relationships, more people are interested in my BS. Facebook works because you are interested in what your friends have to say, Strangers... Not as much.
I've noticed the same thing - declining engagement on my posts. I think people are just delegating more and more.
perfect
I don't think steem has any more spam or scam than any other platform. It gets highlighted more because of the way curation work. No one gets paid to like a video on facebook, hence only good content gets visibility. But here, decisions get influenced by monetary value associate by a vote. On top of that all votes are not equal.
It is a stake based system. Stake matters. :)
I am relatively new to Steemit and I want to say how much I appreciate articles like this (and the people that write them). My work isn't getting much notice, but I agree that it is more about developing my craft. I'm not here to make a quick buck, I ultimately want to invest in the platform, but there is a lot of information and facets to navigate here. I really appreciate your perspective, thank you for taking the time.