How To Successfully Steem: Minnow Schooling, Offering Valuable Tips that Directly Influence Payouts.

All of us are ultimately competing for our share of the daily rewards or prize pool on Steemit. With that said, there is abundance all around us and I know that there is room for everyone. I thought that today, I would share some valuable tips which can make your steeming experience a little easier and a little more rewarding for you financially.

Now, here's my disclaimer: Everything I have written and shared with you in this post is based on my 8 months of Steeming experience to date. I am in no way, holding myself out as an expert...I just want to share what I have learned and by all means, if I have made a statement that doesn't sit right with you, please feel free to speak-up and share what you think. The success of Steemit and of each of us individually, is directly related to our ability to communicate effectively and to our ability to learn and change our habits. Please don't be shy. 

(After pondering over this subject  for the last 5 day, I've given you 13 tips to get the "rewards" ball really rolling for you. )

1. Write about what lights you up and makes your soul shine like a big beacon. Posts written about subject matter that really interests you, inevitable will do better, because enthusiasm is contagious...even in written form. 
2. Always, always create original content. Steemit has bots that comb the web, matching text and photos. If you are using stock photos or including information that you have sourced from other publications or websites in your blog piece, note your source to give credit to the original creator in your post. You can even include a link to the source or to the websites that you have used to collect your research. Even if it's to your own creations that you have posted on another blog somewhere else. Note that very clearly by simply stating that it is your material, posted by you on the date that you made it public. This is very important with video sharing as well. Give credit to whomever made the video and the date that it was posted. Along with this train of thought, if another Steemer gave you the inspiration to write a post because you either read their material or were inspired by their pictures don't forget to give them credit. We always give credit, where credit is due and never take what we haven't been given permission to take.
3. Building relationships with other Steemers is a critical activity that is directly tied to how many Steemers will see your posts. If they know you and have a personal relationship built up with you, they will be more likely to read, upvote and re-steem your work. Pay attention to who is upvoting you and do your best to reciprocate. When I first came to Steemit, I thought that I needed to be selective about who I followed. I thought that I should be protecting my privacy, like we have all been conditioned to do on other forms of social media...this is not the case. You want to be following as many Steemers as you can and you want them to be following you too. I have found absolutely no threat or risk to following people you have just met...especially if you really like what they're posting and you can relate to them. You probably have more in common with them, then you think. (I'm not telling you to throw all caution to the wind and you can be choosey about who you follow, just know that your number of followers is directly tied to your measurable successes.)
4. A picture really is worth a 1,000 words and it can be worth big $. You will notice that Steemit is well suited for photos in the "Landscape" orientation. Right or wrong, there are many Steemers who never open-up a post. They choose what they upvote based on the quality and content of the thumbnail photo, which is the first photo that you use in your story. Make sure that it is one of the best photos that you have and that it appropriately matches the subject matter that you are writing about. Posts without photos usually fail. If you don't know how to add a photo to your posts, ask and find out how as soon as you can.
5. Make the title of your post as clear and concise as you can. Along with upvoting by photo only, many Steemers also upvote based on the title of the post. Do your best not to bait people with an ambiguous title which doesn't tell the potential upvoters what your post is about. You've got about 2 seconds to grab their attention and convince them that your post is worth voting for. If you annoy people they are likely going to skip right over your work and move onto someone else...every time a post from you pops up on their feed.
6. Frequency of posting matters too. Steemit use to have a rule that you could only post, 4 articles per day without being penalized. Since our last hard fork, this ruling has been dropped and people can post freely without being penalized. That doesn't mean this is a necessarily a good strategy. Try not to spam people with one quick post after another. The goal of a good post is to offer interesting "original" material and share value with others, not to clog everyone's home page or feed with basically useless material. 
7. Be consistent with your posts. In every aspect. Make sure the caliber of your photos are always the same as well as the quality of your writing. Each of us are building our personal brands every time we post and you are setting the expectations of your followers. With each post you submit, you are teaching your followers what to expect from you. It is better to over-deliver rather than disappoint your fans because you chose to cut corners or didn't feel like making as much of an effort. 
8. Your reputation score is directly tied to the number of Steemers who upvote your posts and their respective reputations. The higher the number of upvotes a post receives the more it will increase your personal reputation score. It is easier to build your reputation when you are first starting. As you progress past a reputation of 60, the harder it becomes to grow your reputation. Your reputation score is related to how much influence your own upvote makes on other Steemers posts for them in terms of the rewards they will receive. This is also tied to how much steam power you personally hold. Currently with my level of reputation and the value of steam power that I hold, my vote is worth about 13 cents each time I vote for someone else using 100% of my available voting power. Other Steemers, with higher reputations and steem power are capable of rewarding you much more with just a single upvote at full voting strength.
9. Curating matters too. Once you have more than 150 steem power and have grown your reputation past the entry 25 level, you will start to earn rewards on the posts that you upvote. More weight is given to the upvotes that are secured in the first hour that a post goes live. Many advanced Steemers have bots pre-programmed to vote for them. If a Steemer has identified you as a consistent writer that they like, they will program their bots to vote for everything you post within the first 10 minutes that your post is live. Other Steemers program their bots to comb through tags and topics and upvote content they like, that way.
10. Tags, get them right. I dedicated a whole post to just this topic. If you missed it, you can read it here: (https://steemit.com/steemit/@rebeccaryan/how-to-choose-the-correct-tags-for-your-blog-posts-a-discussion-for-new-steemers-to-consider)  The condensed version is this: tag your posts properly and people who might be interested in reading your work can find them easier. I often go straight to an existing tag category that is of particular interest to me. I like to look at what's been posted in a day in specific categories to see what my friends have been up to. Tag categories are recognized by Steemit with frequency of use, so if I wanted to develop a brand new recognized tag, I would keep using it over and over again. I'd also try to convince others to use the tag also if I discovered a non-existing genre that other people were keenly interested in too. (This is where working in teams or pods together can be very effective.)
11. Commenting encourages engagement from others and helps you to build strong relationships and friendships with other Steemers. Commenting also can pay-out big $money$. The rewards on comments are awarded by other Steemers to Steemers who add value to a post by leaving a comment that usually contributes in a positive way to the subject matter that is being discussed in the post. Steemers will upvote comments to show that they agree with the comment made. These are usually comments with some meat to them...not your typical one line of praise where you tell someone that they did a good job, but rather a comment that adds more information or knowledge related to the subject matter. This adds more depth to the debate or discussion. I have witnessed individual comments pay-out double digit rewards and sometimes a comment can earn more than the original post. You should always try to personalize your comments. I like to use a person's name/handle, for example and try to add some detail that really spoke to me or stood out as being note-worthy. In effect, you are socializing, strengthening existing bonds and making new friends, (potentially). So, show people a little love through your comments because we all know how long we are all individually spending creating our own posts and you can bet that this is the same case for everyone...even if they make it look easy and like it was nothing for them to whip-up out of thin air. Never underestimate the worth of your own opinion. It will pay you.
12. Be polite and not too aggressive. Everyone wants to attract upvotes and followers, but post promotion should not be attempted through comments. You can ask people nicely to follow you but the better strategy is to simply let the person know that you like their work and have chosen to follow them. This gives them the option of either following you back or not, without putting pressure on them to reciprocate. Instant follows are not obligatory and it's not everyone's cup of tea. Prepare yourself for your well-meaning jesters to be ignored from time to time and do your best to be diplomatic.
13. Curie and -Trails are special tags that have been created to help curators find the work of new steemers. If you are new or you are writing in a topic that you don't normally, you can use a -trail tag as a method to alert more Steemers to your work. (Look at the tags: curie, garden-trail, food-trail, foraging-trail and steemtrail for example.) These special tags can really help you to become established on Steemit and make a name for yourself.

Even to this day, I still feel like a little shrimp who needs a helping hand from time to time. Please know that Steemers are good people and they really want to help. Politely ask your burning questions and for the most part, people will help you or they will direct you to a resource or to someone else who they know might be able to help answer your questions.

We are one big team, after all, and it's a hell of a lot easier to swim with the current than against it.

I welcome your comments and I invite you to follow me on my journey. If you think I should be following you and I am not, please let me know in the comments and I will immediately take action.

STEEM ON!

~ Rebecca Ryan