Steem-Roller (Pickin' Up Steem)

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It is a common question: How can I make money posting on steem?

Although I am still, somewhat new to steem, I am learning very quickly. I am fortunate enough to have a few, very good friends here that have taken me under their wings. However, it was a sort-of discovery about steem that was the turning point for me, here on this platform. I figured that right now would be a good time to write this type of article. If you keep reading, I will explain why.

In the entire lifetime of my Steem account, my steem posts had made a grand total of $14.51, until ten days ago.

Ten days ago, I had a paradigm shift. Before that shift, I was in exploratory mode, which was good. Exploring is good, and I am still in constant exploration. What wasn't good, was my approach. It took reading a few of my new-found friends posts to realize that I needed to change something. It wasn't so much that the articles that I was posting were low quality, but I certainly wasn't putting my best foot forward.

As I said in the previous paragraph, my lifetime earnings on steem had only brought in a total of $14.51, until ten days ago.

I have had my steem account for probably around a year. I did not actively post all the time, but I did have quite a few posts and very little payouts. Now, here is the exciting part for me. Ten days ago, after reading some moving and beautiful posts, I realized the value of the steem community. I wrote a post, to solidify this, which talked about the fact that I no longer cared about how many votes that I got on any single post. I vowed to do my best to create good content, and to keep using the platform to grow my own skills, while sharing my new-found talents with the steem community. I realized that my approach had been wrong. I got on steem wanting to make money, but what I found was that now, I am on steem because I want to help to contribute high-quality content to the platform as a whole.

Since I had that epiphany ten days ago, I went from having a lifetime earning of $14.51 over the last YEAR, to making OVER $106 on my posts in just the last 10 DAYS!

I even had one post that I had written, that has made over $43 by itself! It is titled, "Tioga: Haunted Temple of Coos Bay, Oregon." You can read it in my blog if you like. It pays out tomorrow evening (12/17/19).

The reason I am writing this, is because I want to help others to find the value of steem, and have fun getting rewarded for their good content as well.

So here I'm going to give a short explanation of how I write a post, such as the one like "Tioga." We are going to call this short breakdown:

The Plan, The Hook, The Line, The Sinker, Taggin' Toes Here we go:

Exibit A: The Plan

The reason that I am calling this breakdown, Hook, Line, and Sinker, is that, in reality, we are fishing. We may not be fishing for actual fish, but we ARE actually fishing for digital fish (that are really influential people). We are fishing for those big whales on the platform that have the most voting power. You see, on steem, everyone has the power to 'upvote' their favorite posts. All upvotes are worth, at least, some money, but the 'upvote' of the big players and 'curation' communities are much more powerful (they are worth a lot more money). These big fish spend a lot of time, weeding out the good content from the bad content posted on the platform, in the efforts of improving the overall quality of the content that people read. Better content on steem, makes steem as a whole more valuable, so we should all be seeking the same thing! Content creators and curators alike!

• We create content
• The curators and big fish weed out bad content
• The plan is, have the best content we can put forth, Stuff, that we have fun creating, because we enjoy it! If we enjoy it, then our audience probably will too!

Exhibit B: The Hook

Hook development, in writing, is a commonly discussed subject. The word 'hook' is commonly used to reference the title of your content or the first few lines. Here's the thing though. You can't just create a good hook and expect to catch one or more of these big fish. The fish are so big, and so used to average content, that in order to reel one in, you have to fill your entire content with hooks! Make each line, each paragraph, each piece of your content make the reader desire the next piece, more than the last!

I'm going to keep it nice and simple.

• Decide on your topic
• Put yourself in the potential readers shoes, I.E. What would you click on?
• Keep it simple, don't TRY too hard. Remember, when you put yourself in your readers shoes, you will be relating with THEM!
• Go through other people's content, take note of the times when your attention starts to wander. Think about it! You don't want other people to feel this when they are reading YOUR content do you? I know what I do when this happens to me. I leave the page, and SO WILL YOUR FISH!!
• Keep the reader engaged at the end of EVERY line. Don't lose them. Make them hold on tight! Use suspense, curiosity, anger, sadness... get your readers emotionally invested and they will finish reading, as long as the content is decent.

Exhibit C: The Line

A line, is not a point. A line, is linear and has direction. The good quality of your content can not be only in the first hook. Remember! We need to add many hooks to our line to keep the reader or viewer interested. We need them to get to the bottom of the page and feel good about having visited our production! We want them to say, "Damn, that was pretty good." So throughout your content, keep looking for points where YOU would lose attention if YOU were a viewer and not the creator. Excite your viewer or reader all the way to the end and make them want to follow you! Have you ever read a post or watched some content, and then afterwards couldn't wait to hit the 'follow' button? THAT'S WHAT WE ARE GOING FOR.

• Keep re-reading over your content, taking note of the places that you would have lost interest, if YOU were the reader.
• Don't bog down your reader, keep it interesting.
• If you get tired or bored with your own content, re-assess your production, it's likely that your reader will also get bored. Creating content should be fun and enjoyable! If it's not, then it probably won't be much fun for your audience either!

Exhibit D: The Sinker

Make sure that your content is WITHOUT MISTAKES! As much as a pain in the ass that it is to proofread content, DO IT! *Line by line if you have to. Remember, we are fishing for the big fish, whales in fact. They suck thousands of pieces of content up like krill. We have to be that one little, funny tasting krill that makes them want more, and they aren't going to want a lot more if we are full of errors! The role of the powerful curator or community of curators is to promote THE BEST CONTENT. So, ALWAYS put your best foot forward! It will pay off more quickly than you think!

• Proofread, proofread, and then proofread again! Creations with mistakes are less likely to get promoted by the curators. Remember! The role of these whales is to promote THE BEST CONTENT!
• Be that special, funny tasting krill, that makes the whale want more! If you put your best foot forward, it will show. Bring your best to this platform, and it will bring it's best to you. Much quicker than you might think!

Exhibit E: Taggin' Toes

When you look at the content posted on steem, you will see a list of trending tags on the left side of your page. This information is extremely important, and useful. If you click on the 'view all tags,' button, steemit will give you a breakdown of each of the trending tags, the number of posts in each tag, and the number of SBD (Steem Dollars) that have been paid out in that tag. If you take your number of paid out SBD and divide it by the number of posts in that category, you will get the average payout per post under that tag. The higher the payout per post, the more favorable that it is to post using that tag. DO NOT POST USING IMPROPER TAGS! This is paramount, as your post will get downvoted and your payout and reputation can, and likely will, suffer greatly. Go into each tag and check out the content posted there. Make sure that your content fits the bill and read any posted guidelines about posting with each of your newfound valuable tags.

• Click 'view all tags' on the left side of the steemit page. Check out the trending tags.
• Divide the number of paid out SBD by the number of posts in each potential category to give you your 'average post payout.'
• Check out the posts in your top candidate tags. Make sure that your posts 'fit the bill' to be posted in the tagging groups you've selected.
• Use high average post payout tags to post your posts, as long as your posts fits in with the posts for that tag.
• NEVER POST WITH THE WRONG TAGS! It could cause your reputation on steemit to suffer. THIS WILL NOT MAKE YOU MORE MONEY JUST BECAUSE THE TAG HAS HIGHER PAYOUT! You will get downvoted and probably lose whatever payout that that post might have had!

There are, of course many more corners of steem that this article does not discuss. This should, however, help someone quite a bit if they are feeling frustrated about their posts never paying out. I hope that it does! If you don't succeed right away, don't get too frustrated. It may take a little time, but probably less than you think! Don't give up!

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Cheers! I LOVE STEEM!

-Article by Jonathan Caleb Williams @badseedalchemist