To all new steemians

It has been a year and two months since since I joined steemit and created my introductory post. I wish to share ways in which you may make success in this platform. I was introduced to steemit by but not guided on how it actually works and it made it difficult for me to find my footing. I made a lot of mistakes, wrote meaningless post and sometimes I believe I bored my followers.

If you are new, please try and follow some of these advices:

(A) DO NOT ANTICIPATE MONEY-MAKING

One of the main reasons why people join steemit is to make money, however, it does not come that simple. I will advice you to come to steemit just as in any other blog to post, share and communicate with others. The issue of networking with people all over the world should be the number-one priority when joining steemit. If the aim is to make money, you will soon lose interest once you find it tough to make payouts from your posts.

To date, I have never had a post that gave me more that $5, and I got discouraged and eventually stopped blogging, I took around 6 months away from steemit and came back in December 2017. I did not post much by that time, I took my time to learn how steemit works and I think it was worth It, I am here to blog, not to make money. But surprisingly the payouts are coming. See how much this post has made: https://steemit.com/steemitphotochallenge/@motai/power-of-genetics

(B) READ OTHERS' CONTENT, FOLLOW PEOPLE AND HAVE FOLLOWERS

When a person makes an interesting post, read the post and make a comment. Sometimes people write to seek advice or professional assistance. Make a helpful comment where you can and give advice where you can. Sometimes help the person on how they can improve their post to make it better, as @jcdelpino used to do to me. He would always write a comment on my post on how to improve my posts; such as writing narrations for my pictures, writing more on what I am posting and giving references for my quotations. It helped me quite a lot. 

When you upvote other people's posts and follow them, they will follow you back and more people will see your post on their feed. I followed @papa-pepper amongst others, he helped me a lot as he always commented on my posts and as a veteran, I admired his success on steemit. 

Sometimes be on steemit to learn. There is a lot of good content posted here, some things are very educational and reading more will be of great help.

(C) MAKE GOOD POSTS

(a) Make original content only

Copying posts and others' pieces of writing is plagiarism (spam), it is vital to be creative when writing. Make posts that are yours originally without copying content from the internet or anywhere else. We may not know your country, so make it known to us. Post the indigenous places in your country and also try to give us what we do not know. 

(b) Talk more on your posts

 Sometimes you post good pictures from your country but do not narrate to us what they actual are. This it the mistake I used to do.  Look at this post: https://steemit.com/photography/@motai/the-forgotten-kingdom. Some people complained to me that I have not said anything concerning the pictures I put there. They told me to elaborate more and that is exactly what I should have done.

(c) Make a good introductory post

I joined steemit without any clue as to what I should do. I did not read other people's introductions and failed to make an impressive introduction of myself. My followers did not know anything about myself even after long time of blogging. Make a post that introduces yourself clearly, like in your curriculum vitae. Sometimes you may even provide the topics you will be blogging on so as to attract readers who maybe interested in those fields to visit your wall regularly. It is vital also to include good pictures of yourself and of places in your introductory post. 

(d) Make well created posts

It is better to read more and post less. Take your time when creating posts and post content that is important and eye catching. Making too many posts means you do not take time to create your posts and you do not make time to read what other people have posted. Read others so that other can do the same in return.

(e) Use appropriate tags

Many people tend to misuse tags in their posts. I have seen it happen mostly with the @introduceyourself tag. Many people tend to use this tag often, the reasons may differ, but I think the main reason is that this tag is followed by many new users and veterans who like to promote/uplift new users; there is higher possibility of posts being upvoted under this tag. It is better to create the posts under appropriate tags and earn rewards for making good posts. 

(D) ENJOY BEING ON STEEMIT

This one is clear. You will enjoy if you visit regularly and read what people have posted. Just go through the comments, comment and connect with people.

NB: I have not attached my post in order to promote them via this post, I was just citing examples. Kindly help new users by adding more in the comment section, please flag my post is it is not helpful.