As you may have noticed, there is no platform around anymore that doesn't count followers. Even Reddit is now trying to turn into a social media platform by giving accounts a way to follow other accounts. Too many checking the amount of followers an account has is their main point of judging the importance of the person/account and that has brought a lot of unnecessary spam and services onto Steem as well.
When I first landed on this platform I promised myself that I would not cheat to gain a lot of followers, for one because I wanted to see how they would grow naturally with my activity and connections combined with the growth in the userbase, but also because I despised the way other platforms gave so much importance to followers making every content creator beg/ask/tell people to follow them constantly. It was kind of disgusting in a way, every youtuber would tell people to follow/like and subscribe to his channel at the beginning and end of their video as if viewers were not aware that they could do these few things if they actually liked the content. In the creators mind it didn't matter though that a few users would get so annoyed that it would backfire because they knew that it worked - reminding people to follow them kept working time and time again because it cost nothing and most viewers didn't care about their subscriber list or which videos they added to their likes.
I strove for genuine followers because I was sick and tired of people giving so much importance to having the most or competing against others in it. So many kept cheating their way through a bigger following by doing things like spam following accounts, hoping they'd follow back to later unfollow everyone again knowing most would not notice and keep staying followed. Placing comments on important posts they knew would get a lot of views and self-voting their comment to the top for more attention, stuff like that. I've held myself back many times to not start unnecessary fights when I noticed people doing this but it kept bothering me and I never wanted to stoop down to their level.
To this day I have never asked anyone to follow me, I never end my posts with "follow and upvote", etc. I realize I may have lost a lot of potential followers or rewards due to that but I didn't care about that.
How come you have so many followers then? You might wonder. Well, I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that a lot of it has to do with my voting power. I don't often hit trending and for the longest time I voted on my own posts later to not stay in the Hot section a long time and to reward the users curating my posts more, but people do like to follow users with a lot of influence. I don't doubt that by running the @ocd project and manually voting on as many unique accounts as possible over the months it has automatically brought me a lot of followers. I was not doing bad before that, I was actively engaged in the small community at the time and being active daily for the past - almost - two years sure has helped, but voting power and influence and how you use it are a big factor too.
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What I wanted to highlight in this post though, and why users should not care a lot about the amount of followers they have is that on Steem it doesn't matter a lot. An account can have a lot of followers that are not active anymore or don't curate their feed ever. An account can have a lot of followers that have barely any stake or influence - these are usually the accounts those resteem services use to try and make you pay for them. Many on the platform realize that these accounts are nothing but trying to make some quick money and they usually flag them - but they have gotten smarter and stopped commenting before starting their services through wallet memo's. Bright side is that once Steem becomes expensive enough it will cost them quite some money to spam 0.001 Steem memo's, one can hope that time comes soon. They do often trick newcomers though, else they wouldn't keep doing it.
If you are not aware, there is a nice tool on Steemdb.com (created by @jesta) that shows you the amount of Steem Power of your followers: https://steemdb.com/accounts/followers_mvest?page=4
As you can see I'm currently on 43rd place but even that doesn't mean a lot considering many may not be actively curating anymore.
For any newcomers reading this, it really is not important the amount of followers you have and the rate you are gaining them, the important part is to connect with like-minded users that share your interests and want to read your posts. There are still a lot of people that curate their feed which is one of the few ways I nowadays enjoy finding and reading posts I like and if you don't have an active feed because you are so new to the platform you can look for a few authors you like and check out their feed by simple going to: https://steemit.com/@username/feed
Everything on Steem is public and open-source, try and make the most of it to increase your connections and enjoy the platform without thinking of the money aspect too much in the beginning. That will come later, naturally this way.
I didn't make this post to brag about my follower amount if that's what you were thinking, there are tons of users that have way less followers than me and earning a lot more rewards by either buying votes or actively vote-trading. I just want to point out that the amount does not matter - what matters is who your followers are and I would try to make sure they are the right ones instead of rushing into your Steem experience and trying to do too much and scattering around your posts into too many different topics.
There is a community on Steem about pretty much everything already even before Hivemind (Communities) is released, check which ones you want to connet to through Steem.chat, discord and other chats. There are also a lot of curation groups still trying to actively find authors that haven't received enough attention but are providing quality content out there.
Feel free to ask questions if there is anything on your mind, I hope this post helped you realize a few things.
Thanks for reading.
https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/331165119612452894/353956387350380544/acidyo-posting-banner.gif
The thing is that there are those who want to have a large following for the sake of vanity. In the same way, there are those who want the fancy car, the mansion, the watch that costs enough to buy the house, and the large bank account simply because they think it will make them feel good in some way. But it never does.
Happiness is like a mirage. If you get lost in the desert, and your last drop of water finished yesterday, as you walk amoungst the dunes, you will eventually see an oasis far off in the distance. You will run towards that oasis, exited at the prospect of finally quenching your thirst. When you arrive, the delusion evaporates and gives way to reality. You see that there is no oasis.
Many people go through life running towards their own oasis. They want a large following because it will make them happy, but in doing so, their happiness disappears once they have what they want.
I like your approach, creating content that leaves people wanting more. At the end of the day, it is far better to have one person who is a crazy big fan, than to have 100 people who think you are kinda okay.
Respect.
Thanks, for your candid tone, @acidyo. I've never asked anyone on Steemit to follow me, and recognize this is bad form. My hope is that the quality of my content, comments, or shared interests as you suggest will suffice.
I'm grateful that all the followers I have gained on this platform and others (I never asked for followers on Twitter, for example) have chosen to do so of their own free will. What I have noticed here, and elsewhere, is that after some follow, one might not hear from them often.
Unless a post of mine receives special attentions (curation, prize, etc...) I tend to hear from the same tight band of loyal followers. I have found that meaningful exchanges on Discord channels as well as varying the subjects I write aboutāliterature, culture, politics, art, philosophy, spirituality, personal home videos, etcc..āand using different tags, accordingly, helps to bring in a new audience.
The amount of followers says nothing about the person, the content or their intentions. These things can easily be gambled.
However, as a person who've never had anything to do with follow for follow type of deals or like so many other does, mass-follow thousands of people in hopes of getting a follow back. I care about the amount of followers I have.
Not because it means a great deal in terms of comments or earnings, but to me, it functions as some sort of indicator. Even though the indicator might be flawed, it still serves a decent purpose for what I'm looking for.
- I use it to keep track of my own growth. Sort of.
While I'm active and publish articles each day, I also gain followers more rapidly compared to when I'm less active. That says something.
However, I also gain followers while I'm not active, due to the articles I have published in the past.
That being said, I would never see the amount of followers as an indicator for how awesome a person is.. Because in all honesty, that's a stupid decision. Especially on Steemit where people are desperately trying everything they can to make money.
Comments though, speaks for themselves, as long as we don't consider the spam. If I get 2 comments on an article about rainbows, it might be a fluke. However, if I publish a second article about rainbows and get 0-2 comments again, one could easily see that my audience is not interested in that subject. - And that's how I would measure any type of success on Steemit. Especially, when it comes to minnows.
Whales can post whatever garbage they want and still get hundreds of comments due to the chance people have to get an upvote worth more than $0.01.
Steemit is far from being fair. In many different aspects. And everyone knows it.
An honor and a very useful learning from your post @acidyo
The thing to be noticed by all who are connected in this flatform is how consistency becomes the trigger for us to be great. So also with reddit sometimes they do not realize it.
How do you think with the current steemit platform?
The professional looks of the current morning Steemit users, what is very beneficial is how this Flatform steemit really appreciates what we give is useful and becomes a view that can be made a comparison, as well as those who follow us, they will see if we consistent with what we do today.
What is the dreadful thing in life?
The ugliest thing in life is when our participation has no impact on others, and when we beg, telling others to follow us, it will be a very bad thing for us, because a meaningful view can not we give to those who follow us.
What Makes The Difference The Flatform Is Powerful?
What Differentiates Flatform is different from other social media is here not promising something that will be profitable but here highly uphold the professional in presenting something meaningful to the people, the award becomes a consideration by the followers who see what we present to the viewers.
Conclusion.
Professional and consistent will make us strong and others will follow us without us asking others to follow us, and the most important thing is when creative ideas can be run with a contextual imagination that will keep others going after us later.
We win together.
https://steemitimages.com/DQmWVTd56QaVvrwMGQLXdZAv66VGdhTeKvBQLMkLYJNk3q2/imageedit_10_7647874724.gif
See you on the top
I don't mind when youtubers ask people to follow cause I always forget to, because I don't offer content there and I forget that it's even a thing. Steemit is different cause we are all content creators really.
I'm not a fan of pop culture mentality that encourages popular things to become more popular, I believe there are always lots of deserving people who are struggling to be heard and seen and want to support them, but that pop culture mind-set is really why people care about followers. More followers means more followers (in steem SP and rep are also indicators that people use to figure out what's "cool" if they can't figure out for themselves), which means more payout or a wider reach.
I hit 2000 yesterday and I don't really feel a significant increase in comments and engagement from when I had 500 followers, just the nature of the platform I guess, oversaturated feeds and inactive accounts and all. My sudden increased payout is all due to being put on a trail, nothing else really.
At steemit it's obvious because SP is responsible for how much a vote is worth, but even on platforms where 1 person=1 vote, one follower can be worth 1000 others and not because they are "bigger" or more important. I got put on the trail because I was particularly good to a particular steemian who also happened to love my writing and nominated me for the trail. She didn't have any significant power or influence and a week earlier she was also getting peanuts on her posts. But she remembered me and wanted me to succeed and she made it happen for me.
So just doing what you do is actually a better strategy for success than trying everything under the sun to get to the top, and valuing every connection is sometimes smarter than any investment strategy.
I could have turned this into a post, I think I will.
Followers are important. Active followers who participate.
By participation I donāt mean autovotes- although these are obviously important on Steem - but comments and most of all what Steem still lacks is good old-fashioned sharing: both resteeming and most definitely linking.
While the UI isnāt optimized for resteeming, and Busyās activity thread starts as a complete kitchen sink, sharing what you agree with and want to be seen more is key to how the internet works. Links are an integral pillar of the internet.
Much is said about the difficulty to discover good quality and underrewarded authors but not much sharing happens. Too many do not make use of their own network to highlight what they want to be seen. While an upvote is awesome, a resteeming can sometimes do even more because it may lead to authors being discovered.
So much is constantly done about welcoming and that is important a thing but thereās still a huge drop off and many authors may have managed to cultivate a following in that period but only few will also be able to turn it into a living. Because we donāt sufficiently let others tap into our own networks nor actively highlight great content or similar thoughts. OCD, Curie, Cervantes do a great job.
MrDelegation should also jump on that bandwagon and support more bootstrapped projects. At least give them a chance to prove themselves for few weeks with some thousands of SP before deciding whether they deserve more.
Retention and social vertical mobility need lots of work still before Steem can claim to be as awesome as it has the potential to be.
> I've held myself back many times to not start unnecessary fights when I noticed people doing this but it kept bothering me and I never wanted to stoop down to their level.
This is very admirable a trait. Much appreciated.
