Who here has a post that they thought for sure would go viral but does nothing?

in life •  8 years ago  (edited)

I've got a great idea!

People are going to love it!

I'll get noticed for this one!

Daddy's going to bring home the bacon!

Who here has that post they thought for sure would get people's attention and go viral but goes nowhere?

I had a few of those and one that I thought for sure would be a hit was my wonderful tutorial on how to draw a stick figure. lol

Here we had tutorials on how to draw an ear, eyes, mouth and even make up tutorials earning $1,000's each and this was just some comic relief. For sure people would get a kick out of it.

But it didn't get noticed and earned me $.03 :/ But hey that is $.03 more than I made off my posts anywhere else. :)

Then of course it was going to be my comedy / video talents for sure. After take, after take, after take I finally get something I'm happy with and very excited about sharing.

Promoting Steemit while onboard a cruise

What! Another $.03 and that one took me like 50 takes and it was really funny I thought. Especially my docking skills. Oh well.

I know I will post my best photos

Some people post a photo of a sunset and so you think, hey I've got a sunset that people would enjoy let me share that.

But you find no one interested.

Then you do a personal story and wow!

One of my first stories I told was: Moving to paradise. From creating QuickPay for Quicken to living on a sailboat in the Caribbean - Part 1

This one apparently got the attention of a few whales and earned me over $500 which is fantastic! Thanks :)

My tips so far

When I got back from the Caribbean in 1999 I created a program called AuctionTamer and it took me a full year before I made $1,000. But because I stuck with it, it became a hit and has sustained me for these 17 years.

So stick with it!

Do you have posts that you thought people would enjoy?

If so post them in the comment below so that everyone can see

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I have an idea to combat that. It might not bring whales and thousands of bucks, but it does help to keep posts that you like visible. It is sort of going around the whole voting mechanism. It is sort of like those curation aggregation posts that usually end upon trending, but decentralized. You write something cool? Add a couple of links to the stuff that you liked, but didn't get traction for sevral hours.

Here is an explanation of this idea. Perhaps it is somewhat less coherent than this comment, but I try.

https://steemit.com/steemit/@xanoxt/another-idea-for-spreadthepower-minnowsunite-payitforward-and-others-be-proactive-link

Oh that is a good idea. I upvoted and followed.

Thanks a bunch! I hope it catches on!

I think there's a lot of luck in getting voted up by a whale unless you have good connections. They will be choosy about how they use their votes and may go for posts that are more likely to earn them more. I'm just aiming to build some sort of following and have some good conversations. It will be great if I can make a few bucks.

yes, this is my impression too - it is just getting attention and gaining steam (pardon) quickly that does it, and if you have no whale or a group of supporters to propel you to the top of the list so others can see it then no one will, unfortunately - no matter how great your post really is. that is why you see some articles that are not that awesome getting a lot, and then really amazing ones a lot less - it is like being a popular kid and one who is in relative obscurity. I think the solution for us who are just starting and do not bring a following is to develop our own special connections and stick together,s o we can support each other to the poin that eventually it would matter :) this is my strategy, anyway - I find ppl who's posts I like and then just keep watching, upvoting and talking to them so that it is more pleasure being on here than just chasing digits that are out of the reach for now

Well said, I agree completely

Yes so true. You now have another new follower :)

Cheers. So do you!

It really comes down to your connections with the whales. I think the whales upvote posts based on the author of the post and not necessarily the content and quality of the post itself. You can see this for yourself, go ahead and check the trending posts, you'll see that most of the the posts there are done by famous people, either in the world of crypto, or they were part of a startup company now worth millions of dollars...etc, It's more like you need to be an entrepreneur to please the whales, this what I believe at least, I might be wrong.

For now I think it does until there are more whales out there. Steemit is still really young and so for the 70,000 accounts there are only a handful of whales. There just isn't enough of their goodness to spread around.

No, I don't think it is all about being an entrepreneur and my post prove that. I go all the back to the 1980 with a long history in this industry. By my foolishness I was never into crypto-currencies until now. Steem is my first if you can believe that. Kind of like that, I should have bought Microsoft back in the 80's. Oh well. So the whales do have their favorite subjects. Mostly crypto like you said though.

Also popular posters have a pile on effect too. Once someone rises to the top and they post again there are people that just upvote anything they post because it could mean money for them. So then it just snowballs.

Oh great photos by the way and you do have one more person that is following you now :)

Here is a great example of someone connecting and hitting it out of the park: https://steemit.com/@smailer

Good job :)

nice idea, today we are talking about the same idea with steemit firends

A lot of it is down to pure luck.

Yes that too. I feel like donkey... Oh, pick me... pick me :) But I have a plan up my sleeve and I know this next post tomorrow will go viral for sure ;)

I'm really glad you posted this today, Mike - I've been feeling the same way as the end of my first week of posting on Steemit approaches. My latest offering features what I think are lovely photos of my beautiful Brahmas taken yesterday evening - and...#deadinthewater with 4 hours to go... ;0) So 1) I'm glad it's not just me 2) Thanks for the tips - I've just opened a steem chat account 3) I actually feel way better knowing that some of my posts have outperformed posts made by a legend in the field of all things computer/gaming/techie stuff, lol - thank you for that! ;o)

I am now following you, and have upvoted this article.

And I still think the stick man should have been a stick grrrrl with stick boobies - now THAT would have pulled in an audience, my man! :D

https://steemit.com/photography/@jaytaylor/brahmas-at-bedtime

So glad I saw you too on the chat. I love your post and upvoted, commented and followed you. See this is how it works folks.

Someday those that stuck it out will evolve into whales and then we can spread our nourishment to all the creatures of the sea ;)

I think it is like most things, it's not what you know...but who knows you.
The post I got the most shares on was one which was inappropriately flagged...and some nice people came and supported me here: https://steemit.com/marketing/@kreativ/the-dirty-little-secret-some-copywriters-just-don-t-want-you-to-know

I don't think it is all down to great content, as others have pointed out there is lots of quality content on Steemit which just gets buried unfortunately.

I would say that the posts I thought would get the most traction are in fact the least popular.

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

Wow that was bad that the guy flagged you just because he didn't understand. Oh I approved your listing on steemwho

Now others better hurry because this is a limited time offer and the spaces are filling up fast! LOL, Just kidding, that is what @kreativ wrote about in her article. Read it. :)

Hee hee. Thanks for approving me...especially as this is the last opportunity to be listed so you rank at the highest level ;-)

Oh man, great name but using trending thumbnails is not a good practice and I'm sure will get you flagged. You don't want to ruin such a great name. Think about changing them while you still have time to edit your posts. Just a friendly suggestion.

Man I totally thought my one and so far only post was totally gonna go viral but man was i sadly mistaken:/

Lol, too funny. You did get $.05 which is more than I got for many of my posts. But the one yesterday I took my own advice in this post and hit it out of the park. But you still never know what might hit people that day. So yours could have gone viral. Next time :). Keep it up.

Yes kind of funny but very perplexing for sure.

Yeah I must be doing something wrong :-/

Not necessarily. It is a big ocean out there. Try posting your next one on chat.

I did discover chat this week and its maybe helped a little... still struggling to break the $0.25 ceiling though lol