A Newbie Struggling on Steemit: Progress Report

I am not sure which community I should publish this post, but since it's about newcomers on the Steemit platform, I guess the newcomers community will be a good place to publish it.

I have been here now for about a month, and I can say I am still completely out of the loop about the platform. Like I wrote in my introduction post, it's quite easy for newbies to get lost on the Steemit platform. I have joined quite a good numbers of community and posted in most of them, namely #steemforbetterlife, #hotnews, #worldofxpilar, and #steemforbloggers. Like many newbies, I find it hard to do things here. There are so many things that are just not right and these things can easily make a newbie give up on the platform.

I know engagement is key on a platform like this, and that's how a newbie can gain recognition and support from others. However, I have to admit that I fall short in terms of engagement, though I tried my best to reply to every comment I got on my post. I will say the newbie support is not so good on Steemit. I've seen some posts from newbies, they hardly get any reasonable support from the community when it comes to upvote rewards. And it can be so frustrating.

I noticed here that there are consensus rules regarding post rewards. Although these rules are good for the growth and sustainability of the platform, some of them are actually anti-newcomers. I saw that the user has to be in a club before they can participate in community initiatives and get rewards from the community. Although this is easy for almost anyone to achieve, it should not be used against newbies who are still finding their place on the platform.

There are so many contests on the platform and almost all of them set the rule that participants must be in a club. This means that newbies cannot participate in such competitions. I tried to enter some contests and on one occasion even finished writing a post, but when I checked the rules again I found that I had to be in a club to join. It was painful for me to spend time writing only to see that I was ineligible for the contest. I have only been able to join one contest which allows anyone to participate, and it looks like it was a sponsored contest.

The other thing that gave me a problem is the power up. I've been trying to find some articles written about it here, so I'll know how to do it. Although I've seen several posts on this topic, I can't find the features on the Steemit site or in the app I'm using. I even went so far as to download another app for Steemit on the Google Play Store, but the app still has no features to power up. I guess I must be using the wrong apps for Steemit.

The worst part is that there is no one to help you with the right information to overcome the problem. The newbie discord server for newbies to get support is always quiet. There is almost no response to queries on the server. I believe the server was created to help newbies get to grips with the platform. The moderators aren't always there to answer newbie questions, and there are a lot of us in this struggle.
How do you power up on Steemit? Which is the best app to use that allows you to power up easily? The website does not have the features to do it, same as the app that was recommended from the website.

Even though I haven't earned anything major on the platform, I believe that with the little I've earned so far, I can start powering up and hopefully become a member of club 50, although I don't know how it actually works yet.

I hope I haven't messed with your head with all this rants and complaining. It's just my opinion and the best way to share my problems since I joined the platform.

I hope to see your positive reactions and advice in the comments.

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