Hey Steemians

After the pretty good response, I received from my last cheat sheet post it seems you hungry hungry hippos are all too keen to learn how to best the steemit system and get some more cash in your account. 

I'm sure there are plenty of little Steemians going to bed at night thinking what am I doing wrong? Am I not cute enough? Funny enough? Smart enough? Should I work out more? Is there someone else?  Why am I not getting payouts for my posts? 

The truth of the matter is that post-payouts are hard to come by in the beginning, unless you're lucky, have whale support or accepted into a community. So for someone like me who had none of those 3, I had to turn to comments.

In fact, 2 of my biggest payouts on Steemit so far have been comments $27 and $30 to be exact. My highest paying post was only $20 I think, so don't go knocking comments until you try them.

![Steemit Cheat Sheet](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/Qmf3fqwkbwt7Z6Qakhk7Vo9SgYAZLMEWKWbZbkwwGKe7yn)

## A push strategy 

When starting out and you have no capital you need to go out and earn it! On Steemit social capital is loosely defined and measured as STEEM Power but you'll need to gather it as quickly as possible. Once you've completed your intro post and gathered some initial followers its time to do some outreach. 

Most of your early followers will come through this manual process through commenting. The more you engage with people the more you remain top of mind, the more links you leave on Steemit heading back to your profile and the greater your footprint on the platform becomes. 

Reaching out via the comments section helps you build authentic relationships and showcase your interests and your authority in a specific field and sometimes people will think you're cute too so they will follow you. As you keep growing your following you'll have a better chance of post rewards when you do drop one of your hot topics!

## Find accounts to follow

The best way to ensure you're comments are rewarded is to contribute to content you're interested in, show your expertise or even your willingness to learn and engage with other content producers. Who knows? You may even be inspired to create your next post, which has happened to me many times.

Hit up tags you're interested in and go through the hot and trending section of those tags. See who the big authors are that are getting good payouts, follow them and drop a comment if you can. More often than not you'll get a reward from these guys and girls. 

Now that you follow them you also have an opportunity to engage with them and their content regularly. So put your red dress on and flirt your way into their hearts and then into their wallets. You'll eventually build up a list of a few accounts that reward you regularly for your comments and start to grow your steemit kitty!

## Comment reward programs

@steem-bounty - Is a commenting reward program. Users set bounties on their posts and will reward those who provide comments on their post with an additional amount in STEEM or SBD along with their upvote. To find the latest bounties check out the website here - https://steem-bounty.com/

@curie - Curie manually curates and upvotes top content from all across steemit, from huge authors to small authors, if they find your content valuable you'll get a massive upvote as a reward. In addition, those who comment on these posts are also liable for a reward. All you need to do is follow curie, check out the posts they comment on and see if any of them peak your interests. Offer up a comment and curie might reward you handsomely for your efforts.

## Salvaging comment dust 

Not all comments are going to pay you big bucks but they all count, when you receive an upvote on a comment and that upvote is only worth 1 or 2 cents it's probably going to get returned to the reward pool and you'll end up with nothing. To make sure that doesn't happen @danielsaori has come up with a solution in @dustsweeper which I personally use and cannot get enough of.

Simply send an amount of STEEM or SBD of your choice to dust sweeper and it will troll your comments and find ones below the payout threshold and upvote them to ensure all your comments return payouts. It has really been a game changer for me and I've started to rack up valuable SP because of it.

## Keeping track of comment performance

**Steemitboard**

@steemitboard - If you want to keep track of all your engagements on steemit in a fun and interactive way then Steemit Board is just for you. It gives you a great visual break down of what you've done so far, what goals you're close to hitting and a nice summary of your performance on the Steem blockchain - Check it out here - http://steemitboard.com/welcome.html

**Steem World**

@steemworld - If you're into the numbers side of things and would like to know exactly how many comments you got paid for and buy whom, you can also see how many incomeing comment payments there are and when they will be paid out. This can help you focus on content and authors that do support you and help you refine your comment strategies. 

You can check out the site here - https://steemworld.org/

**Engagement League**

@abh12345 with sponsored help from @curie runs the [engagment league](https://steemit.com/engagement/@abh12345/6sswuj-the-curation-and-engagement-leagues-steem-prizes-and-steem-bounty-available). Here he provides us with stats and rankings for active steemians, how much they comment and we compete against one another for top 5 spots. Top performers are rewarded each week so if you're keen on getting into the comment game, just pop into the last engagement league post and ask to join.

The league is pretty competitive and the banter is great, you'll make new friends to compete against and some good old fashioned rivalry keeps you on your toes. 

## Push it to the limit (Just like Scarface would want)

Due to the limit, small accounts have with resource credits its important to take note of how many comments you can use per day and make sure to max that out each day and reach as many individuals as possible. These are all opportunities to make connections and earn some SP so you can do more on the site in the future.

I'm not saying spam the shit out of peoples comments section, but offer insightful responses you think they would value and do not just comment for comment's sake, but you should work what your Steemit mama gave you and earn that comment cash.

People are not stupid and can see when you're trying to game them so you won't get the rewards unless you really are genuine. 

## Don't spam or vote beg

Building a following on Steemit is like building a relationship with people and spamming and begging don't work. When last have you texted someone you liked and sent them 10 messages or begged them for a response and it worked out well and the two of you lived happily ever after? Probably highly unlikely. 

It's more annoying than anything and a sure way to get your ass kicked to the curb for being a damn psycho. So don't be a Steemit psycho or we will ignore you or even worse, flag/downvote you!

## Your reward for reading this far

If you made it this far, then I'm impressed you're a real trooper and to show my commitment to the value of commenting and thank you for reading this far, I've added a little bounty to this post. 

If you do comment something insightful you'll receive a dust vote from me and a piece of the bounty.

**Tip:** I suggest sending 0.100 SBD to @dustsweeper too, so you ensure a payout from my dust vote too. Double whammy and will help you get used to the art of commenting like a legend.

## Have at it

Do you have any comment techniques or strategies that have been working for you? Will you be trying out some of my tips? Drop me a comment and let me know! Let's get all up in each others comments sections!

## Previous Cheat Sheets

* [Steemit Success Cheat Sheet](https://steemit.com/steemit/@chekohler/steemit-success-cheat-sheet)
* [My Steemit Cheat Sheet: Part 2
](https://steemit.com/steemit/@chekohler/my-steemit-cheat-sheet-part-2)
* [Kicking the self voting habit + Subscription services to help curb your addiction](https://steemit.com/steemit/@chekohler/kicking-the-self-voting-habit-subscription-services-to-help-curb-your-addiction)

## Let's connect

If you liked this post sprinkle it with an upvote or resteem and if you don't already, consider following me @chekohler
![follow me](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmSfrQD1Y3vNAfxKRxkEV9wpYcbbVEvqrJ5JcwhUKAhbv2/chekohler.gif)
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## Put your votes to good use

We all can't max out our upvotes every day and a little help never hurt. Sign up to Smartsteem and sell a few of your votes each day, earn some STEEM and SBD in the process and still get in some curation rewards in STEEM Power. Check out SmartSteem

<a href="https://smartsteem.com?r=chekohler" target="_blank"><img src="https://smartsteem.com/static/smartsteem_banner.gif" /></a>

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