How To Build And Engaging Audience By Thinking Out Of The Box
Are all your followers interested in what you post? Would you like to get more upvotes and more engagement? Then you'll find what you need right inside this post.
The Importance Of An Audience
Although SteemIt is a blogging platform, writing quality content isn't enough. You can write a dozen of high-quality articles without getting noticed by anyone.
Just like one any other blogging or social media platform, you need an audience to make it work. The bigger and more targeted your audience is, the more effective your efforts will be. More interested followers mean more engagement. More engagement means more upvotes. More upvotes... you know what I mean.
A big, targeted audience and a lot of engagement are what you need to make money here on SteemIt.
The Quality Of Your Audience
I come across articles here on SteemIt that show you 'tricks' on how to get more followers quickly.
Some tell you to join a site like SteemFollower or SteemEngine, where you follow x people a day and get x followers in return.
Others tell you to start following 5000 people. A lot of them will follow you back. Same goes for 'follow4follow' setups.
The question you've got to ask yourself is whether all these people are interested in your content.
Will they visit your posts?
Will they leave comments or upvote your posts?
Chances are small.
When it comes to followers, it's more about the quality than the quantity.
You can have 100 followers that are genuinely interested in what you write or you can have 10.000 that just followed you to get more followers themselves.
Which one do you think will bring more value?
To become successful on SteemIt, you need an audience that is interested and is prepared to interact with your posts.
Simple as that.
No Easy Way
I hate to break it to you, but there is no 'secret trick' that will help you to build a quality following overnight.
Gathering followers that are interested in your posts takes time. Time and effort.
You've got to earn your followers. An audience that you earned will bring meaningful interaction. Those are the people that leave comments and upvote your posts.
Growing an organic following and engagement takes time, but will be far more rewarding.
Tips To Grow A Targeted Audience And Increase Engagement
Some of these tips you've probably heard before. That's because those are the basics.
I'll go over them quickly, because you've probably read them a hundred times before.
But I will also give you some new tips. New tactics you can use to create more engagement, from which you can profit.
The Standard Tips
- Create quality content
- Post regularly
- Be 'real'
- Respond to all comments
- Go out and leave insightful comments on other people's posts
- Use the right tags
- Engage with other people that share your interests
- Join communities on Discord
- Engage on SteemIt Chat
- Join games and contests. It's a good way to get to know new people. (Follow @newbiegames to find a lot of newbie-friendly contests and games)
So far, nothing new, right?
The Not-So-Standard Tips
- Organize a contest or game related to your niche.
People like contests. You don't even have to ask them to follow you, a lot of them will.
You also get to know new people with the same interests without having to go out and look for them.
(As an example, take a look at my recent '🌺 SteemIt Community Garden Journal Challenge (With Steem-Bounty)'-contest. I met a lot of people who were into gardening, without searching for them.
- Find the best time to post
Like on every social media platform there are peak times. On SteemIt, peak times are related to users who live in the US.
When you're new, posting during peak times might not be such a good idea, since your article will disappear in the giant stream of posts very quickly.
You have a bigger chance to be seen when you post just before those peak times.
You can find out when most people vote on the SteemReports site. Times are in UTC.
You can also check the voting activity on your own posts, and find out what the best time to post is for yóu. The site is called Steem Activity. I only recently found out about this tool thanks to an article from @omar14x.
- Tag people in your posts
Mention people in your post to attract their attention. You can see I did this in the tip above.
Don't overdo it and only tag people when it's relevant. This is only useful if you tag people that will probably interested in your post.
- Share your posts on your other social media accounts
You can do this automatically by using the RSS feed URL of your SteemIt blog.
(I've explained how you can do this in this post.)
- Ask questions
A simple question like 'What is your opinion on this?' at the end of your post will increase the number of comments on your post.
- Interlink
You can't expect your followers to go to your blog page to see what else you have written. Most people don't have time for that. That's why you should present them with links to your previous articles inside your posts (preferrably articles that haven't reached post-payout yet).
As you can see above, I've used this tactic twice.
No need to say that you should only interlink to articles that are relevant.
- Make people want to come back
You can do this by posting a series, or a story you split up and end with a cliffhanger.
People that are really interested, will come back for more. There's a big chance they'll follow you.
But don't worry, there are plenty more tips I can give you.
Just keep an eye out for my next post to discover more ways to build a real, targeted followers base and increase engagement.
Your Turn
I'm really curious to know: did you knew all of this already or did you learn something new?
Also, at the end of this series, I would like to write another post with tips I that I didn't think of, but are very useful to build a quality audience and motivate engagement.
That's where you come in.
Together we can make this guide even more useful than I can on my own, so let me know which other tricks you've got up your sleeve.
Schoolof minnows post
by upvoting my latest post
latest post 
latest post
More Posts You Might Like
Your SteemIt RSS Feed URL Is A Goldmine! Use It!! (I'll Show You How To Create It))
Gardening On A Budget: How To Regrow Vegetables From Kitchen Scraps (FREE SBD GIVEAWAY!)
New DBook: Recover Your Account And Reputation After Falling Victim To The Phishing Scam
Social Enumivo Airdrop - Free Basic Income For Everyone
@steemitbloggers
This post contains affiliate links to SteemThat and Enumivo. I will receive a compensation if you use these links to sign up
Congratulations! Your post has been selected as a daily Steemit truffle! It is listed on rank 22 of all contributions awarded today. You can find the TOP DAILY TRUFFLE PICKS HERE.
I upvoted your contribution because to my mind your post is at least 28 SBD worth and should receive 98 votes. It's now up to the lovely Steemit community to make this come true.
I am
TrufflePig, an Artificial Intelligence Bot that helps minnows and content curators using Machine Learning. If you are curious how I select content, you can find an explanation here!Have a nice day and sincerely yours,
TrufflePigYour Post Has Been Featured on @Resteemable!
Feature any Steemit post using resteemit.com!
How It Works:
1. Take Any Steemit URL
2. Erase
https://3. Type
reGet Featured Instantly & Featured Posts are voted every 2.4hrs
Join the Curation Team Here | Vote Resteemable for Witness
Hello.. The standard and the not so standard tips are easy to understand and I have read more complicated strategies (for me) before, one think I always ask is what's quality content standard, whose standard it is?
I'm not a good author, but I feel more confidence when I wrote something in my mother's language, but somehow my audiences (as I observed at a few different posts I made) are too various, so I don't think I can make a post with quality content in 3 different languages. I want my loyal friends read it (sometimes I wish they were not upvote the post) but I want to jump in the world's quality contents too. Despite the fact that I learn more about "the standards", I want to share almost about everything in different communities and audiences,but it will takes some time and I got confused about what to write later. 🤔😃
Of course these are just basic strategies, but I notice every day how few people know about them. Calling them ‘not-so-standard’ is also just another trick in the book. :0)
Quality content is indeed subjective. What is quality for one person won’t be for another.
But the basics should be there: a decent layout, grammar and spelling (mine is not perfect either, I know that).
I think it goes for everyone that writing in your own language is easier. With every post I write in English, I’m confronted with my lack of knowledge of the language.
Yesterday, I wrote a post in Dutch, on my other account. But the Dutch/Belgian community here is so small, there is no way in the world that post could make some money.
Not that my posts in English make that much money, but at least you can reach a broader audience.
I love articles like this - there is always a chance to learn something new ... I had no idea about the "Steem Activity" option - I'll have to check it out - I've asked before what the best times to post are and gotten several different answers ... it feels like many of my posts get swallowed up by the feed - thanks for post - I look forward to reading more of your tips.
Thanks @jorlauski. I only heard about the SteemIt Activity site a couple of days ago. I didn’t have time to really study it.
It’s a difficult balance between posting when only few people are, or posting when everyone else is...
Who doesn’t love my Jeff stories? Lol I knew most of these, doesn’t mean I do them. I have never participated in Steemchat. What is your opinion on this? 😃😉
LOL.
Everyone loves your Jeff stories.
And I’ve never been on SteemIt chat either - except when I was hacked and was looking for help.
These tips are not so special, really, but I notice some people have really no clue.
I don’t use most of them either, except for the interlinking thing. This post actually started out as a post about the importance of interlinking, but I got stuck, so I had to go another way :0)
Don’t down play these tips... they are great! The only reason I know them is because I have awesome steem friends like you! It’s great you put them out there! 😄
Only now I realize: I completely missed the party. Gonna check if there are any leftovers right now!
We ate alllll the cake, sorry doll. 😛
But maybe you can eat @panda.bear ‘s Swedish fish? I’m sure you saw the contest. But you know... mom’s. 😃
I saw the contest when I visited your profile :0)
Nice tips.
Great job backing it up with data like the vote-timings. That is very useful.
Glad I could be of any help
A great one i must say @simplymike.
I really grabbed a lot from this one. The only problem is, i really see the contest tip at work here on steemit but for minnows like myself who lack resources to organize them is quite disturbing. Most people will not enter contests that are not high paying.
I don’t agree with that, @hermannsol.
In the past, I’ve ran contests where the prize was a steembasicincome membership for the winner (1steem) and still got a lot of participants.
Just take a look at the contests run by @peggyhazelwood. She offers half of the generated SBD and has quite a lot of participants.
You just don’t have to aim too high too soon.
Few people will enter a contest for which they have to spend hours to do, just to get half of the payout of the post (unless the payout is a couple hundreds).
But if it’s something that doesn’t take a lot of time to do and is fun, people will play
Ok.
Thanķs
It's really too bad that we don't have a mechanism to choose our followers, or at least have some way of excepting them. Otherwise, there's always going to be a larger percentage of followers that are simply not engaging.
However, educating people as to what constitutes a good follower is definitely helpful, as well as how those being followed can keep and cultivate the followers they do have.
I wonder how many people who follow others keep it within an actual doable amount? Following between 50-100 people, depending on how often they post and resteem, seems to be ideal for me. I want time enough to pay attention to what I'm reading so I can determine curation and whether or not to comment.
That sounds ideal, the possibly to accept my new followers. I think I have many follow me follow you followers, as well as bots and also a bunch of death followers.
So now it looks like I have 450 followers. But in reality it's even below 50.
Btw, your comments are really to long 😋😜
Sorry if you think my comments are too long. I'm not trying to pad them. I'm trying to complete them. If you really do feel that way, you know, you certainly don't have to read them. That way you can better spend you time elsewhere.
I'm lucky if I have 20 followers who are real and actually following me. Funny thing is, if some of them are bots, they don't regularly upvote, so I'm not sure why they're following me in the first place.
I was just making a bad joke about your long comments. If you shorten them a bit it would give the others a chance to win the 2nd league so once in a while 😀
I have a theory about why those bots start following you. That's actually also on my to do list to write a post about it.
I hope I made you curious now so you will add me as number 31 to your follower list?
But that won't be necessary, if you like I can reveal it now. Would you like me to do so?
I see. I've been thinking about winning the leagues for a few weeks now and wondering whether or not people are having fun still if one person or another ends up dominating them for a while. So, is this suggestion of yours yours alone, or would you say it's a commonly held opinion among other members of the league? Meaning, you've actually talked about it. Or, is this you're own observation.
Obviously, you're free to reveal whatever you want. I think it would be good to write a post about it, too. Either way, it's your choice.
As it is, from what I can tell, at least to start, the first bots are set to autofollow immediately, and then the next groups seem to come on as certain thresholds are met.
It was only a joke from my side. I don't think anyone bothers that you won it quite a few times now.
I could imagine some people would. But in the end it is some kind of game, with mainly a big social aspect that is much more important to my opinion.
And of course you get a small financial rewards. But for $15 it is a very big time investment as we all know that it's close to a full time job.
I personally enjoy to see you set a unbeatable record in consecutive wins. So let's see how many you will end up with?
Well, we'll see if I keep the string alive or not. If I don't win this week, you will know why. I've been sick with something (aching all over, sour stomach, coughing) since Wednesday evening. So, between trying to sleep it off, not being able to otherwise stay in my chair for normal periods of time, and finding it harder to concentrate than normal, it's not adding up to a win right now.
Then, this morning didn't help any with Steemit being down for a couple of hours.
I agree. The leagues are less about the STEEM than it is about the social aspect, While the STEEM is nice, the time investment is much higher. However, I have started to see some benefit from doing it because of getting out there farther, and people seeing who I am and what I do, so I think even the financial aspects of the leagues go beyond just the weekly awards.
In the beginning I made the mistake of simply following everyone who wrote a good article. As a result, my feed is so cluttered with things I’m not interested in that I never use it. I’ve set a few people I really want to follow in Gina on Discord.
I once started to trim down my list of people I follow, but it was actually a slow and boring task, so I gave up pretty quickly.
I should really make time for it, though.
(Although I think I know so many people by now my list would still be very long)
Conclusion: I’m the worst follower in the world. I’m the one you don’t want.
Oh, I don't know. It's working out pretty good so far. :)
I have a few people set up on GINAbot, but I probably should get back in there and revamp it. I'm currently following only 30 people. I learned my lesson on Twitter. And since this is much more long form, ability to write and subject matter is more important. I'm not in it for a meme or a link to an article somewhere.
Well, maybe one of these days you'll get to start pruning your list. Probably about the same time you can get to gardening and other things. Light at the end of the tunnel is up ahead there somewhere. We can only hope it's sooner than later. :)
Are you writing all these comments only below posts from about 30 Steemonians?
I don't know. I haven't been keeping track of that. I've been trying to get out to wherever I can, so when posts come in on my own feed and I feel like I can contribute to them, I comment. Otherwise, when those run out, I'm looking for other posts.
So, haven't been purposefully doing anything as far as how many different users' posts I comment on. Why do you ask? Have you been keeping track for me? :)
To be honest I didn't really check you out yet. But you're on my list, together with 322 other items to do.
I just like numbers and analyzing. So I figured it would be like a miracle of you only follow 30 people and then write hundreds of comments per week. In the other hand, sometimes we need only one post to write like 10+ comments.
Well, okay. If I had to guess, the circle I tend to comment on is not quite as wide as the one I end up voting in. My vote circle has been over a 100 that last two times out, so my comment circle is probably somewhat less than that, like somewhere between 80-100. Again, a guess. I only keep track of the number of votes and the number comments.
Talking about numbers, there is something else I wonder about. Did you invest any first money in Steem?
If I remember well, you have much more SP as @lynncoyle1. However I still believe that both of you are somewhat undervalued. And probably a few more of the top commenters.
True! Let’s hope sooner :0)
I also started to unfollow people. Sometimes it's quite difficult as I don't know why I started to follow someone. And I also didn't want to unfollow Dutch speaking Steemonians. But as of this week I'm also unfollowing Dutch speaking. Cause otherwise I would keep to many.
I think I went down from 275 to 200. And I will continue until I'm below 100. As I hope that will be doable.
Someone gave me the advice to
Unfollow all people you don’t immediately recognize them name frm. I’m still in doubt whether that was good advice...
i’d still be far over 100, I guess
I first unfollow people that really spam my feed. In 1 or 2 weeks I might try to go through the remaining list and recognize names that I can also wipe out. Before I do I will shortly check their profiles. In the end this should really save me lots of time.
Nice set of tips. This will really be helpful for the minnows. Though most of it were family for me, I really enjoyed reading your post. I don't know how I reached this post. But I'm happy that I reached this post. That becomes a big problem here steemit. Even though readers are interested to read good contents, it is difficult to find a good content in steemit among the shit posts.
Thanks
Unfortunately you’re right: it’s getting harder and harder to find good content. That’s why I like curation teams, like for example @asapers and @newbieresteemday: they do the filtering and resteem the better posts or realase a curation post with the best articles.
Curation trail vote