First ever post

I have seen a few of these pop up on Hive over the past while, so I said why not have a look back at my own first post and see what it was like. Here is a link to it for your reading pleasure, the only issue was the post was mainly about the photos from The Hill of Tara in Ireland but unfortunately the photos don't seem to display, at least not on my browser anyway.

@ablaze/the-hill-of-tara-mypictureday-submission

A grand total of $0.00 payout

Nobody expects their first post to make much, but I think most people also hope or expect it to at least make a few cent, but not for me, not a red cent! You must not have been able to believe it @blackdaisyft when you saw the success of your genesis post, which was unreal altogether, but to be fair to you it was an excellent post, one of the best first posts I've seen on here.

I did get one comment though, woop woop, at least I knew that at least one person had read it. It did not dissuade me though and I kept on going, and kept on posting.

As you can see my posts were not making any returns really at all, but I was starting to get some engagement and some followers and I remember getting very excited when my second post got some support and some comments and I was delighted. It was a Fifty Words story which you can find below and one of those who commented @felt.buzz actually runs Zapfic now every Friday which is the same idea, fifty words to tell a story. You should all give it a go some time, it's lots of fun.

@metzli is also still here on Hive and thanks to both of you for that engagement back then, which helped me to get going here on Hive and I'm still here five years later plugging away.

@ablaze/escape-from-tyranny-50-word-story

Lessons Learned

I think the main lesson learned over the five years I have been here and what I would say to new comers is that it is all about engagement. If you engage genuinely with people, read their posts, comment meaningfully, then you will flourish here. So many come here and post, post, post and become disillusioned that they don't get upvoted or engaged with.

They need to remember that engagement is a two way street and that it takes time to build up a rapport with people. It does seem to be much easier to build up an account these days though, with communities and no more bid bots like the old days, they were terrible things, and it's so great that they are gone and that the big accounts actually reward good content now rather than payments.

Well that's it from me now, I had seen quite a few of these genesis posts, so I said I'd add my own to the mix for the craic. It's been quite the journey to get to where I am now and a big thank you to those who have helped me to get here and who continue to help me to build towards my next milestone.

These photos are all my own taken on my Samsung Smartphone

Thanks as always for stopping by everyone.

Peace Out