Welcome to Steemit! I'm here writing for a residential security book in the future. If my content only helps one person, I'm happy to have spent the time to put it here. As you said too, being here will hone our craft.
Security
Do not use your owner key to log into Steemit.com to post. Use your private posting key instead. Keep your owner key offline as much as possible, and only use it when you must. What is your owner key? Your owner key is the master key you received when the account was first created.
Print it out in a font that is easily read, and then save it in a safe place. Then go into your Wallet, and from there click on Permissions. There you will find your other keys. Make sure to click the little buttons beside the appropriate ones to get the private keys. I would back those up as well.
Per the advice given by @ Arcanage, you should only use your owner key to:
- Recover your account.
- Change the other keys.
- Give a present to your children a few minutes before dying.
If you click a link to a site that prompts you to log into it, be extra careful. Double and triple check the address to make sure it really is steemit.com. A recent scam was using "lsteemit" as the domain name, and people were entering their owner keys to log into it. That allowed the scammers to log into the user's accounts, empty the money from them, and then ruin their reputation by using the newly hacked accounts to further the scam.
If you find or suspect a scam, please report it in the #steemitabuse channel on steem.chat.
Engagement and Authored Posts
In the beginning, unless you purchase some Steem Power (SP), your account will be extremely limited in bandwidth. Low bandwidth means you will not be able to reply to other people's posts or author your own post. You can see the bandwidth you have on the steemd.com website. The best way around this is to get an already established friend to help you with a little starting STEEM.
If you only have a limited amount of SP, it is best to use your bandwidth to engage others instead of authoring long and detailed posts. Once you have more SP in your account and more followers, you should author your own posts more. Never stop engaging other people through replies however. It is the best way to gain followers and build your network with quality people.
GINAbot will be explained below, and it is the best way to build your network and to find the content on Steemit that interests you most.
Bots
There are a lot of bots on Steemit. Some are useful and good, and others are not. If you see a cookie cutter reply, especially to your introduction post, it is almost certainly a bot. Check the account's reputation. If it is low, I would recommend just ignoring them. Everything is public on Steemit, so you can go look at an account's comments and replies. Are they all the same? It's a bot.
There's one good bot worth mentioning for new users. It is called GINAbot, and you use it through Discord to notify you of specific activity on Steemit that want to see. For example, GINAbot will tell you when a key phrase is used, when you or someone else is mentioned by account name, or even if someone deletes a comment. The bot is extremely powerful and free.
Simply add the following Discord server:
When you connect to it, it will ask you to register and verify your account with a .0001 SBD or STEEM transfer. Then you will get a direct message from the bot with a private link to your configuration page. Go there to setup your options. The entire process takes 5 minutes, and it will be up and running. You can tweak the settings as you go too.
I have mine set to look for phrases like "residential security" and "private investigator" as two examples. Then I never miss out on content related to those topics. It also makes engaging in those conversations much easier, and that builds your follower base.
Don't Lose Your Content
Make sure you are copying and pasting your post content often as you write it, and put the data into another document to avoid losing it. I'll copy and paste my content into a Google document as just one example. Some people use Markup editors to do the same.
Definitely keep a backup copy right before you post it too, for some people have come back the next day to see half or the entire post missing even though the day before it displayed correctly. Make sure you copy and backup your long replies as well, for they can vanish immediately after clicking to post them.
Sourcing and Adding Photos
Adding photos to your account as a new Steemian may be confusing at first. The easiest way is to click to submit a story. Then use the built-in Steemit tool to upload an image from your computer. Below the posting window, you will see "Insert images by dragging & dropping, pasting from the clipboard, or by selecting them."
Click on the teal "selecting them" text.
Once the image is uploaded, you can copy and paste the link created into your account settings. You can also use the same process to add images to the block chain to use later. For example my template for this post includes links to images I uploaded long ago, and I never have to upload them again (unless I want to change them).
The coding for posts can also be overwhelming at first. It's very hard to show the coding in a post or reply on Steemit, so, here's a link to a Google document I made to help:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NlAoGnP8q7ZAxGsEnvza-qotUGkoaae4SwXdubAhi2g/
Account Verification
Verifying your identity is very important because it will get you more support and people will trust you more.
The best way to verify is to link back to your Steemit account by using one of your other social media accounts. Some people will even post a video of themselves writing out their account information since that cannot be Photoshopped.
The more famous a person is and the more valuable their content is, the more important it is that they verify.
Websites
There are a ton of other websites to help you with Steemit. Here are some of the best ones for beginners:
https://steemian.info/signup-faq (This site is by @ drakos and has a ton of good information for new users to help them get started.)
https://steemd.com/ (This site is used to keep track of your voting power and other stats. You do not want to run out of voting power, and you only get so much per day. I keep my voting power around 80% for example. Also use it to look at the coding for other people's posts. If you see a formatting trick they use, you'll see the code for that trick within the post details on steemd.)
https://steem.makerwannabe.com/ (This site will tell you who follows you, who unfollows you, and who mutes you. It is great for meeting new people too. I regularly check it to see who has followed me and to see if I should follow them back.)
https://steem.chat/ (This site is the official chat webpage for Steemit. There are Discord channels too, but I usually stick to the official site. Come in to network and meet new friends. You can directly message people there too, so it makes it easier to communicate with your closest friends.)
http://steemtools.com/ (This site is a comprehensive list of valuable tools.)
Graphics, Badges, Signature Blocks, and Banners
There are many skilled and talented graphic artists on Steemit. One of them is a good friend, @ grow-pro. He designed my signature gif, badges, divider lines, business cards, and more. If you are looking for a graphic artist to help improve your posting images and formatting, he offers low cost services here on Steemit. Look him up!
Again, welcome! If you have any questions about getting started, reply to this post.