Voices of the underwater: Behind the secrets of success (Formerly 'This post needs a cool title!')

So I was listening in to the VoTu Podcast, live yesterday evening (8:30 CET) hosted by @beanz in the discord channel 'Sunday Podcasts' which is available here: https://discord.gg/RPcGVuD

The show usually lasts a couple of hours and is a good place to learn about the general feelings towards the state of the Steemit community. Last night the show was mainly focused around recent events including:

• Generous delegations from the likes of @fulltimegeek, @stellabelle, and @aggroed (Thank you FTG and all!)

• The rise, and further rise of Bid-bots and how they can be both good and bad

• Hardfork 19, and how it's allowed for both of the above to take place freely

• Self-voting and vote-buying

• The type of people the platform contains

• And what you should be doing here as a (Red Fish) Minnow, Dolphin, Orca, and Whale sized account to succeed in making friends and a bit of income

All these topics could be written about individually and extensively, but it's the final point I'd like to expand on today. First of all, a method to work out which category you are in, and then I'll get to the main focus of my blog today.

_{Thanks to VoTu and PAL for the images}

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Who are you?

Most users are generally aware that they exist as a one of the account types above. These classifications are not used by all but I shall continue with these names during this blog. You can find out which type of sea dweller you are by name here: https://utopian.io/@abh12345 and in numbers, here: https://steemdb.com/@abh12345

_{Image created from the above links}

The approximate numbers (as they change slighly depending on the amount of Steem per Vests) behind this are shown below.

Vests	Fishy	approx. Steem Power
1 million	Minnow	< 5,000
10 million	Dolphin	5,000 - 50,000
100 million	Orca	50,000 - 500,000
1 billion	Whale	500,000 +

Something like 9 out of 10 visitors (Assuming I get 10 visitors!) to this blog are likely to fall into the Minnow category, and so my focus is mainly directed towards you.

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In the words of the user they call @aggroed

Minnows should be in the comments, Dolphins should be writing blogs, and Whales should be curating....

And in a flash last night he was onto another topic, calmly and with great wisdom, responding to questions being asked. This short sentence though, in the midst of much other interesting points around the topic areas listed up top, are the words that stuck with me, and were the inspiration to write here today.

They are clear, and correct, and you should take heed. @aggroed has the support of almost 7000 users and in his own words, a 'Passionate Witness for Peace, Abundance, and Liberty (and) Minnow Support Project Founder.'

Almost all his Steem Power is delegated out to Minnows and projects that support growth of the new users, he's a top 20 witness (no mean feat if you weren't part of the golden circle to begin with), and you can find him, and the excellent people surrounding @aggroed and his vision, here: https://discord.gg/Cqmby7d

I'll try to expand what I think he's saying in those words above, in reverse, just to keep you on your fins..

Whales should be curating

Simply, whales are rich - rich in my book, and likely rich in yours. 500,000 Steem Power is over half a million dollars - that's 'rich' to me.

Most whales never comment or write posts. This takes time, and time is money. They have money, it's time that's important. Up-vote (and down-vote) though they will, whether it's automated or not, votes mean curation rewards and these are like 'interest' on an investment to them.

Dolphins should be writing blogs

It's true you can become a dolphin by investing $5000 into Steem Power today and so it's time for an addtional concept, which again I learned about from @aggroed's recent forum hosted in the P.A.L Discord channel.

A follower Whale - Less than 500,000 Steem Power (99.9% of us), greater than 5000(?) followers (some of us). @aggroed and @stellabelle are 2 examples.

And so if there are follower Whales, then we could say we have follower Dolphins - a couple of thousand active users is the number i'm plucking out of thin air again here.

A (follower) dolphin should be writing blogs

If you turn up and stick $5k in, dont expect the visitors and up-votes to arrive. You have to build this following, and by the time you reach follower dolphin status (actual number of followers open for debate below), then you can start really focusing on the top level Posts.

By this time you will have friends here, some auto-vote support, idea's around your niche, and a good understanding of the space around you.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly...

Minnows should be in the comments

This is where you must start as a new user who has not invested financially into the platform. It is also where you will 'make or break' your Steemit career (at least under that account).

Comments are where you will get noticed, be it positive or negative. For the most part, you will gain your following here. @exyle calls it 'the grind'. It is hard going, and you may feel that you are giving and not receiving to start with, and for months this may be how you (correctly) perceive things.

However, if you work hard, and get a bit of luck, good things can happen...

On this post, I left a comment as you can see below.

Firstly, @stellabelle's post has at the time of writing, 4,158 views. (That's a lot!)

Secondly, this happened..

This resteem by @stellabelle, brought 61 more visitors to this blog than the previous post and attracted a host of new users and comments. I consider this as a breakthrough moment here on Steemit for me, and it came from a comment.

I hope that if I asked you how I lucked out on gaining 5,000 delegated Steem Power recently (thank you FTG!), you would know the answer - yep, a comment.

Be polite, funny, and on topic - ready to engage?

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Again, check out both these channels in discord, @beanz and @aggroed are fine hosts and new friends await.

VOTU: https://discord.gg/RPcGVuD

PAL: https://discord.gg/Cqmby7d

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Thanks for reading

Asher