You've joined Steemit, you've posted content, you have engaged in comments, but you still seem somehow on the outside.

What gives?

Why isn't anyone engaging with you and your content?

The reason might be that you haven't as yet uncovered the Steemit that lies beneath the public facing site. So come now, in the first of this series, and let me take you on a journey of discovery.

What Is Steemit?

Before we can go on an exploration to find the hidden Steem, we have to first articulate exactly what Steemit is.

Steemit is a little over a year old, and is arguably still defining itself, on the one hand, you could call Steemit a social media site. On another, you might say that it is a blogging platform.

The fact is, neither of those terms fully satisfy, Steemit does not have the tools and functionality of a "pure" social media platform; and the community building around the Steemit universe, shows that it is not your typical blogging site either.

Perhaps the it is a hybred of the two, a kind of social blogging platform? However you want to define it, it is clear that there is a community of Steemians, that have built up around the site, although for some, true engagement with them seems tantalisingly out of reach.

This is mainly because Steemit acts as a kind of living roadmap to a whole social world, connected across a few different apps and channels.

It is on these platforms, some of which are quite separate from Steemit.com, that you will find the hidden ones, and it is there you will meet allies, and hopefully supporters of your cause.

Navigating The Hidden Depths

STEEMCHAT

Let us take a look at the channel that is the closest to home, and possibly has the most Steemians residing on it, and that is, Steemit Chat. It is simple to get to, you simply access the menu via the 3 lines to the right of your avatar, in the top right hand corner of your screen.

A menu opens up, and ten slots down, in the second bundle of menu items, you will see a link to the chat, go there, use the same name you're using on Steemit, so as not to cause confusion, and away you go.

You will notice that there are many different rooms in chat, you can hang out in general and meet and greet your fellow Steemians. After which, you may want to go on exploring rooms, you'll see that a lot of the rooms are used to promote posts, and some are for discussion.

Think of these as different bars, if you hang out in them long enough, you start to meet some interesting people.

As far as etiquette is concerned, try and stick to the rules of the public rooms; however when it comes to private messaging (PM) other Steemians, each one has his or her own rules, and you'll just have to work it out as you go along.

For instance, some people don't mind you pinging them with your content, others hate this and consider it spamming.

I myself don't mind, however when I get a lot of posts pinged at me in a short period of time, I tend to ignore them all, unless one particularly jumps out at me.

As far as the best rooms for engaging with other Steemians? Well that's up to you to find out, there are a lot of rooms, which you'll see when you hit the, More channels button, just check them out and see what's occurring!

DISCORD

Discord is an app that has been around for some time now, and is in no way directly associated with Steemit inc. However there are a few discord channels that you can join, in order to hang out with your fellow bloggers on Steemit.

What makes Discord unique, is the speech feature, which will allow you to speak directly to people, so you can put a voice to that avatar you've been staring at. As well as chatting live, you can listen to a variety of podcasts, which will help you get the Steemit low-down

CHANNELS

Steemspeak
Peace Abundance & Liberty
Whale Shares

SLACK

The Slack was the original way for us Steemians to communicate when we were off-Steemit. However due to bandwidth issues, the official Steemit channel was moved from the Slack, to Steemit.chat. These days, it tends to be private channels which you'll need a personal invite for, so just keep that in mind when you're chatting to people, it's worth asking if they have a Slack channel that you can join.

STEEMSTREAM

I love Steemstream, I used to use it a hell of a lot in the early days, and I'm just getting back into it now. Whilst you can't interact directly with anyone on there, you can see how many people are engaging in real time. This is handy because you can work out when the busiest times are, which help you when figuring out when to post.

Also you can set follow filters up, and see when your favourite Steemians are out voting. Not only that, you can turn the audio on, and listen to the sounds of the blockchain, which hopefully like me, you will find extremely calming.

WHALE SONAR

Whale Sonar is another fun app in the mould of Steemstream, you can use this to keep an eye on your favourite whales, orcas, and dolphins. I personally like it with all the effects turned on, as I love the sounds of the deep ocean! Use Whale Sonar to find out where the whale votes and comments are going in real time.

ARE YOU A NEW USER AND HAVE FOUND IT HARD TO CONNECT? OR PERHAPS YOU HAVE SOME TIPS FOR NEW STEEMIANS LOOKING TO ENGAGE? AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!

Cryptogee