One of the most frequently asked questions I receive from new users on Steemit is, How do I increase my reputation score? In this article I'm going to help you understand how it works, and what you can do to help your reputation grow.

Know Your Decimal Score

Start using this Super-tool created by Steemian, @penguinpablo, to monitor your reputation score in more detail. You will need to enter your own @name to see your own stats.

• Your more detailed reputation score will be right at the top of the screen next to your username.
  • Sometimes the page will default back to @penguinpablo's username. If it does that, just put yours back in on the settings block, and save it to generate your stats.
  • If the tool quits working, try changing the node in the settings block.

Monitoring your reputation this way allows you to see the incremental growth that you can't see from your Steemit home page.

In my opinion, being able to see daily incremental growth gives a person encouragement to keep going. This tool is also valuable because it functions as a real-time activity feed, and allows you to see who is upvoting what, pertaining to your user activity.

Give To Get

To put it into my own words, reputation score is a reflection of what other people think about the value you contribute to Steemit.

• People show you what they think of your contribution by upvoting or downvoting you every time you make a contribution to Steemit, whether your contribution was by writing a new article or by commenting and replying.

• If you want to see a daily increase in your reputation score, you should bring some value to Steemit every day.

• Don't post junk mail. At the very least, add something personal to information that you are passing along to the Steemit platform. Think before you post is a good rule to live by if you are trying to increase your reputation score.

  • More specifically, think, "Why would anyone want to read or look at this?" If you can't come up with anything, hit Clear, not Post, and try for something else.

Mind Your Votes

Treat your voting power like a bank account, and leave yourself something to live on tomorrow.

• If you are trying to increase your reputation score a little every day, you will want to have maximum voting strength available each day.

• Use the Super tool mentioned above to keep track of your voting strength. Don't let your voting strength drop below 90% in any given 12 hour period if you want to get the most return on your voting activity.

  • This is an important strategy for increasing your reputation score if you are a minnow. It might be less important for the higher ups - I don't know for sure because I'm not there yet.

• Don't let your votes go to waste. It's the same thing as keeping your money in your pocket instead of at least letting it earn interest in a savings account. Use at least that first 10% of your voting strength every day, or delegate it to another user. There are many delegation pool services available such as Minnowbooster, or you can follow an individual curator such as myself (@mitneb) via Streemian.

Mind Your Tags

Choose the most relevant tags from the list of trending tags located in the Steemit menu under the Explore option. These can change from time to time, so it's a good idea to check the list right before you publish your article.

• The first tag you list is the most important, so select a good one. This is the only tag that cannot be changed by editing after you publish.

• Only make up your own tag if you know what you are doing, and it will benefit you personally.

  • For example, I want to isolate my new curation trail daily reports for easy access, so I made up a tag for this purpose. All of my Daily Report articles will be easily located by clicking on the mitnebcurationtrail tag on any of the Daily Report links. (I've only started them yesterday, so there's only one so far.) I give thanks to @gogogadgetupvote for the idea and usage example, and @eliashossain for accidentally leading me to discover how tags can create isolated repositories with his creative tag #loveu Check it out!

Set Reasonable Goals and Expectations

Would you rather fall off the top of a 10 foot ladder, or a step stool? Steemit has a learning curve. It isn't like any other social media platform or blogging site. Set yourself up for success by lowering your expectations. Treat your activity on Steemit like a marathon race, not a 40 meter dash.

• Decide what you can do consistently, and keep at it.

• Start small, and add to your goals as your skills increase.

• Dedicate a portion of your daily activity towards increasing your Steemit knowledge and technical skill.

  • Practice making posts using different Markdown commands.
  • Research the different services offered.
  • Search out and read articles on Steemit best practices, etc.

Be Yourself and Don't Worry About Failure

Don't get discouraged when you see other people getting lots of upvotes and big payouts for their posts. Your turn will come as you learn and grow in Steemit skill and knowledge. Keep a positive attitude, and be true to yourself.

• People are attracted to genuine, honest people, even when they don't agree with or share the same point of view.

  • I don't personally recommend being rude or abrasive, but if that is your genuine self-expression you are better off going with it than faking some kind of niceness. Even someone like @berniesanders, who has a horrible reputation score, does very well on Steemit, and is very popular based on the number of people interacting with him because he is genuine.

• Try posting on a variety of topics, and stretch your creativity. Bring as much personal insight as possible to your new topic. You might just surprise yourself by discovering a new passion or interest in the process. The delight of discovery is an attractive element in writing, so take the time to narrate your thoughts. When you are having fun writing your thoughts, others are likely to feel enjoyment reading them. When you make a person feel good they are more likely to follow you for more of the same. It's a win-win!

Your reputation score could skyrocket ahead at any moment with a single high dollar upvote from just one person!

If this happens to you, be grateful, consider it a one-time gift, and keep working hard at being consistent, being genuine, and being of value to other people.

• Do make an effort to figure out who gave you that huge boost if you get one, and personality thank them for it with a call out, and a private message via chat if possible.

  • I actually had this happen to me recently! I was happily plugging along at reputation score 41, when I received a huge upvote from @hendrikdegrote on this article. His generous upvote boosted my reputation score to 50, and put my post organically on the trending page. I thanked him in the comments of the post, and also sent him a chat private message. I have no idea whether he received the chat message or not, so this article is another opportunity for me to say thank you @hendrikdegrote. Interestingly, he upvoted me without making a comment or following me.

    • It just goes to show that increasing your reputation score is more about upvote dollar amounts than followers.

Create A Personal Web of Opportunity

With just a little thought and intentionality you can increase your reputation score by self-validation, and make it easier for people to engage with you.

• Try to use every article you write as an opportunity to direct your readers to other relevant articles you have written.

  • The key word in that sentence is relevant. If you look back through this article you will find several examples of this technique. I purposely created an opportunity for myself to share a link to some of my other articles, or my curation trail naturally and relevantly to the text in this article. To balance this, and not come off as overly self-promoting, I also included highly relevant links to other services and gave recognition to other Steemit users.

• Use good comments and questions you have received as a writing prompt for a new article.

  • This article is being written because I receive a question from @smileplease in the comments of this article. I started to answer her question, as I have done for several other people in the past, when I realized I could just write an article to answer her, and have the link to give to others forever. That's a triple-win, to use a saying I heard from @outerground one time. I win because I am able to write another helpful article I can pass along to the people who ask the question! @smileplease wins because she gets a really valuable reply! And the Steemit community wins because another helpful article is added to the archives!

• I do think there's validity in asking or reminding people with a call to action. That's what is happening when a person asks for an upvote, resteem or follow. However, I don't believe it is necessary to do this. I have never asked anyone for any of those things on purpose. I am using myself as a Steemit experiment. I want to see how well a new user can do completely organically, and by the good-will of unsolicited support.

  • I invite the opportunity by letting people know I am following, upvoting and resteeming them.

  • I do thank people when they tell me they have supported me in any of these ways.

  • I follow everyone who follows me.

    • Check your followers list to see who is following you that you didn't know about, and click on the link to follow them. Be aware that this will slam your feed with a lot of poor quality posts you will have to wade through because you will have a lot of new users following you, and they are still trying to figure Steemit out. Not everybody will want to use this suggestion.

There's More

I'm sure that I left out a lot of great advice that would help a person increase their reputation score. This is a perfect opportunity for you more knowledgeable and experienced Steemians to chime in with a comment. Or even use this article as a writing prompt for one of your own! I'd love to hear about it if you do! Send me your link!

I Leave You With
The Inspirational Message on the Rock

photo by @mitneb

Cheers!

@mitneb

Read more about the @mitneb Curation Trail Project here

You can read my Introduction Post here