A fellow Minnow friend of mine quit this last week. I understand why, and I am spending a little less time here myself... but, listen for a minute.
Well, my fellow Minnows, here are a few things I have noticed. Our little tribe of minnows is getting stronger, very slowly.
As we have gathered and supported each other, a few of us have had a good article or two, and so the voting power slowly goes up. My fellow minnows are becoming a bit stronger and thus their votes mean a little more on my articles, and mine on yours.
Low user retention/adoption can actually help those of us who stay. It is not good for the SteemIt Platform overall, but let's assume for a moment the Platform does stabilize going forward, If the goal is 1 million users, we are still here pretty early in the game. Although I would prefer the SteemIt community pulls out of what appears to be a problem with early adopters, those who stay have a smaller pool to get noticed in and we can track each other a little easier.
Soon, I am going to have to decide what is the best way to spend my time, and although I not excited about writing and sharing my material for .5c. SteemIt may not be perfect, but there is suddenly a mass amount of other large companies wanting to do Pay to Blog type ideas, so obviously SteemIt has value, and is a ground breaker. Let's keep growing very slowly, hang in there and see what direction this thing starts to take.
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My reasoning is that it takes a lot of time and hard work to build momentum, so I don't expect much in the way of returns for a while. A minnow's main task is to get noticed and do networking within the community to start building up a solid reputation. Yes, it's disappointing to put hours of effort into a well written article and see it make 10 cents. But focusing on that aspect of it is the wrong thing to do. What you should be thinking is "great, that 10 cent post of mine has raised my visibility in the community and oh, look, I've got 3 more followers than I had yesterday, and some interesting comments that give me chances for more interaction!". Remember that a post's value is more than just how much money it makes.
As you say, today's minnow group, assuming they stay dedicated and keep at it, will continue growing stronger. Eventually they will become tomorrow's dolphins, and a new minnow group will exist from users that join the platform later on. It is still early days, and all of us who are active on the platform now will have plenty of opportunity going forward.
To those who are getting discouraged, I would simply say: keep calm and Steem on!
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I wanted to do a separate reply, but I jusr feel that I'd like to add on to your thoughts.
The problem in the current world is the 'clip mentality', which means that people have short attention spans. And short attention spans also limit the planning ability, thus most of the minnows leaving are doing so because of the short term results.
While I myself is a little underwhelmed by the performance of my posts, one of the things I've switched my attention to are alternative ways of get exposure. And the best and easiest one is leaving thoughtfull comments to the types of,posts that you like. It also gives the authors of such posts some positive feedback, that while doesn't help the score go up, helps them hang on, and stay in the game. And staying in the game is how you get better.
Another thing is that there are other alternative options, that might not be available to everyone, but keep looking. Myself? I've found one in translation work. It brings me some SBD, which is much better than getting cents on my posts, as well as exposure, since I require people to tack on the reference to the fact that I've participated in their posts. I even offered to work for percentage of their returns, but since everyone is thinking that their next post is going to hit it big, and they don't want to share the reward, well, even those small fixed SBDs are going to pile up over time.
My advice, if you are underwhelmed by your performance, look for alternative avenues to getting more spotlight. and more importantly, widen your planning horizon, since that is where the success lies.
After I've decided that while I may be failing short term, and then put the schedule for good returns in 2-3 years future, it became mucheasier for me. Even if sometimes I feel a bit blue, I just return to that plan and feel much better. :-)
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That's a great way to look at it, having a long-term planning horizon really helps to put things in perspective. It's a marathon, not a sprint! That also helps you pace yourself so you don't get burnt out early on. And I absolutely agree about looking for alternative avenues: if you've got specialized skills that can benefit the Steemit community in some way, then by all means put them to good use and it will help you stand out a little!
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I hear you man, have to really weight it out, whether it is worthwhile or not .. many people are doing just that. The trouble with putting your work up here, and receiving 5 cents for it, is that there are really good idea thieves here, who rip your profound core, dress it up .. put a little lipstick, and then their whale buddies give them 3 grand for it - I have seen it happen so many times.
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I am not a minnow.....i is smaller than a minnow {sulk} .... I too have cut down time spent here but will continue to try and build a community of like minded supportive people just in case this concept survives. So rally around the #minnowsunite tag .... And lets get some momentum going.
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@whatsup, you're a gosh darn genus! I am thankful for this platform. Keep up the awesomeness.
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I agree @whatsup, stay and continue to post good quality content.
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Great post and advice. Sometimes you jus5 have to grit your teeth through frustrations in order to reach the other side. I think thats what us minnows need to do for now. If you get a chance, check out my blog post from earlier. I'm not going to link it because i'm not here to advertise on your post. But it is relevant , and talks about the frustrations of being a minnow.
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Leaving steemit is a bad idea right now... its probably the best time to be on, wait for the competition to fail, and everyone will crowd here. By then we will have all the power
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We All Had To Start Somewhere
Jump This Ship
And May
End Up On A Boat
I Wish Your Friend
Good Things Take Time
Steemon!
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Lol. I bet you will soon follow your friend's path. Steemit is a bit useless for minnows. Power is so assymetrical distributed that most minnows are here waisting their time. Synereo will soon bring out a new social platform. I don't know if it is going to be fair, but it is not hard to make a platform more fair than Steemit. So be ready to be an early adopter there. Bitcoin is also going to release Yoursnetwork. If these platforms are more fair, I will dump my Steem and move over.
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In response to synereo: why not use both like most people are planning. In this case, you can gain more followers here and bring alot over. Good way to get in early. I have almost 2k amps, and im thinking of grabbing more
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I'm very new here and still don't quite get how it all works, despite browsing for a few hours, but I love the idea behind it. The community seems stellar. And monetary incentives, as small as they might be for blogs that don't catch on, are pretty good motivators to keep at it. I had a medium.com blog I abandoned very quickly, but I hope I stick around here
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https://steemit.com/writing/@aggroed/satirically-yours-s1e8-how-to-die-of-starvation-while-only-using-steem
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https://steemit.com/steem/@aggroed/how-i-made-usd0-07-cents-in-5-posts-and-how-you-can-too
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