I’m sure we all have heard or seen the tag #newsteem floating around. Many were nervous or unsure how HF21 would affect them, including me. My biggest concern was cutting the author rewards to give more to the curators. My first thoughts were,

We shouldn’t cut reward percentage from the authors just to encourage more curation. What if more curation doesn’t happen? The authors are then screwed.

I really thought it was going to cause more Steemians to leave feeling more was being taken away from them. Although change can sometimes be good it can also be scary. This is coming from someone who has been blogging and curating here for three years. I have seen it ALL!

Well I must say that this #newsteem curation has lit a spark on the blockchain! Have you noticed it as well? Have you gotten more upvotes and or interaction on your posts? If you haven’t yet just hold out, I’m sure you will soon.

I am truly grateful for the change in curation that has taken place. This fork is causing more people to put forth better curating efforts. I’ve even read some posts that are reporting bot services curating now because less Steemians are using them. This is a new era of organic earning and legit support. People are looking to reward those that actually put real effort into their posts.

If you produce original, quality content that has value you will get noticed. There are so many curation teams and individuals ie. @curie, @ocd, @blocktrades, @curangel, @c-cubed, @helpie, @canadian-coconut, @theycallmedan, @mariusfebruary etc. who are here daily looking for content to support with an upvote.

Then you have your niche teams like @steemstem that upvotes posts dealing with STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), @steemiteducation for all things education and @naturalmedicine for those that love and share about their natural medicine lifestyle. I gotta mention the three that I moderate and curate for; @needleworkmonday for needleworkers, @steemitmamas for the lovely mamas of Steemit and a new one that was just developed @homeedders (thanks to @minismallholding with help and guidance from @lordnigel and @pennsif) for all home educators. There IS something for everyone here. Just be sure to use the appropriate tags in your post to target the correct groups.

Don’t forget we also have many tribes forming that are creating their own tokens. These also help with earning more Steem/SP by staking and trading/selling on the SteemEngine. The main ones I use are CCC (creative crypto coin) for all of my NeedleWorkMonday posts and anything creative or diy) and palnet because you can use it for any topic. I like using the palnet frontend because it’s like the Steemit frontend only you can add up to 10 tags which I love.

Make sure you stay up to date on the changes that are happening. I pick one day out of the week just to keep up on what’s going on because the blockchain waits for no one lol! There are new developments happening and proposals/projects being submitted by the second! Stay in the know!

If I was only here for monetary purposes I would have been long gone. I am here for the communities, friendships, learning, growth and to witness Steem moon (as my dear mama friend @metzli puts it)! I am loving the changes I am seeing and looking forward to more good ones to come. Change can be scary (I’m old school so change always frightens me a little) but in this case I can see the changes working for the good of all Steemians. Well at least those who care to see it do better and for everyone to benefit and not just themselves.

I still have a goal of becoming a Dolphin and I believe it will happen. I look forward to being able to give more rewards with higher curation votes. It’s been slow because of organic building meaning all of my SP is from post earnings over the last 3 years. I’ve tried out the bot services but felt guilty from buying votes and stopped (this decision was made before all of the downvoting started). I wanted to stay organic the way I started. I mean it’s tempting using them especially when you feel like there’s no love coming from else where. I used them the most when big accounts started powering down and there was a scare of what was going to happen with this platform and many people left. It was so quiet and many posts were lonely. So I do get why people opt to use them but it was my personal choice to stop.

So come on and catch some of these colorful sparks that are lighting up the blockchain:

- Post Quality Content
- Interact/Mingle
- Comment and Reply
- Use Appropriate Tags
- Site Sources
- Do Not Plagiarize
- Join Relevant Niche Communities
- Stay Up To Date

All of these things will help you build a genuine and trustworthy reputation all the while earning you some great support!