Growing On and With Hive - Maximizing Visibility

There was a post by @piensocrates that caught my eye yesterday, and I've been thinking about it since. The original topic had to do with how certain quality posts are getting ignored by potential big voters, and looking at the author's profile, it seemed like this was not his first post that he had put quite a bit of effort into, which then ended up getting a mere handful of upvotes. On the contrary, the guy (Socrates makes me assume he's male) suffers from a chronic lack of exposure. Though I respect his perseverance (I'm surprised he hasn't given up blogging by now!), I'm sure there is something that can be done about this.

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What Can You Do?

Or should I say, what can I do to help him, and probably many other new (or longtime) Hivers who are in the same situation: They keep publishing quality content, which in the end go unrewarded since frankly speaking barely anyone gets to see them. I must have been in that situation myself at some point, I guess. (Though honestly, thinking back it really doesn't feel like it.)

Communities, Communities

Aha, and here we go! I kinda tried avoiding talking about Hive communities, because in many cases they haven't been the amazing outlet they first promised to be. The huge exception is LeoFinance which at this point I don't even want to see a community any more. It has completely outgrown itself and is becoming ... well, so many other new things, I don't even wanna get into it.

Then there are those communities that used to be amazingly vibrant, full of people, exciting interactions, (...) and today they are nowhere near what they once used to be. A few examples here are ecoTrain, AbundanceTribe, and NaturalMedicine, where a glance at the number of subscribers compared to the active users tells the whole story. In many of these cases some key people who were managing the community left Hive, resulting in this.

Other communities that started with a huge hub-dub made it seem like they were going to become enormous, though the eventual result is rather benign. CineTV is maybe the most obvious example, making me feel that I should probably publish my next TV-series review in the alternative Movies & TV Shows community.

Clearly, we need to stay on top of things and make sure to post in the community where you can get the best visibility (as long as the topic fits, of course). For my last post about the Spiral Garden I had to look through a number of potential possibilities before choosing HiveGarden for it. (I should also mention, my long-time buddies @riverflows and @minismallholding are running the place, very well it seems!) Other options, such as my first favorite Homesteading community, or Agricultural Mindset clearly don't have the same number of active users.

Don't Just Post, You Gotta Engage With Others!

This is the oldest and most persistent advice on Hive, and not without a good reason. It doesn't matter how amazing your posts are, if there is no one to see them! And since we are a community (or communities) of bloggers, it is reciprocity that drives us. In other words, people will be more happy to give you upvotes if you do the same to them. They will be more interested in reading your stuff if they know that you read theirs. That's how you eventually get to know people, who will actually want to put you on autovote, or keep sharing your posts in various ways. One of my first Hive friends, @farmstead (who has since left is being missed greatly) put it this way: Getting an Upvote is nice, even though that's what pays. Being Followed is exciting, because it means more is to come in the future. Getting a Comment is gold, since that is where the connection happens. Or something along these lines.

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Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

So giving out a certain number of upvotes in a day is always a good practice. You don't want your HivePower to go to waste (provided that you have a good amount of Hive staked). If you have a number of favorite bloggers who post regularly, making a list on some autovote app is perfectly acceptable. Just don't max out your HP, so you can still give out valuable votes to new stuff you find and happen to like. But that's just the start of what you can do.

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With sufficient HP in your wallet delegations become attractive, where you lend out your HP to someone (say a community you like and want to support). If all things go well, they are not only going to give additional support to all those awesome Hivers you're already supporting, but eventually it all comes back to you in form of more exposure, meaning potential upvotes, and even better, potential interactions. Once again, however, it's worth checking out the communities that have gone flat and withdraw your delegations. In fact, that's one thing I should do right now: undelegating from ecoTrain, and delegating it to the HiveGarden community.

Finally, there are bots like @gasaeightyfive, @cribbio, or @truthbot, that will share all your posts indiscriminately, for a small delegation. Whether this is a good idea I can actually recommend, I'm still not sure. I have been doing it, and I guess it hasn't been without a result, but for one thing, I have no idea whether or how much this has been the case. On the other hand, my feed is literally cluttered up with re-blogs by these services, which can get tiring after a while. And though seeing things from the whole wide world may have its perks, I honestly prefer seeing posts by people I know... or at least I can associate with some previous interaction. And I bet many others who see my posts feel the same way about it.

To Sum Up

So in the end it's all a matter of establishing relationships for the long term. The key is patience and persistence, rolling with the flow and trying to be smart along the way.

Wishing all Hivers, new and old, a fun and successful blogging journey!