[Newbie Guide] Answering Questions About Steem & Steemit

When I first heard about Steemit and Steem I was very intrigued but seemed to have more and more questions the more I read into it. Of course I started doing research into everything before signing up, and after I already had to make sure I had the best grasp on how everything worked. This post is meant to answer some of the questions I had, as well as questions some friends of mine had when I told them to join up and were trying to learn about everything themselves.

Please add in the comments any additional questions you may have or had, and the answers if you have now figured it out. I'd like for this post to be a helpful little generalization for new comers.

What is the difference between Steem, Steem Dollars, Steemit, Steem Power, Bitcoin, and other Altcoins?

Steem

Steem is an altcoin which essentially means it is a cryptocurrency that is not bitcoin. You can purchase Steem with bitcoin directly on steemit or with other altcoins or government issued currency (such as the USD) on cryptocurrency exchanges.

Steem can be sold/traded for other currency such as bitcoin, altcoins, or USD on these exchanges as well, so if you decided you wanted to cash out or diversify, you can do so with Steem.

The value (cost/sell price) of steem is highly volatile, for instance in early 2017 1 steem was worth about 8 cents (USD), however in July of 2016 it was worth as much as $5 per single steem. At the time of this writing mid-june 2017, one steem is worth about $2. The current prediction is that Steem will reach a stable value of around $4 by the end of 2017. This of course does not mean that it will stay at $4, but that the value will have reached around $4 regardless of trending spikes/drops.

Currency traders like to buy currencies such as steem or bitcoin at low values, and then re-sell them at their peaks, easily making profit if they're able to accurately predict the shifts in the market.

Steem Dollars

Steem Dollars are similar to steem in that they can be bought and sold for government issued currency, bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies. Steem Dollars however are typically kept at a value of around $1 (USD). Steem dollars are essentially the 'stable/non volatile' version of steem. Steem dollars therefor are not an investment as their value does not change by much, but rather a transfer of the same value of USD into the Steem Dollar currency. You are rewarded in Steem Dollars and Steem Power for participating on Steemit, and bringing valuable and 'upvoted' content to the platform for others.

Steem Power

Steem power is an investment into steem and the steemit platform. You can NOT sell steem power for other currencies. The more steem power you have however, the more influence you have on the steemit platform and the more steem dollars you are awarded for participating and contributing to steemit. You earn steem power automatically as mentioned above by contributing high-value content on steemit and by other users upvoting said content. The more steem power someone has that upvotes your content, the more steem dollars and steem power you are rewarded for the upvote.

You can purchase steem power with steem, steem dollars or bitcoin; doing so is called "Powering Up". A Power Up locks you in for 13 weeks at the time of this writing, meaning you can not "Power Down" or convert to steem/steem dollars for 13 weeks (1/13th per week). It is seen as a long-term investment into steem and the steemit platform and absolutely NOT something to do if you are looking to simply do currency trading as mentioned above that is an option with steem. Powering Down allows you to convert a maximum of 1/13th of your steem power into steem or steem dollars per week.

Why do I care about influence on steemit?

Essentially the more influence you have (steem power) the more desirable you are to others to be associated with. People want you to follow them and like their posts because an upvote from you = a higher reward for their contributions and a higher chance that their content will be seen in the hot or trending tabs.

SteemIt

Steemit is the platform you are reading this article on (assuming nobody stole my content and pasted it elsewhere without my permission). It is a social network and if you have used Facebook/Quora/Reddit you're familiar with the concept. In fact I would say that Steemit in it's current form is a combination of those three, with 1 major difference. You get rewarded financially for participating and contributing valuable content. Why contribute on other platforms where you are the product when you can contribute on Steemit instead and be financially rewarded for your efforts as a bonus?

This is absolutely NOT to say that you should post like a maniac, sharing trash content. That doesn't work and is annoying, not to mention your posts can be flagged and you actually LOSE reputation rather than your selfish intention to gain it. Don't spam.

Instead you should contribute valuable content, format it as best you can; you are writing for people to read, to share information, pictures, videos, ideas. You are NOT writing solely for financial gain, if you are, you're likely to be disappointed as the upvotes required to earn money won't be there, nobody likes a spammer.

How Many Steem are there? Are more created? What day are more released into circulation?

At the time of this writing there are 234,538,477 steem in circulation and 251,512,571 steem total. Each year, the amount of steem available is doubled. There is no 'fixed day' that new steem are released into circulation, it happens gradually over the period of the year.

How do i gain followers so that my posts are viewed by more people?

The easiest way to gain followers is to contribute valuable content that is tagged appropriately, and also comment on others content. If people like what you comment on their posts and see that your posts are also something they are interested in, they are likely to follow you in order to see more of your future content that provides interest and value to them.

The same is true for properly tagging your posts. If you post about food and tag it as "funny" not "food" you are unlikely to get followers no matter how good your article is because it is being shown to users that are looking for "funny" posts not "food" posts. Of course you may get lucky from time to time and someone that was looking for "funny" posts might also be interested in "food" but the general rule of thumb is to properly tag your content, so it reaches the people interested in that particular subject.

Begging and spamming for people to follow you is typically unwise as the type of people (the ones with influence) that you want to follow you are turned off and not interested in following spammers as it'll clog their wall with useless posts they are not interested in.

When do i get my payments for the content I have contributed? Do I continue receiving rewards for the same content forever or is there a time/amount cap?

You receive your rewards 7 days after your content has been posted. If you received $10 within those 7 days, it will be paid out to you. If you continue to receive upvotes after the 7 day period is over, you DO NOT continue to receive rewards on it. There is a time cap of 7 days. There is NO amount cap. You can earn as little as nothing for content, or higher than $20,000, it just depends on the upvotes and the influence of those that upvoted your content within the 7 day period.

I hope this Post helps some people! Need more help?

I hope that this post was helpful to some newbies trying to understand the platform and how it all works. If you have other questions or want to contribute with some additional newbie answers to questions you had please do so in the comments!