A Welcome Guide for Newbies

Hello to all new members,

First of all I want to extend a warm welcome to you on behalf of Steemit Community. And being relatively new to Steemit myself, I can imagine the questions popping-out in your head such as,

• Ok, now that I have joined Steemit, what should I do?
• What is the purpose of all this, and how am I to gain something out of it?
• Where should I go? Which link should I click?
• Where should I start?
• What is expected out of me?
• How should I start to post? Is it a good idea to start posting right away?
• Whom should I follow?
• Is there any benefit to start voting right away? And should I start to vote and comment on posts randomly? Will it give me any benefit?
  ... and so on.

I must tell you guys that I am myself relatively new to Steemit. And I am still learning things about this platform.
However, I am going to share what I have learnt so far, try to put your mind at ease about some of the questions given above and try to guide you in the right path, so that you do not get frustrated and decide to leave; even before fully understanding the prospects for you on Steemit and what benefits you might forego by doing so. So, my fellow Steemians, hang in there and take it slow.

Learn

Like any new assignment that you undertake, in order to be successful on Steemit, you need to first learn about what Steemit is, what are posts, what are communities, how are posts paid, what does voting mean etc. I personally found Steemit a Guide for Newcomers by @steemitblog really helpful in this regard. You can find a gist of everything which matters on Steemit in this post.

It is really important to go through some basic training before you can make yourself known on Steemit. Luckily for us, Newcomers Achievement Program from @cryptokannon is the best way to start your journey into the fabulous world of Steemit. Why do I say that?? The Newcomers Achievement Program is aimed at imparting basic knowledge to the newbies about Steemit, while at the same time giving them incentives in the form of Up-votes, which pay you in the form of Steem, SBD and Steem Power. So, you are Learning and Earning at the same time. I highly recommend following this route of Newcomers Achievement Program to progress on Steemit. If you are ready to start-off with this program, I will leave a link below for Achievement 1 Task,

Achievement 1 : Verification Through Introduction

Just follow the instructions by @cryptokannon and create your first post. Links for next Achievement Tasks are given in the same post.
I want to highlight here, that you need to establish yourself on Steemit first in order to benefit from the potential of this great community. First you need to matter in Steemit and be recognized as a regular contributor to the community to achieve something here. Newcomers Achievement Program will greatly help you in doing Just That. And yes, Hard Work & Dedication is the key to success here (same as for any other things you want to achieve in your life).

Communities

There are many communities on Steemit which you can join according to your personal interests. Communities are a great way to bring like-minded people together at one place. You can choose what you like and enter the community. You can find the Explore communities... link to the left of your Steemit window below "My Communities" (marked with red arrow).

However, I must highlight that do not post too frequently and just to gain attention. Steemit thrives on the quality of its content and it is very important to submit quality posts with real value in them, rather than just posting for the sake of posting and showing activity. You will find The Complete Steemit Etiquette Guide (Revision 2.0) by @steem.history really helpful in understanding the DO's and DON'T's of Steemit.

Lastly, I want to acknowledge that I may have just touched upon a very few basic things about Steemit in my post, but I just wanted to relax the newcomers and give them a direction to start with. I do not want to overwhelm you with information which will leave you more confused, so I tried to keep it very simple and basic. You will continue to learn through many of the most welcoming and helping people on Steemit, some of whom I have mentioned above. My main objective is to put your mind at ease about the journey you are about to embark upon and to tell you that it is not as intimidating or confusing as you might have guessed when you landed here the first time 😇.

Best Regards and Happy Steeming to you.