A month in, my advice for other newbies.

Just noticed I officially joined "last month"! Not sure of the exact date but seems about right. So you know what that means, right?!

It's time for some EXTREME NAVEL GAZING!!!!

So here's what I've learned so far on Steemit.

1: Make an introduceyourself post. To introduce yourself. Seriously.

Remains to this day my post with the largest response. Sure lots of that response were bots linking me to services to sell my vote, but hey, apparently you should do that? Which brings me to the next point.

2: Read some of those links. Do some research on what you can do with your steem account.

This should have been one. I've already reassigned the numbers once though so I'm not doing it again.

I've never done this, but honestly you probably should. I probably should.

3: There are about 190 bot accounts that will follow you no matter what so long as you post.

I would love to be proved wrong about this, but it really seems like 99% of my followers here are bots. Now I love all of you. Many of you have given me some solid procedurally generated up-votes, don't get me wrong. Nor do I have a problem with anyone who might just be lurking. That's fine. But it would be nice to have conversations, heh. @dollarsandsense and @dustinseth are the only followers I can decisively say are human.

4: People don't vote.

This is more a corollary to 3 than anything. I should clarify that they don't upvote just anything. I'm still working out how exactly the vote delegation thing works, but clearly most folk do it a lot, and it means that they often have limited votes to use at their discretion. So unless something really catches their eye, most folk are fairly stingy with the things.

5: Enjoy whatever votes you get in the first hour or so, cause that's it.

I often get a couple trickle in at later times (exactly a coupe, heh. Yet more evidence that my followers are mostly bots). Most of the time though, you got a split second to grab for eyes and unless you get a crap ton and jump to trending, you're gonna sink to the bottom like all the other dross.

6: Embrace the dross.

Become one with the sediment.

7: Figure out what I meant by that

I'm mostly filling out slots because I wanted ten and I was short three.

8: Yes, three.

What?

9: Comment on posts.

From what little I have read on other advice blogs, you really need to "engage" with the community to actually get folk (actual alive people) to follow you and actually see what you're putting out there. I'm starting to put out feelers on this, but it can be tough. I'm starting a new thing where I search for new posts in a tag I like and comment on anything that grabs my interest. So far...pickings have been somewhat sparse.

10: Write good stuff.

Yes, these are in order of importance. Seriously, I say this because I want to see it, more than anything. Steemit is still relatively small, and let's not kid ourselves, the cryptobent to the place makes it not exactly a super draw for anyone of know talent currently producing great stuff and getting paid for it. Why bust your hump to make it here if you already have a market elsewhere. Right now Steemit is for the hungry, the lean, the mostly bad. There's some great stuff too, but it's not exactly commonplace.

So that's what I think so far! Whatcha guys think? Any cool beeps or bloops to share?