I’ve noticed a lot of new bloggers on the Steemit platform lately and yesterday, @s0u1 and I visited our dear friend @opheliafu – no @cryptofunk, unfortunately, but we’ll catch up soon 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Steemit-big.png

We were discussing things we’ve noticed that the newcomers are doing differently to how we used Steemit when we first joined.

The number at the side of your name is your ‘rep’ – Reputation. It’s relatively easy to raise it to start with and then it gets harder as you go. People above 50 rep are working hard to earn that number. Be respectful of their hard work.

***Pages List***
Across the top of your banner (you can now customise the banner with your own picture rather than the Steemit banner we had before) there is ‘home’ ‘new’ ‘hot’ ‘trending’ and ‘promoted’.

https://i.imgur.com/nuEzsgE.jpg?1

The ‘home’ page lists the posts from people you follow. It also shows the posts that are resteemed by those you follow too. Be aware of that when you’re resteeming, the people that follow you will get everything you resteem as soon as you resteem it.

The ‘new’ page is exactly what it says – everything new, as it’s posted. You can see posts from people you no longer follow and from those you’ve yet to follow *AS WELL AS* those you follow. It gets very busy on the ‘new’ page.

‘hot’ shows posts that are getting a lot of attention from upvoters.

Click on your page and then on ‘hot’ and it shows everything that’s gaining traction. There’s a list of tags to the right side of that page and if you click one, it then shows what’s ‘hot’ in that tag – or subject.

With ‘trending’ it’s a little different to ‘hot’ in the fact that the ‘trending’ posts are usually big-earners. They hold the interest of more people for longer. The same with ‘hot’, click your page then ‘trending’ to see the whole list and then click a particular tag to the right side to see more specific trending posts in that subject.

‘promoted’ is a list of posts where someone (not always the author of the post) has paid for it to be promoted. You can promote from as little as .001 SBD and that gets you onto another page, so in effect, you’ve got six tag opportunities, rather than five.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8509/8467792565_dc60d67187.jpg


***VOTING*** 

If you like a post, UPVOTE it. Click that little upvote box. It costs you NOTHING and you can actually earn Steem.

https://i.imgur.com/LPkeHEL.jpg?1

No, really… you can.

The reward total on a post is divided between the author and the curators (they are the ones that have upvoted a post). 75% of the steem goes to the person that wrote the post and 25% goes to everyone that upvoted. It’s not quite as simple as that, though… 

The amount you receive depends on how much you have in your Steemit Wallet. The more you have, the more you give when you vote and therefore, the more you get back when the post is paid-out at the end of seven days.

https://i.imgur.com/KNFQdlc.jpg?1


If you upvote a post and it then goes onto the ‘hot’ page, your upvote will give you a little of that reward.

I’ve seen people apologising because they haven’t given much - @opheliafu, @s0u1 and I think those people believe they have to use their own money to reward a post – NOT SO!

Keep your Steem, your SBD and power-up! Accumulate, save, invest and carry on blogging.

https://i.imgur.com/ROLd9IZ.jpg

Upvote if you like someone’s work – that is all the reward you need to give and believe me, it’s appreciated.

If you want to do a little more, comment on the post. Say you enjoyed it, ask if there are any more posts on the way, follow the person, check out their blog page – click any name on the Steemit platform and it will take you right to their ‘follow’ button. Click the name again and you get their whole page.

Here’s the *DON’T* list -

Don’t spam your blog link on someone else’s post, it’s not polite, especially if it has nothing to do with the subject posted.

Don’t beg for follows and resteems, I just ignore those that do that. Instead, engage in conversation. Ask questions, show you’re interested. 

Follow people that write things you’re interested in. If you’re interested in a subject, you’re more likely to enjoy their blog.

DON’T LOOK AT THIS AS A WAGE-EARNER – at least not from the start. 

Don’t be discouraged if you earn a big reward and then nothing. 

Don’t be discouraged if you earn nothing… and then nothing. 

Don’t STEAL, ‘borrow’ or copy-paste – you WILL be found out and your reputation will be in the toilet.

Write good quality posts, put spaces between paragraphs to make it easy on the eye to your readers and add pictures. If you use Google Images, Pixabay etc, be sure to say where the pictures are from. If you need to ask permission to use an image, make sure you ask and receive that permission before you post it.

If you enjoyed or learned anything from this, click the upvote. If you think your followers will benefit from the little bits of advice I posted here, resteem it.

If you have anything to add, please do! Post your additions in the comments.

I promise that if I use your advice in another one of these blogs, I’ll credit you.

*Some of the images are from Google - others I've taken photographs of my Steemit page*