My 1st week on Steemit--what I've learned so far

First of all I'd like to say this has been a great first week for me. I went into this with a humble mindset that I probably won't make much my first week, month, etc. and it's served me well. My first few days I put up a few posts with just one picture and less than 100 words as that's what I'm used to doing with other social media platforms and they made a few bucks...and then I started following others, upvoting and commenting on posts and my posts' value went up significantly after that.

After seeing some of the content that does well (anything over $50 is great in my book) and stuff where the posted absolutely knocks it out of the park and gets $500 - 1000 from a post, I made a few mental notes and applied them to my own posts.

-Include multiple pictures or images
-Go into detail / more is generally better here as long as it's unique and well thought-out
-Post content from the heart
-Post about what you're passionate about
-Share knowledge you have that others might find useful
-Spend a couple of minutes thinking about what tags you should use
-Quality of a post >>> Quantity of posts (I do about 1 per day and I put 20 minutes to as much as 2 hours into my posts now)
-One upvote from a veteran can be worth more than 20-100 upvotes from newer people like myself

I quickly came to realize the huge earners have been here a long time and have spent countless hours crafting their content and building a following. Another lesson that was easily learned and I suspected from the start is YOU WON'T GET RICH OVERNIGHT and it takes a lot of effort to build even a modest following. If one approaches Steemit with the intent of having fun, making friends, and sharing interesting things about ones self and posts truly unique and / or interesting content that's their own personal experience / thoughts, they'll do well even if it takes some time.

A few no-no's and lessons that I've learned from reading content from more experienced people / whales / dolphins posting are as follows

-Use original content instead of just stealing something that someone else put online. I see some people like to repost stuff like snapshots of porn or whatever which is fine, BUT....I find that a real woman posting racy pics of herself is much more appealing to most (based on payout amounts I've seen) than some random porn shot (because it's real life). That's just my opinion though and please don't take offense to it.

-Don't ask outright for follows, upvotes, resteeming, etc. or engage in horse-trading of follows just for the sake of getting followers (advice from multiple experienced posters that I've read)

-Don't post every 5-10 minutes all day long as it jams people's feeds and they're likely to mute or unfollow you unless you're just on a roll with a bunch of amazing content

-Try to avoid being seen as a spammer...avoid cutting and pasting generic replies excessively and make your comments on people's posts unique each time you respond. Read the person's post and add your thoughts / how you identify with it in the comments. If you don't have anything nice to say just move on.

-Many of the more experienced steemians are annoyed by the use of bots...I'm neutral on this subject as I haven't explored it as much but other ppl's opinions matter, especially those who have been here awhile and have a good following / reputation

-Don't whale-hunt! From what I've read, the whales and dolphins of Steemit hate being pestered by people who are trying to take a shortcut and don't want to put in the work required to achieve their level of success. They spent a lot of time getting where they are and they expect the same of us newbies if we want to be successful

In conclusion, I've had a great first week that has exceeded my wildest expectation. I believe my trying to keep a humble mindset and going in with the intent of having fun / learning more so than getting rich quick has helped me be what I consider successful in my first week. I've had several posts exceed $30 which isn't much to some people but is very exciting to me. After day 2 I only had a few bucks accrued but after I was more actively engaged with people I started earning more and for that I'm extremely thankful. I had one post about a day trip my wife and I took that hit over $40 and it's my best earner yet and I truly enjoyed putting it together and seeing the finished product. Apparently others did too! (thank you all!)

I still have A LOT to learn and any comments from others about their early experience on this site are appreciated. I'd also like to hear any pet peeves which I may have missed in the no-no section of my post from more experienced people if they do come across this post and feel like adding their input.

Thank you to all my followers and everyone who's commented, upvoted, resteemed, etc. You've made this a wonderful experience and I am very thankful to those who've taken their precious time to view my content. This isn't the best pic of me but it's real...I'm sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee before I got to work smiling because I'm grateful to you all.

I hope this was informative and didn't offend anyone. Have a great day doing whatever it is that you do.