Can you imagine a reality where your contributions also contribute to the sustenance of your very existence?
Can you imagine a thriving world where people from around the world come together to create, connect, and collaborate with each other?
The simple truth is this: if there is a large community on Steemit that is operating on this platform full time, then that would mean that this platform has successfully adopted cryptocurrency and officially transcended an old, dying system. If we are the first to do it, then we will be one of the first globally-based communities to prove to the world what is possible and what humanity is capable of.
If you are a minnow, looking to get a solid start on Steemit. Then this is for you.
If you are a regular Steemian, looking to go full time. Then this is for you.
If you are a creator, looking to establish your brand. Then this is for you.
If you are a human, looking to change the world for the better. Then this is for you.
If you are reading this and wondering if this is for you... Then this is for you. (lol)
@axios and why do my thoughts matter? For those who I have not had a chance to meet yet, "Greetings!" I am
I'm relatively new to this community, but through my significant contributions over the past few months, I've learned quite a lot and have relatively decent stats to show for it (which I will share below).
I officially joined Steemit at the very end of September of 2017, took time to learn and experiment for a few months after, and made a serious commitment to posting regularly on December 1st, 2017.
By January 1st, 2019 I intend to operate from the Steemit ecosystem full time. This will allow me to operate fully remotely so that I can travel internationally and build relationships and businesses with fellow Steemians in virtual AND physical spaces.
I believe that the world can be improved by modeling cultures that are already sustainable, empowering, and collaborative, while simultaneously experimenting with new culture.
Thus, it only makes sense to experience new culture beyond your own in order to truly understand what exists within this world, while also, seeking to connect, create, and collaborate with others to discover new, fruitful ways of living and thriving.
Cryptocurrency has given us the opportunity to not only completely revolutionize the way we trade goods and services, but also how we organize and operate as a collective. Every aspect of our lives will be impacted... business, education, healthcare, food, travel, creativity, innovation, just to name a few.
With all that being said, here's my current guide that outlines how I will execute my goals and visions here on Steemit.
Is it perfect? No way!
I still have much to learn and as I do, I will continue to share.
With that being said, I strongly welcome constructive criticism and wisdom sharing.
For now, this is what I have discovered through listening to other successful Steemians, working hard, and learning through experience.
The following text will outline my personal perspectives in the realms of community building, engagement, content creation, creative development, time management, value, innovation, analytics, mindset, things to avoid, and my current daily routine.
I will split this into two seperate parts as each post is already quite extensive.
I share this because if I can help you succeed, then I will also be succeeding.
I know I'm being blunt, but I'm also being extremely honest.
The quality of your life experience is equally proportionate to the quality of relationships that you develop with the people, places, and things in your life.
Your growth and development here on Steemit is equally proportionate to the quality of relationships that you create.
Thus, you will hear me say this a lot: building relationships is extremely important.
This is the simple truth, but it's easily forgotten.
When I first started posting on Steemit, I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting any interaction on my posts.
But then I remembered this core principle of life:
Be the change you wish to see.
So I started being someone who would thoroughly read and watch ALL of my fellow Steemian's posts, leaving epic and thoughtful comments on each post.
And guess what happened?
The posts on MY CHANNEL exploded with engagement.
It was all too obvious: engage with others and others will engage with you.
Step 1: Write down a few of the Steemit tags that match the content that you create on your own channel.
Step 2: Scroll through each tag and select about 10 posts to read.
Step 3: Read through the entire post, and while you're reading, ask yourself "what does this post mean to me and why does it matter?"
Step 4: Leave a comment that not only demonstrates the fact that you read the post, but also something that conveys something about who you are. Ignite that personal connection.
Step 5: Invite that Steemian to check out a specific piece of content that you have recently posted if it is relevant to them. If it's not relevant, then it will seem spammy. Don't be spammy.
Step 6: Repeat steps 1 through 5 every day.
The Steemians who are commenting and upvoting your posts are your channel's life force.
Cherish them as it's a major component to your continued success.
On my channel, I've discovered that the best way to operate is to reward Steemians who:
If I receive a comment from someone and none of these four things have been achieved, then I simply will not upvote them as it's not the type of engagement I want on my channel.
If any one of these four aspects is achieved, I will upvote!
In terms of comments, I try to reply to all comments, but this becomes extremely time consuming as your channel grows. Thus, I rely on the four characteristics above to filter out who I choose to engage with.
The best way to encourage continued support, is to give that support yourself.
Do you know of a Steemian that comments regularly on your channel?
Go check out their stuff, upvote their posts, engage with their content.
It's a sure fire way to ignite a long term relationship and continued support.
I use 
This way, I'm much more likely to read and engage with their content on a frequent basis, and thus, they remember that I still exist!
I'm currently developing an excel sheet that will list out all of the Steemit channels that I want to check out every day.
My goal will be go through this list once a day in order to have a frequent presence on the channels I want to grow with on a consistent basis.
A huge aspect of Steemit that isn't very obvious up front is the necessity in finding a niche community.
Why is this important?
It's because Steemit communities are where you can really start getting to know people and building lasting, quality relationships with others.
Since Steemit is not a private messaging platform and everything is out in the open, it can be difficult to go deeper with other Steemians on the platform alone (in its current state).
Most Steemit communities exist on discord where there is private messaging, voice, and video chat capabilities.
Finding the right community takes time, but once you find one that fits, you'll immediately recognize the major benefits in doing so.
Step 1: As you're perusing around Steemit and engaging with other's posts, keep an eye out for any curation or creative communities that other Steemians rep.
In example, lately I've been repping 
Step 2: Look for communities that would enhance your creativity or communities that align with your goals and values on Steemit.
Step 3: Join a community, read the rules, and introduce yourself to the community.
Step 4: Make a point to show up for even just 5 minutes, every day just to say hello and reinforce a familiar face. This will do more than you think!
Step 5: Collaborate with the Steemians you connect with! My best posts on Steemit are often the ones that involve other Steemians.
The value of Steemit as a social media platform is equivalent to the value of the content on it.
Sharing a meme or gif that you found on Google or Facebook with a paragraph description alongside it is not an example of adding value.
It's lame and also really not even meant for Steemit (share memes on dmania.lol).
True value is created by sharing content that you would stand behind, content that is timeless or relevant to the times, content that is building upon a brand, and content that is authentic and original.
I ask myself this before I post anything.
For before I post anything, I make sure that it would be something that I would excitedly invite another Steemian to check out.
Time is valuable and if I'm stealing someone else's time with a half-assed post, then what kind of message am I sending?
Focus on creating content that is adding value to people lives and you will immediately begin receiving a myriad of upvotes, comments, resteems, and who knows, you might even attract the attention of a whale.
Bottom line, intentionally choose to create and share the best possible content that you can.
Not only will you develop yourself as an artist and creator, but you will simultaneously help to grow, develop, and increase the value of Steemit as a platform.
We are lucky in this instance, as we experience the direct impact of this accumulated value in our Steemit wallets.
When we talked about engaging on other's posts, I told you to first browse through tags that are relevant to the content on your own Steemit channel.
Without a niche or focus, you simply won't be able to effectively find relevant tags, and thus, you won't be able to effectively find an audience.
I recently read a fantastic post about branding by 
In her post, Marly stated:
The idea is to define a specific target group you want to satisfy with your blog and then start producing the content that matches with the demand of that specific group. You can’t ever be a jack-of-all-trades and serve the whole internet community.
I think that last line says it all: you can't serve the whole internet community.
But what you can do, is serve the people who are like you or who have similar skills, beliefs, or interests.
In my opinion, the easiest way to build a brand is to be the brand.
What interests you? What do you know? What are you learning? What have you discovered? What are you creating? What do you think?
These are just a few questions that can help you to discover your niche and your brand.
For me, this aspect of media has always been difficult for me. I have so many interests!
But in time, you'll discover the things that really just stick.
Creating content on a daily basis isn't easy if you're sharing things that you aren't passionate about.
Thankfully, passions typically dwell within just a few areas.
If you can discover what those areas are, then you are on your road to establishing a solid, niche brand.
Social media can be used for good, or for bad.
The bad aspects of social media often negatively impact the consumer as they take in secondary sources of information and freely distribute their personal information.
The good aspects of social media often positively impact the creators as they express themselves, connect with others, and collaborate.
The latter is yours for the picking here on Steemit.
If anything, choose to do Steemit for the mere purpose of improving your life.
Do you want to learn something new?
Do you have a goal that you want to achieve?
Are you building something?
Share those things on Steemit and let the community be your accountability partner.
Document your life in a way that supports your positive habits.
Celebrate your achievements and demonstrate why they are important.
Teach us what you know as you have new experiences and learn new things!
There are so many reasons to grow, and many of those reasons can absolutely support your content creation here on Steemit.
Steemit is similar to crypto mining.
In crypto mining, your computer is computing algorithms in hopes of claiming the reward for creating blocks of validated transactions and including them in the blockchain.
If you mine at a certain speed for a certain amount of time, you'll likely mine a block within a certain period of time.
It's a law of averages.
On Steemit, you're sharing content and hoping that your work is validated by a whale and included up at the top of the trending list.
If you create a certain quality of content for a certain period of time, you'll likely attract a whale's upvote within a certain period of time.
It's a law of averages.
Thus, if you constantly put out high value content, you can be sure that your content will eventually be discovered.
You may have been making an average of 2SBD for an entire month UNTIL a whale upvotes your post 300SBD... now suddenly your average has risen from 2 to 12SBD with just one upvote!
It's good to keep this in mind, especially during the times when you're not feeling the love.
I promise you, we've all been there ;-)
Creating high value content every day is no easy task.
It requires focus, time, and dedication.
All things that do not come overnight.
When you first start posting regularly on Steemit, it will likely feel overwhelming.
If it does, this is a good thing: it means you are pushing your creative boundaries.
For what will be uncomfortable at first, will soon feel very comfortable.
And when this happens, you've just strengthened your creative muscle.
Soon, producing high value content will be your norm.
Even better, you'll have the capacity to build on this new norm, which will take you from being a great creator...
1. I Show Myself
I was encouraged by other Steemians to share my face more often on articles and video posts and it's definitely helped to improve my personal brand.
For one, in order to show yourself, you likely will want to share content that you can stand behind. Thus, by being a bit more transparent, you're holding yourself accountable.
Showing yourself doesn't always mean literally showing your face, it could also mean showing what you are doing or what you are creating.
People tend to follow people who can prove that they walk their talk.
2. I Create And Post Daily
This is hugely important to establishing any brand.
A brand is simply meaning attached to a word.
In order to create meaning out of thin air, you need to reinforce that meaning on a daily basis.
You need to be constantly reminding the world of the meaning you bring to it and the value that you are providing.
On Steemit, this simply looks like posting once or twice a day, every single day.
3. I Experiment With My Posts
Oftentimes, I'll notice that what I'm doing just isn't working well.
It's during these times where it's extremely important to try new things.
Thus, if I've been writing a lot of long form posts... I'll try my hand at a short form post.
If I've been writing a lot... I'll try filming more video.
If I've been sharing articles with a lot of pictures... I'll try finding gifs or complementary videos.
These are just a few examples of things you can experiment with - but the list could go on and on...
4. I'm Constantly Improving
A brand doesn't just become a brand...
It grows and develops into one over a long period of time.
This means that you are constantly creating and refining what you create.
And the more you create, the easier it will be to identify what your brand is all about.
IMHO, the best thing that you can do as a creator is to focus on improving your content, just a little bit, every single day.
Always strive to do better.
Always strive to increase quality.
Always strive to inspire someone new.
If this is always your focus then you will wake up a year from now, take a look at your Steemit channel, and say...
"Wow, I just created something amazing."
This concludes Part I of my practical guide/plans for going full time here on Steemit.
I've shared with you my visions, which I believe are very possible when combined with hard work, intentional action, and a desire to constantly improve.
What goes around, comes around - thus, the more value you give up front, the more you will get back.
It's a law of the world and Steemit is no different.
We can create the world we wish to see RIGHT NOW.
As long as we commit to being that essence, every single day.
@axios
@axios All photo credits can be found by clicking on the picture
