So about 90 days ago I started my journey to Steemit. I was reeling from several failures, bad relationships and an utter disdain for my life. I was in one of the darkest chapter and I usually turn to writing to help me heal. In this post I will be sharing with you several of the insights I have learned in my journey and hopefully it will be of some use to you. I have been unable to write anything for the fast two days. Not for lack of inspiration but more of being so inspired by the amount of inquiries, assistance and material that I have been reading and curating for the past two days from new members. A lot of our members cashed out last December and with this proof spurned a lot of people in their respective circle of friends and family to join Steemit. I belong to two awesome groups. @steemitfamilyph and @steemitachievers. Both headed by great leaders, @jon24jon24 and @long888 respectively, they have shown exceptional knack to guide, mentor and give positive critiques to its members to make them better. People are truly blessed having them as their team leaders. I am not writing this to get people to stop asking me questions and just refer them here but I am writing it so that they are better equipped to become a good member of the community. I will still welcome any questions even if the answer here because I am here to help you succeed. So let us begin then. # MOTIVATION ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515528730/cijnrzhsej0lnzqumhd5.png) [Source](https://steemitimages.com/DQmQeNRKcaD5L15TKaBtFrRCyLsXzuhKcQxuNBvwfBVHcAH/U5dqoLiqDoNiG1BttvVZTt6qCoMS9aM_1680x8400.png) What motivated you to join Steemit? Was it the promise of easy earnings with a few pictures, funny content, is your budding poet or story teller itching to write out some mad lines or are you looking for a way to broadcast your crypto savvy mind and ideas, advocacy or talk about your dog. In any case you have to know so that you can find your niche. I write about my general musing on psychology, philosophy, food, games and people. I rarely posts pictures and selfies but others make it their blog. What's important is the content is yours. It is your own take of living your life. There are so many content there that are just copy paste from Facebook, 9GAG and Youtube without adding anything. Be who you are not some trending post or doing something because everyone else is doing it. Be unique, be human. Be you. # GETTING STARTED So congratulations you have chosen your Steemit username and I hope that it is something that relates to you, your interests and your personality. If you are most people you just dived in and created your first post and was ready to conquer the Steemit world! Not a bad attitude to have but like in any case preparation is key to success aside from talent. First I cannot stress enough the need to save your keys. It is very hard to retrieve your password and so keep several copies of your keys safe. So you need to go under the wallet Tab and then choose permissions. Click on show private key and copy it. ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515558916/fzwiwxqmzqm8fb3pmdt6.png) So that's out of the way and you can breath easier that your account will not be lost. # INTRODUCEYOURSELF A large part of your success lies in writing a very good #introduceyourself post. Albeit it is not necessarily say that if your #introduceyourself post bombs that you should rage quit Steemit. My own received 5 votes total and did not even reach 0.10 cents haha. So how come someone who did not get his own post talk about how to make a good one. Simple experience, I have helped several people that started in Steemit and they have done well. Experience is the good teacher but failure is better because you know what did not work and improve on it. ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515560018/c2z7gkm2lblrgrhichop.png) [Source](http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-i-didn-t-fail-ten-thousand-times-i-successfully-eliminated-ten-thousand-times-materials-thomas-a-edison-93-74-76.jpg) If your intro does not get the attention you thought it would do not get disheartened. Brush yourself off and continue writing. # PHOTOGRAPH ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515570500/jz9nmjxgltfynxv0p4vm.png) [Source with permission of owner](https://steemitimages.com/DQmT3NgAs77KkBam7pMksaTvyvh3ZmzzL2N92kmLSXsqKnG/steemit.jpg) An eye catching photo of you is always a good recommendation. This is to show Steemit that you are a real person. You holding a piece of paper with your Steemit name and the date you are posting it is the best way to grab attention because you are showing who you are. This is an introduceyourself entry in case you forgot. Okay so what about those shy, introvert, not photogenic people like me? Are we doomed? Well we can then go by out wits and our skill in the written word so you can choose an eye catching image or something that represents you. # THE BODY ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515570621/fwmufo7xqsqt3rpcjv7f.png) [Source](http://www.freshmatters.com/interpress_documentation/images/text.gif) So your thumbnail image or photo that you selected will be the hook to draw attention. The next thing important is the body of your post. Content is king and you better remember it. Doesn't matter if you caught their attention but failed to grasp it till the end. If they find your piece boring midway they can just choose to go back to their feed without upvoting you. Talk about a special story that you have, talk about your hopes and dreams, talk to us about your sadness and fears. Make us want to get to know you better and hang on to your every word. Tell us what your hobbies are. Establish a connection. Make us a part of you. I have seen too many intro post squander this opportunity to connect and gain followers by writing a generic post and not getting us hooked. I eventually recovered from not having a great intro but it took me longer to get where I want to be. # FORMATTING AND MARKDOWNS This was the main reason why I wanted to write this. To be honest I haven't fully mastered but want to share some of the things I do to make my blog look more presentable. Most of my entries are long and I received feedback long ago that I should format it better. Content was good but it was a strain in the eyes to read it. My editor back in college would kill me if he saw my earlier blog entries here because indeed the formatting is atrocious. It was embarrassing that I neglected my education on formatting here but again failure is a hard taskmaster and will teach you a lot of things. You can see a Markdown Styling guide when you click on link encircled. It will bring you to a guide in Github ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515571499/exqwsfrt9bowoulyhxdc.png) There are a lot of codes to use but I will concentrate on the ones I usually use. 1. Giving credit to an article or image used. My earlier attempts had me just saying I got it from Google. Pretty lazy and does not give proper credit to the person. Also for images is someone uses a meta they will find your entry and may sue you for infringement and also Cheetah might flag you especially for content. #### The lazy way of putting a source http://www.dictionary.com/browse/source The right way of putting a source is to use open and close brackets with the word you are using and then open and close parenthesis that has the source or page url or address. [the word you want or source in my case](website address) [Source](http://www.dictionary.com/browse/source) #### So it looks a lot cleaner. # PLACING THINGS IN THE CENTER This was another noob mistake I had. Images, source links and headers were positioned to the left side and my article had a lopsided look. All you need to do if you want to have it centered would be to add the following: < center> image/text/website (just remove the space before the letter *C*) and there it is centered. https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515576708/zqtenpmcbm1jacnkyak6.png # HEADERS My posts before looked like ramblings of a mad man in a way that it was paragraph after paragraph of my musings. Headers are a good way of creating breaks and lines to your article. You have six options # Header 1 uses one hashtag symbol at the start ## Header 2 uses two hashtag symbol at the start ### Header 3 uses three hashtag symbol at the start #### Header 4 uses four hashtag symbol at the start ##### Header 5 uses five hashtag symbol at the start ###### Header 6 uses six hashtag symbol at the start # FONTS AND QUOTATIONS Another great way of making your post look better is using bold and italic texts for emphasis. Adding two ** before and after a word ** will have it in **bold** Adding one * before and after a word * will have it in *italics* Setting a > before a phrase you want to quote will do that >"I'm not going to swear an oath I can't uphold. When enough people make false promises, words stop meaning anything. Then there are no more answers, only better and better lies." >-Jon Snow There are others like adding emojis and tables and you can look at those in this [link](https://help.github.com/articles/basic-writing-and-formatting-syntax/#section-links) Better yet look at this wonderful post [An extensive Markdown guide with tips and tricks you may not know yet ;-)](https://steemit.com/steemit/@blevley/an-extensive-markdown-guide-with-tips-and-tricks-you-may-not-know-yet) by @blevley You now have a rudimentary skill in making your post more readable and pleasing to the eye but wait there more!!! # PROOFING and EDITING ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515581907/vrqv6v4aah8f8yixaf9h.png) [Source](http://pesabee.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/8-Requisite-Tips-For-Proofreading-And-Editing-Articles-For-Your-Blog.jpg) Isn't one and the same? For me it is not because when I proof what I usually do is go through my article and look at misspells because I have dyslexia, grammar lapses and tweak the word choices if needed to be. I also modify my sentence and paragraph cuts. You would want to avoid run off sentences and for paragraphs limit it to 3-5 sentences and if possible break the change in thought to a new paragraph. Your readers will thank you for not straining their eyes. Afterwards I would do my final edit of spacing, correcting any problems with formatting. This is why I take long in creating a post. I really want it to be of good quality. # TITLE AND TAGS Congratulations you have finished your intro post and now you are almost ready to submit it. Most people have a title in mind when they write it. On my end I usually create the title after writing it. Either way is okay as it is just a matter of preference. Just like the picture your title is another hook to reel in readers. Tags are very important because this puts your content to the right kind of people. As you follow more people there is the tendency that you no longer look at your feed but rather look on certain tags that you are interested. You also want to avoid being flagged for abuse on using tags incorrectly. There are certain people who frown on that behavior and may flag you. You can check tags, the number of posts, comments and value under **All tags**. ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515583006/dk7kdu6c0xrdcpf56gha.png) finally you submit your work of art, the photo that you are so proud off, the short story or poem you composed or your into post. So what's next? # UPVOTING, COMMENTING AND RESTEEMING **Upvoting** Well you go on and visit other people especially those that upvoted and commented on your post. Noob mistake I did was followed everyone that interacted with me on my first week. Looking back a lot of those that commented were either bots or was people that I have nothing in common. Sure there were several that until now have actively followed and interacting with. Go and have a look at their profiles. See if you like what they are posting about and if you see something you like return the favor and upvote it. You have to be careful of your voting power though and try to main it at around 75%-80% a day since in 24 hours it recharges about 20% When you start whenever you upvote you do 100% upvotes. So you'll have 10 upvotes a day before you reach 80%. I used to not care as i upvoted and upvoted but was chastised one time and was told I do people a disservice by not upvoting when my power is strong. https://steemd.com followed by your @username ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515583718/q4hpqgppnipnwlwlefcl.png) If I upvote someone when I am at 50% or lower then the value of my vote drops exponentially. So I make it a point to upvote until around 70% or would parcel my upvotes every hour so that it also recharges. Steemnow has a voting calculator so you will know the worth of your vote in regards to VP and weight. https://steemnow.com followed by your @username ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515586158/xzmlqqpwkzynrgqdtohm.png) I'm not sure but people are saying that the slider in both Esteem and Busy.org is not working right now. One of the first goals you want to achieve is reaching a Steem Power value of 500 SP so that you can get a slider so you that you can change the weighted ration of your vote from 1% - 100%. You will be able to vote more people. ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515585228/plpmv7n8nhjqlwqhrhbe.png) # **Commenting** It is just proper to respond to each comment you receive. Yes it may seem tiring especially if its a lot but its your way of thanking those people who visited your post and read it. This is a great way to connect and convert readers to followers. Fastest way to turn people off is you comment on a post and say you upvoted, commented and resteemed them without doing so but asking them to follow you and upvote your posts. Desperation is not cool. You have to leave a good quality comment that further enhances the conversion or give your opinion. I have seen accounts flagged and downvoted to oblivion because they were just spamming follow me comments. You can also earn when your comment gets upvoted. Biggest upvote I got from a comment was 13 dollars because it was meaningful. I comment all over the place. Whenever a post piques my interest I comment on it and of course giving a little upvote. Funny how my personality of being opinionated works well here in Steemit. In Tagalog it is *mema - meron masabi lang* hahaha # RESTEEMING I have observed certain individuals that resteem all of their group posts and it was a sure fireway for me to start unfollowing people. Nothing wrong with one or four but around 20 resteems is just going to fill up my feed. I often resteem articles that I really like and want to get people to see it. I resteem some contests from time to time but only if it is a requirement. I try to keep resteeming to a minimum because I don't want to flood the feed of those that follow me. # STEEM CONDENSERS This is what makes Steemit great. Originally when I joined Steemit I thought it was going to be your run of the mill blogging site with the added bonus of rewards. I was doing Wordpress blogs before and I expected something similar. Boy was I wrong because Steemit has more! Steem Condensers are third party applications developed to be the front end of the Steemit Blockchain. You have Steemit.con as your basic interface then you have the following: ## 1. BUSY.ORG ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515589035/dxe3mqhl6ljywkjqknbx.png) [Source](https://steemitimages.com/DQmSkUWBjfpX9vZyxYwRm7ef8yBh7mTUirM97gv4cykssLj/image.png) This is what I usually use when I write my long posts. It has the markdowns integrated with a click of a button and when you use the busy tag it also gives you an upvote and for me every cent counts because I usually just earn cents on my posts haha. ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515589263/tmjazfmbkjio5y8ekwmm.png) # Esteem ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515589879/itd0a86nvwn8ceihlc1y.png) [Source](https://steemitimages.com/DQmSkUWBjfpX9vZyxYwRm7ef8yBh7mTUirM97gv4cykssLj/image.png) I downloaded this from the Android Playstore and use it when I compose using my cellphone. It has a nice interface and can even bookmark certain posts. It also gives upvotes to posts and comments from time to time. # Steepshot ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515590246/zm1lh5xbnvsf1urpe8kg.png) [Source](https://steemitimages.com/DQmRgFZa7DjxWGWnniyAn328qj89KjTUo4729EKvcN1MUE1/image.png) This is Steemit's answer to Instagram and is downloaded app. You are able to have so many tags on this one and not just limited to 5 tags but currently can only have one image and very short text. # ZAPPL ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515590532/hzu1xxphwrertuof1ymk.png) [Source](https://steemitimages.com/DQmcECuGmeA8QMtJzwpGoMw2zSKJofXxDbHctbaaC5uhuob/image.png) This a Twitter-like application with is browser based that lets you create short 240 character posts. I saw one troll it by having the title of the Zap (what it's Tweet is called) longer than the body haha. # DTube ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515590835/oxfs8qwnvggdgjjwtnqj.png) [Source](https://steemitimages.com/DQmX4ziTA4CL9ZigLsqdywGFYAb31aL9BvkigwzZtzb2zgz/image.png) Youtube is a huge time blackhole as you can watch practically almost anything here from How to do it videos to vlogs of famous people. DTube is no different as it acts the same where you upload content and it earns you upvotes. I am not a user of DTube for now so I am not sure that if someone sees your video after 7 days will it still have rewards like Steemit posts. I will have to check on that when I start uploading my game plays. # DMania ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515591122/smxxss94xsj6lci7xuhs.png) [Source](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmciuP85Sdc5pXjvTFuYiRBW5K6jEsTAzeypjfZHuHYzH7/image.png) Who doesn't love a good meme from time to time. So naturally DMania was created.so that Slothicorns, Doge and grumpy cat can frolic in the Steemitsphere. #ChainBB.com ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515591275/qo2zqskbmfkyrqmcezic.png) [Source](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmPkXfWTaisTVQNdQ4b4TeqoJpJNaoaBEmKMBbfcKBrWAT/image.png) Every geek at one point of his life joined Reddit and its labyrinthine of many sub groups and theories. So Steemit wanted something in particular and a forum interfaced style was created. There are still more in development and its really excited to have so many options. For more information please visit @premraval010 article [||"Steem Condensers" - In a Nutshell, Everything you need to know about ||](https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@premraval010/or-or-steem-condensers-in-a-nutshell-everything-you-need-to-know-about-or-or) and show much needed love to a wonderful post. # THE ECONOMICS OF STEEMIT So it has been 7 days since your intro post and you are ready to receive your pay out. Steemit for me is a gifteconomy. You write a post, it gives information, steers feelings or makes people think and then they upvote you as a means of approval. The value that they would give depends on the person. The operative word here is give. You had set the payout to 50/50. This means that 50% will be SBD and 50% Steem Power. 75% of the rewards for the post will be given to the author and 25% will be for the curators, or who voted for a post within 30 minutes. In a way that they are giving you ,money but they are also receiving it back through curation rewards. Say you got $100 in a post 75% would go to the author so your formula would be 100 multiplied .75 and you get $75 and the rest of the $25 will be shared with all upvoters/curators who voted in the first 30 minutes of a post. That $75 dollars would be then change to 50% SBD and 50% Steem Power. so 75 divided by 2 is 37.5 SBD and then for Steempower the 37.5 value would be divided by the value of Steem which is 5.32 right now so you'll get 7.048 Steem Power for it. If I made a mistake in the computation I am more than happy to be corrected haha. But wait there's more!!! If you upvote yourself during the first 30 minutes of your post which even whales do you get a piece of the pie in the curation rewards!!! Then it is even further diluted by what time most of the votes came in, the weight of the votes and such. Here is the info straight from the FAQ section ![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515593083/lmc6khkbn4n1bmagqajv.png) So this is why a lot of curators would often vote at the 25-30 minute range of a post that they think will earn high because they would be getting a piece of the 25% of the total reward. and from the 25-30 minute mark you would be receiving around 67%-100% of the reward as opposed to say you upvoted on the 0 sec which you would give 100% back to the author and 50% back at 15 minutes. As stated the portion is linear. Again what there's more! Am I already confusing you with all the scenarios? It was a dozzy for me as well when I grasped this. The weight of votes also have an effect so people with more weight on their votes even if they voted for it by their 1% and you at 20% they would still get a bigger share even if both of you voted at the same time. It is a bit different though if you were a bit earlier so timing is indeed everything as you want to be ahead of all the heavy votes but also being in the 25-30 minute mark. There are even curation reward contests that are running and when I saw those it just boggled my mind how simple and yet complex the Steemit economy is. I hope that you understood that concept and helped you a bit more. The last one is a heavy topic to take in and so I want to end this with a recap. We discussed what I learned about: *MOTIVATION *GETTING STARTED *INTRODUCEYOURSELF *UPVOTING, COMMENTING AND RESTEEMING *STEEM CONDENSERS *THE ECONOMICS OF STEEMIT I would like to discuss on my next topic communities and its importance, reputation points, upvote bots and getting curied. My 90 days in Steemit has been great so far as learned a lot of things. Met a lot of wonderful people and has found some measure of success. My goal is still to reach reputation 60 or more and help the community thrive better by rewarding good quality posts. Thank you if you managed to read this far. #mavericknewbieguide ![Steemitfam.jpg](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515594169/dolfobq6zslxtud6bxr2.jpg) ![steemitachievers.jpg](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1515594184/lf6rxc7lp5dkstdbowsq.jpg)