I'm fine with followers only trickling in
I discovered Steemit through a member of a private Facebook group for moms. I'm in this group and it's the least dramatic mom group around. Anyway, I was intrigued because I wanted to start blogging again for a long time. I kept putting it off. This was the push I needed to start again.
Several weeks ago I joined Steemit. Shortly after, I joined Facebook groups meant for Steemit Support. It was fascinating to read the articles that members posted. I'm not going to criticize members spamming their posts because they want them noticed. I do the same thing. What irks me are members begging for followers.
I can't stand and never engage in F4F. Anyone whose into that just wants to up their numbers and they have no interest in future engagement. Yes. They gain followers and follow them back. That's all I think of when I see anyone posting F4F. How is that helpful other than showing off a large following that you have nothing to do with otherwise?
I am all for following bloggers who I want to engage with. I am all for gaining followers who are interested in following me. I understand when you are starting out, you need a push. I get it. You are going to want to find interested readers. You are going to want to find bloggers who write posts that you relate to in some way. But F4F is not the way to go.
There is a supportive Facebook group that encourages members to not only follow one another, but to upvote and show interest in what they are sharing. That's the way to start when building a following and reputation. Not just on Steemit but on anywhere. The owner of this group is @jmcmeekin.
You know the saying that Rome was not built in a day.
Sure, you need a helping hand at first and even for a while to get things going. But once you are established and stay consistent, then everything naturally builds from there.
F4F fails in the end because there is no foundation. Without any kind of foundation, things fall apart. I want my followers to trickle in because I want them interested in what I have to say. That being said, I only follow those who interest me too. I've said my piece for today.
None of the above images are mine. They are from https://pixabay.com.
Lovely read, and thanks for introducing us to @jmcmeekin, new members allowed? :)
As for the #F4F thing you speak of, I'm not sure which platform you're referring to, but personally I know a lot about it from instagram.
I agree that the foundation must be built on genuine interest. This always comes first. If it is not there, then starting in the first place would lead to no direction.
However..
I sometimes recommend such strategies, as supplements. If you're working out and would like to strengthen and grow your muscles, whey protein would help. Creatine would help even more.
These tactics are like supplements.
But without everything else, like the diet, the training, the cardio, the sleep..... the supplements are rendered a waste of money and time, and in some cases damaging.
I like to look at numbers like a window display. You want to have a neat and clean display for people passing by your store. Coming across bigger numbers would help cast a better first impression. Especially for smaller accounts who have great products/services, who do not necessarily know about beating the algorithms and growing their accounts.
If the account adds value, it deserves the attention. If the account is dieing, these supplemental tactics can be used for medicinal reasons.
#JustMy2Cents
Cheers!
If you are consistent, we would be happy to have you. We all have the same mindset to make Steemit more than just a blogging platform for us, but ask @jmcmeekin, connect with him on FB and see how it goes :)
Thanks for your comment and reference @enginewitty. I'm in on the vision and super excited for what the future holds. Followed :)
Hey, @introducingmo, we have a community on FaceBook. It really came about to get some momentum behind a few minnows (myself included). We needed to get regular interactions and build a community where we look out for each other.
A umber of us found that it is highly frustrating to write a post for it to be worth 0.02, especially when some (not all) people put in less effort on this platform and rake in the money.
If you want to find more, come find us on Facebook - Steem Team
Thanks James :) My view on this is very long term, and I'm not here for the quick cash. I believe in good karma. I try to do my part in engagement and community building only because it's how I actually am :) Having said that I'd love to check out your page.
On a side note, I actually just read your latest post and commented there haha. That was before I saw this comment.
Steem Team - I'll check y'all out! Thanks.
Thanks for adding your piece. You can definitely follow him and new members are allowed. I do understand what you are saying and I agree with most. There are groups for Steemit in Facebook and plenty of members only want F4F and nothing more. I do agree that you need to build a following and need some support. Maybe what I didn't express enough was that quality is far superior over quantity alone. I am sorry I just have an issue with someone only asking for followers who has no intention of engaging with you otherwise. But that's just me. Quality means more to me than quantity alone.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. You expressed yourself perfectly and I understood what your point was. We're actually on the same boat, you'd like to have a clean healthy diet, but without the supplements. The time I spend thinking about 'followers' is probably less than half a percent of my day.
Hope that clarifies my position, as I definitely wouldn't want to be misunderstood as someone who 'needs followers'. It's the last of my concerns :)
Cheers!
All good and thank you for chiming in 👍
Absolutely :)
Great post doll! I was browsing new posts yesterday and there was a lady complaining about the spam she was getting...the follow for follow bit, clogging up her comment stream and making it sloppy. I for one, follow anyone that follows me, just to see if they post something I might like. The rate it's presently going, I'll continue to have about twice as many people that I follow as I do that follow me. Which, I don't care. Two reasons I follow people is to say hey, thanks for supporting me, and the other is I like their content in their posts and want to see more. So, excellent piece queen, fully agree and well-written!
@enginewitty I'm so glad you liked it. The F4F for me is annoying. Like I said to the previous commenter quality beats quantity. Sure you want to give Bloggers a chance. If they only share crap and spam they are unfollowed.
You know what would be a neat feature? Like a favorites list of people that you want to see in your feed first ya know?
It's still so new they may end up coming up with this later on. You never know.
I completely agree and have had the same thought!
Welcome to steemit it @sagittarianqueen . People who don't engage and try to use "F4F" to build their follower number usually aren't going to get that far. Only amateurs employ that tactic in social platforms, haha. Getting out and talking to people is the only way to get honest feedback and responsiveness.
Thank you @snowmachine and I couldn't agree more!
always quality posts!!!
Thank you 👍
There surely is a diffrrence between quality and quantity!! Im interested in your mommy group too:)
Absolutely and it's a secret group. Gonna talk to the admin 👍
Great post @sagittarianqueen! I've only been on here for a week. At first I was lulled into a lot of just what you are mentioning here. I would get f4f all the time and would blindly listen to them and follow. I do however do something like what @enginewitty mentions in your comments above. I like to follow people that follow me to show support. However it does really clutter up the home feed. The favorites idea he mentioned would take care of that though. I'm learning though that if they are only doing it for followers then they are not actually supporters.