What Is Steemit doing for you today?
What will Steemit do for you tomorrow!?
What is Steemit doing for you 5 years down the road?

I checked the 100% Pay me In Steem Power Button!

So many of us are thinking short term with Steemit.

• Not staying in one niche (I'm guilty of this one)
• Withdrawing and powering down everything
• Plagiarizing or posting low quality content.
• Writing stuff that can "expire" very quickly.

Why are you here?

We all have our reasons. The community the money, Maybe asking why you here isn't as good as a question. I feel like we are here for mostly the same reasons.

The better question is..

What are you going to contribute?

Your contributions can mean the difference between making a lot, Or making a little, Building followers, Or scaring them away.
We need to think LONG TERM.

• Is the stuff you are creating, Relevant?
• What is the shelf life?
• Is it going to help someone? Why would someone use their time to READ YOUR CONTENT?
• If it was seen on google, Would you click on it? Do you think someone else would click on it?

I feel like an important aspect of promoting Steemit is trying to help EVERYONE! Not necessarily the Steemit community, But to get ourselves on google. The front page if possible. So it's important that we have people creating in-depth content as well as content in a variety of fields.

How did Facebook Start?

Mark Zuckerberg created a platform that him and his college classmates at Harvard could connect. Essentially it started small, Then it grew into a massive thing.
I don't know all the details, While Steemit was mostly topics on crypto-currency it has gradually expanded. Although I feel like it kind of started with a "bigger" picture in mind.
But that is okay!

USE THAT 100% Steem Power option!

Recently a new button was added! That you can be paid fully with Steem Power instead of Steem Dollars. I probably won't always use this button, But I think everyone should for the majority of the posts! Just imagine later on, Becoming a whale!

Lets talk about you!

One thing we need to think about is, What Steemit will do for us DOWN THE ROAD? Many people on Steemit don't even make 1.00 off each post, They are original well written, It truly breaks my heart. I've also noticed a drop in my curation rewards as time has gone on. Although I'm not complaining. I am EXTREMELY thankful for what I've gotten. But like everyone else, If you can make more. You want to make more right?

You aren't going to deny an extra slice of pizza right?

If I'm going to invest my time into something, I expect it to pay me NOW and LATER! I don't like working by the "hour." That is why I publish books; I can milk my content repeatedly and use if for other things, to make more money.

What are you going to do when you can't get anymore payouts?

Of course, you could post the same crap elsewhere and hope it makes you money.
But we know that is a BAD thing for websites. Google doesn't like seeing repeats everywhere; It makes them assume it's spam.
Plus it looks bad on Steemit, So don't do it. Steemit wants original content. But just because you wrote that article doesn't mean "it's done."

Re-purpose content

I hope to write a book from my Steemit posts, of course, they'll have to be changed a bit to ensure they aren't just "copy and pasted." But all these articles are usable in another way.

Affiliate links

I'll be honest here; I use A LOT OF affiliate links, referral codes, and such. The way I see it is that when your article is done being paid out, Ten years from now, Or even one year from now. Someone may read your stuff. And appreciate it. If I recommend a RELEVANT product, Someone may click the link and place an order. I'll earn a couple of cents to a couple of dollars for that order. This can be done a NUMEROUS amount of times.

So far Steemit hasn't made any rules against doing that. So until we as a community say "no" to that, Refer away.

Note: Make sure it's RELEVANT To your post, Lets NOT spam people with the sole purpose to make money, The goal is to provide value, and heck convenience. The person won't have to search for the product if they wish to buy it, They can click your link and go.

Example!

Check out my Custom Steemit shirts here!
I'll probably write an article about affiliate marketing later :)

Not staying in one Niche

Many of us like to write about many topics. This isn't really letting us build a "following" of one specific kind of people. This may be complicated for you to make money down the road, Because you won't fully know what your followers fully expect from you. I am a hypocrite here, Because I write about a lot of stuff, And I don't think that will change anytime soon. But it's something to keep in mind anyways.

Withdrawing and powering down EVERYTHING

I see a lot of people doing this, And I have taken out a large portion of money too. Maybe these people feel that Steemit will not last! And who knows, maybe it won't.

But like @dantheman Said " You may only get $10 worth of Steem Power for a post today. It might not even seem to be worth your time, but if you and others stick around and grow the value of the platform then one day your $10 will be worth $400 if we build the platform to Bitcoin scale. If we grow to Facebook scale, it will be worth $4000.

Does that 10.00 seem worth taking out now?
Here are some things you could buy with 10.00

• 2 Subway footlongs (not including tax)
• 1 Coloring book
• Some Tupperware,
  You get the idea!

What can you buy with 4,000?

• Groceries for a whole year for 2 people! (Assuming you eat 166.00 a month in food)

Now you may think

I need this money to live RIGHT NOW!

What were you doing BEFORE STEEMIT? Maybe you should go back to that!
Or pick up an extra job so you can keep investing.
But like I said, don't put ALL YOUR eggs in one basket. I've personally taken out some of my SBD to invest in stock, And peer to peer lending, to help even out my investment portfolio.

I'm not your investment adviser. I also take NO responsibility for any bad or good that happens to you by following my advice.
But I feel like by taking everything out, you are not only hurting yourself, But you are hurting the people you are FOLLOWING! With less power, You have less ability to throw your followers a reward for their hard work.

• I have almost 30,000 in Steem power, And my vote seems to be worth about 0.18 Thats more than some people make on their posts! So I feel like my 0.18 is a pretty nice benefit!

If Steemit grows big. You'll spend the rest of your life kicking yourself

If steemit doesn't grow big, Then you can be happy with the smaller amounts you DID take out! (that Is why I took out a bit to justify my time spent on the platform)

Plagiarizing or posting Low-Quality content

What is your goal? Copy and paste? Make a few thousand?
Sure it's worked out with some people. @msgivings
But it doesn't keep working forever, if you aren't caught by Cheetah the first time, you'll get caught later. You may get lucky, Pocket a few thousand.
But then everyone will lose trust in you; You'll be ignored forever.
Although I've noticed MOST plagiarists don't even make 50.00 on their copy and pasted, Stuff. Thanks to @cheetah and @steemcleaners among other people, They are rapidly caught!

• Or -

You can write original content, Then make money on it, Grow followers, and keep growing and building.
You aren't going to get rich overnight doing this.
Sure we've seen past articles make a TON! The highest I've seen is 30,000 from a makeup tutorial, But even the 15,000 she got, Won't let her retire right now!
I mean that is still A TON OF MONEY, and it's incredible! But guess what?
That was ORIGINAL content!
She didn't steal some youtube video; She made it herself.
Sadly, Not all great, and original content will be noticed like that. But you need to keep going, Post your thoughts your passions, your beliefs. EVERYDAY!
Grow your Steemit account and eventually, you'll be rewarded. Your 10.00 could turn into 400!

Just do it the right way the first time! That way you won't have to attempt to make a new account and start from scratch

Writing Stuff that expires quickly

Not everything lasts forever. But I keep noticing posts about the election, or about what Justin Bieber is up to.
In a couple of years, Most people won't care.

Same with the newest Steemit Update posts, If they change something in the next update, your post expires.

I'm not saying you should never post this stuff, But you may want to keep that in mind for the long term, Try to create articles that will last longer. Do a mix of both, Some of those short-term suggestions may produce a lot now, But then have longer term articles that will last even longer.

Conclusion

Steemit is a dream come true platform, but we need to maintain long term and short term thinking to be successful. We don't want to spend all our time on the platform, Only to have it go away tomorrow, But at the same time, We need a proper foundation built so we can maintain an income as Steemit grows, Even if we potentially lose out on a lot of our curation rewards. We will still have the ability to make money on Steemit.

Thank you Adina Voicu & pixabay for the photos