I received a new batch from @HIVEBuzz. I usually don't care about those, but this one was a challenge that I set myself up to an experiment:
The result was interesting. If you like, read through my short analysis and reflection on what happened. First, of course, the account growth. Second, the affect on my daily life and how it felt. Third, how I see the HIVE blog.
I started May with 2,192 HP. I finished with 2,885. Let's say 700 HP more, which is around 31,5% growth. That is quite a lot.
Most of the big steps came from posts about Splinterlands that really hit a nerve, and caught the attention of some whales. I heard someone call it "hitting the whale lottery", but I think (or hope) that it's merit-bound - I did put a lot of effort into those particular posts.
From here, growth will probably slow down in percentage. But If I can keep it to 300-500 HP per month, I'm happy. That would mean that I'll easily reach my goal of 5,000 HP by the end of 2025
Another positive thing was the higher engagement I got in replies. I tried to comment whenever I had something to say that I thought added to the topic, and wasn't just repeat. And when someone did an exceptional job.
There's also a neat correlation between the comments that I made, and the replies I got, as those are to both my posts as well as comments on other posts. I do comment more than I get replies, though, but I guess that's still part of being a smaller fish in the sea.
I changed my voting-distribution a little. As I'm reading more and more, I reduced the amount of voting power on the voting trail that I'm following. It already shows in the cake-diagram, there are now many more names that I actively curate because their content really speaks to me. Some are known for their content, but I recommend checking out number 3, there is some really good content to find there.
I'm really happy with that. It shows my personal impact, and it feels great to have an impact. I'll probably reduce the voting trail a little further, in order to make this even more "me".
My incoming votes did change, too. I think it's more organic now as well, and less voting trails. There was a really good and valuable voting trail that supported me up to 2,500 HP, but then stopped. Probably because I either was posting too much, or because I reached the threshold where they stop supporting. I'm still learning about those initiatives.
It wasn't like that, though. The first week I was a little nervous. What if I don't find topics to write about? What if this will make the posts mediocre, a mass production without soul? And yes, there are a couple of posts that I might have redacted more carefully, or would've worked a little more on the ideas, but after a while, I got into a flow. I sometimes wrote 2-3 articles in one day, just because I was inspired. And then nothing for a day, publishing those I had written before.
Looking for other topics pushed me more into the math section, calculating a lot of things for #splinterlands. Now I'm working on my statistic-skills, got some nice hints for tools to plot data and such.
By the way:
Like the development of followers and who I follow, which day I powered up how much hive, and so one? Preferable in one file, and not going one by one through a history... I know how to use CSV files now 😎
Connections are growing. I'm getting to know some writers. I think I'm letting them to get to know me. And it never feels like wasting time here, there is so much great content to learn from and get inspired - or to just and simply enjoy.
I'm finding more communities as well, more honeycombs to explore and see where my thoughts fit. Many initiatives from long term users caught my attention and I joined many of their discord channels to find out more about them. I think I'm becoming more of a fan of all this, all of you.
This was worth it. It was good that I challenged myself to this, and hopefully it was an addition to the whole Hive as well. I won't be paying much attention to it from now on, maybe I'll skip a day from time to time. But if the creative flow goes on as it does at the moment, and time allows it, I'll keep writing and exploring and making connections.
Before, Hive was a means for writing and learning about Splinterlands, and helping me build my set there. Now, it's actually becoming more important than the game. I just powered up 50 HP instead of funneling those into the game. That, too, is a change that this month caused.
Oh, and I learned some basic HTML 😋
And especially to those who answer all my pesky newbie questions and help me navigate through here :-)
