The 5 main reasons why posts goes wrong

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The “Steemit team” doesn’t often speak up but this week there were two things which caught my eye.

Today I want to address one of the items, the quality of the posts on Steemit.

Every day we see a small number of high quality posts, we see a significant number of absolutely terrible posts, and the large bulk of posts that are just... average. The writing is okay, the photos are okay, the presentation is okay.
These 'average' posts are the most frustrating posts. With a bit more effort and a bit more guidance these posts could move from average to good.

As curator and moderator I cannot agree more with the statement that there are few “high quality post”. Is there potential? FOR SURE!

I have seen numerous posts where the authors are more than capable of pushing their post to the next level.

I am not going to tell you how to write a good post as there are numerous posts already published on this subject. I want to tell you about the 5 main factors I see where so many Steemians go wrong. I am going to give examples of what is wrong and examples of how you can improve on the wrongs.

1. No catchy heading and extremely long headings

Steemians can write headings which consist of more than 30 words!

They see other authors doing it and so they follow. With my return to Steemit I also thought that it was supposed to be like that. Wrong!

First impression is lasting impression, never forget that. Keep it short and sweet. There is no need to put your club status and your delegations in the heading if it is in your tags.

The only time that you must have a long descriptive heading is when the contest rules the heading of the post and it is long. Even those who holds contest should be aware of not making the compulsory heading too long.

❌ WRONG!

#Club100 The dairy game(23-Aug-22) What I did today going to town meeting friends. How was the day? #Burnsteem25 #steemexclusive

✔ RIGHT!

My day, 23 Aug 2022: Off to town, meeting some friends

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2. The intro doesn’t catch the audience attention

“I am well today, how are you today”.

We are not writing letters my friends, we are writing posts. Sometimes the “how are you” fills more than the 25% of the post.
It often feels that the author is trying to make up for the 300+ words a post must consist of.

Keep your intro interesting to make sure the reader is going to read every single word of your post.

❌ WRONG!

How are your today my friends? I woke up and I am also well. Hope you are having a good day. My day is good.

✔ RIGHT!

What an exciting day I had to today!

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3. Post with less than 300 words

I have seen ample posts with very few words and in many cases the words doesn't make sense at all.

Sharing images with a few words is not going to help you to win the race.

We all know the famous words of Churchill. Well, I want to change it today.

Never, ever, ever write a post of less than 300+ words.

The most important factor, don’t write "garbage" to make up the 300+ words. Garbage is not going to get you to be noticed.

To be on the save side count the physical content as words and not the heading, nor the image and for sure not you name at the bottom of your post.

❌ WRONG!

Today I found a yellow flower in my garden. I like flowers. The flower is yellow with black dots and it is beautiful. You can find the flower in my garden and I like flowers. This flower in my garden smells nice.

✔ RIGHT!

What a surprise it was today to found a beautiful, yellow, black spotted and good smelling flower in my garden. I love flowers.

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4. Boring posts

We get tired of reading the “same posts” over and over again.

Most posts on Steemit is about “The Diary Game”. This on its own is a challenge as an author you have to compete with so many other authors who is also writing about their day.

We get to read about daily hygiene routine. I promise you that the readers don’t want to read about it day after day. They want to read about interesting things you did and how you did it.

Best, if you can share something they can learn from your day you have nailed it.

Authors use dairy instead of DIARY.

Word	Meaning	ImageMeaning
Dairy	milk products
Diary	to journal your day

Authors post their daily routine day after day. Readers gets tired of reading what you do day after day. You have to write about other interesting things also.

Make your posts stands out by keeping it interesting and different. In Steemit you don’t “drive” what the Jones family next to you is driving, no, you want to be different.

If you write about an item or object tell the reader the why, the where, the how, the importance etc.

Posts are written in one paragraph! Never do this!
Make sure you post is easy to read by breaking it up in short paragraphs and by using bullet points and other markdown styles.

Share your knowledge, share your skills and share what you love doing. We all want to learn from you. If you had to repair a roof tell us what you used, what it cost and how you did it.

❌ WRONG!

I woke up this morning and I first went to the bathroom where I cleaned myself. I then had said my morning prayers and had breakfast. I then went to town to buy some items which was needed for me to cook lunch today. When I got home I made lunch.

✔ RIGHT!

I woke up this morning feeling refreshed and ready for the day.

After my morning routine I had to go to town to buy some items which I needed to make lunch for my family. I had to make use of public transport to get to the market.

We have three different types of public transport in my town, taxi, motorbike or bus. Today I took a taxi. What a friendly driver I had.

I went to ABC market which is located in the centre of my village. What makes this market unique is that they sell anything from fresh vegetable to shoes.

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5. Wrong and large images

If there is one image Steemians like to post it is a selfie. What I cannot understand is why they don’t post the best selfie but the worst selfie, the one where the reader has to look up into their nostrils to see the face.
Don’t laugh! It happens day after day.

If you don’t know how to take the correct selfie you can read my post on it.
How to take the correct selfie

The same image is posted more than once in a post. You are not going to get away with doing this. Curators know very well how to “scan” content.

My friends, posting large images in a post is not good. So often we have to search for the words among the images which is very frustrating.
Some authors think they can hide the shortcoming of a 300+ word post behind their images.

You have to scale your images according to your text and line them left and right.

The best image – Horizontal/landscape
The best size - https://steemitimages.com/500x600/

Just add the above link before you image. You can then play around with the "500x600" and change the image to a size correct for your post.

How to do it:

)

Plenty big images are used in posts addressing powering up.
We don’t want to see the steps you followed to do the power up. What we want to see is the proof that it was done.
How?

Create one image or share the images next to each other which will automatically make them smaller.

I know I said 5 main factors BUT I want to add one more.

6. Post are not checked

Wrong grammar, sentences not starting with capital letters and no punctuation are huge problems in posts.

Check your post before and after you have posted it and decided for yourself if what you have just posted is worth the comments and votes that you are expecting.

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The end…

We are not all fantastic authors but if you are willing to listen and to learn you can become the best author that you can be.

And if you still need help, ask! The admin and moderators of a community as well as your country representative will gladly help you.

^{Examples are my own and not based on anyone.}