Learnings From One Week On Steemit

One week goes quickly. I started my journey more or less one week ago on 31st of December 2017. I thought this might be an excellent opportunity to look back and share with you what I have a learned. And equally important, to thank those of you who have helped me get started here on Steemit.

What I’ve Learned

Secure Your Keys

In the first couple of days on Steemit, I was logged in with my master key. Don’t do this, use your posting-key when you are on Steemit. The posting-key lets you vote, follow and post.

Keep all of your keys in a password store like KeyPass or 1password. Do not lose your keys. There is no password recovery on Steemit!

Read is article by @jerrybanfield to learn more.

You Cannot Edit An Article After Seven Days

I read that it is not possible to edit an article after seven days, but thought that it might be a mistake. It is not, the Edit button on my first post is not there anymore. So, no edits after seven days. Make sure to correct any typos before you publish :)

You Can Promote Your Posts

I have not tried this yet because I do not have enough SBDs at the moment, but here is what I learned about promotions so far:

• Promotions will stay there until the next payout. Seven days.
• You can see how much a promotion costs by clicking on the $ amount right to the upvote button.
• ROI is hard to measure. Do not look at the payout only, as you will also gain new followers by using promotions.
• You can add SBD to get back to the top when overbid.
• You find the promote button at the bottom of your post.

Tagging Is Important

You have five tags. The first tag you set is used to define the category of your post. Always make use of all five tags. When writing through Utopian, you only have four tags, as the first (utopian-io) will be set by Utopian automatically.

Steem, Steem Power, and Steem Backed Dollars SBD

The different currencies on Steemit still confuse me. I will have to learn more about it, but here are some learnings from the first week:

• You can buy Steem on a cryptocurrency exchange. Its purpose is to buy into the Steem blockchain.
• The total amount of Steem doubles each year.
• You can convert Steem to Steem Power.
• 90% of new Steem goes to Steem Power holders.

Is this correct? Please comment if you know better.

How to Find Success On Steemit

Most tips in this section come from @cryptoctopus.

• Build a reputation, show that your contribution is increasing the value of the platform.
• Create high-value content.
• Pay attention to the Hot and Trending feeds. Can you contribute?
• Use images or even animations to make your post stand out.
• Write at least ten headlines for your article, then pick the best.
• Read writing tips on Grammarly and apply them to your writing.
• Your focus should be outward, you write for your reader. Make your reader react positively to your words.
• Make your article rank on search engines. Learn about SEO.

What You Should Do After You Have Published

• Upvote your article
• Submit to Bing and Google
• Send an email to your email list
• Publish the link to your article on social media

Upvote Bots Are Very Popular on Steemit

I have not used an upvote bot yet. I’m not decided if one should use these, but I can say that bots are very popular. Here is a list of bots I came across while curating posts this week.

• buildawhale
• upme
• boomerang
• sneaky-ninja
• randowhale
• originalworks
• pushup
• booster
• postpromoter
• upmyvote
• appreciator
• minnowhelper
• msp-bidbot

Are you using upvote-bots? Let me know in the comments.

There Is A Vibrant Ecosystem Around Steem and Steemit

Here are a few sites I came across in the last seven days. The one I used most is [Steemnow](https://steemnow.com “Steemnow”).

• steemnow.com
• steembottracker.com
• coinmarketcap.com
• steemd.com
• steemitboard.com
• steemdown.com
• www.steemspot.com
• steem.supply
• steemit.deadfollowers.info
• PeerHub.com
• steemwhales.com/?p=1&s=power
• steemgifts.com
• www.asksteem.com
• steemworld.org

My Results So Far

The most important achievement this week was to gain 35 new followers. I’m thankful for that because it shows a minnow like myself that I’m adding value for some of you.

The second important thing I achieved this week was to increase my reputation score from 25 to 30.

I got my first author rewards: 0.012 SBD, 0.000 STEEM, 0.002 SP for my first article My Vision For 2018 And Beyond.

I wrote two more articles:

• Influence Book Summary
• The Great Gatsby Tutorial

Gratitude

I would like to thank all of you who helped me to get started here on Steemit. If you are new here as well, I would recommend you follow @jerybanfield, @cryptoctopus, and @brandonfrye. Those are the three I learned from the most this week.

Outlook

I enjoy using Steemit; so much that I plan to invest some of my time and savings into the Steem blockchain.

Have a great week.

Please follow @cutemachine and make me smile.