Welcoming - manually curation introduction since 2017!
The "problem" and the vision - How it all started!
When I came to Steemit around nine months ago, the #introduceyourself section, especially the "trending" and "hot" section there, where full of great introductions - And it seemed as if every user tried his best to make a good one as well.
If you visit the #introduceyourself tag nowadays, you will mainly see the introduction of some services boosted to "trending" or "hot" - not actual intros of real people. And if you try to curate the tag yourself, you will find spam, spam and even more spam.
I think that's sad - I liked the real intros back then. But since just complaining doesn't help anybody, I did something about it!
That is why I have founded the account @welcoming in the beginning of last December - here is a link back to the original introductin of it: Welcome @welcoming, an account for manual #introduceyourself curation!
Since the start in December, @welcoming has resteemed the best introduction posts I found via manual curation on a daily basis. In total, @welcoming has resteemed around 870 manually selected introduction posts since it's founding and voted many more!
Here you can see a quick comparision between the "Trending" section for the tag #introduceyourself and @welcoming 's blog.
So if you are looking for real intros by real people - I guess you all can see where you should look ;)
Better user retention!
Two months ago I made a little analysis over the first 50 resteems I did with @welcoming - more than 50% of the users still have been active after two months. I think this is a great level of user retention - especially compared to the overall level of user retention on here.
But of course, it was not only my resteeming that helped those users to get a better start into the world of STEEM!
Thank you to all supporters!
Even though I am doing most of the actual curation work, @welcoming would by far not be as effective if there wouldn't be some great guys with steempower supporting my projects. Therefore I am pleased to highlight the following people who make it possible that @welcoming is working the way it is!
A special "Thank you!" goes to @transisto who has been supporting @welcoming with a FREE delegation of 12,500 SteemPower for over three months now!!! - I am glad to see that there are still whales who are willing to delegate to projects they think are beneficial for Steem - instead of just delegating to a vote-bot for quick profit. Thx @transisto!
Another big "Thank you!" goes to the witnesses @ausbitbank and @pharesim who have been following @welcoming 's votes with a small % of their own vote (which accumulates to a nice sum with their huge power) and have therefore boosted all votes I made with the service.
Two other whales that have been helping a lot are @acidyo and @teamsteem. @acidyo has been helping out with big votes on most of the resteems from the first day of @welcoming, @teamsteem has been especially helping when it comes down to verificating popular people and giving them huge upvotes after successful verification. Thx to you two!!!
Of course there are more!
Also a big thank you to @juicy-shark, @kevinli, @security101, @sco, @louis88 and a few others who have been supporting my project with delegations, help with the curating process or other stuff. You guys rock!
YOU can help too!
If you can imagine to support this project as well (in any way you think you can/want), please don't hestitate to connect with me via Discord (#0005) or the steem.chat (@theaustrianguy)!
Or you can just help by following @welcoming, checking out some of those great intros and voting + enganging with new users you share interests with.
Additionally, you could vote the comments I write with welcoming where I try to give the new users valuable information. The rewards are use to buy a delegation of 10k SP - so I can upvote even more intros plus give bigger upvotes to the best ones.
Ultimately, a platform friendly for newbies will lead to more new users. And more new users will lead to growth of this platform. And that's what we all want, right?
What is a great intro?!
Some people have asked me over various channels, what makes an intro good enough to be resteemed via @welcoming. While I can't give you a general rule for that (it just depends on to many factors), I can give you some hints on what could be included in a great introduction post.
Information about yourself: This one is obvious - but still many don't: Tell the people who you are, where you come from, what you do, what you love, your passions, etc. People can only feel connected to you if you tell them something about yourself what they can connect with.
Good pictures: You know the saying "A picture can say more than a thousand words!" I can only sign that. A verification picture (a picture holding a paper with your steem name + date) + one or more good pictures of you doing what you love will boost any intro. Of course, you can also show an example of your art, photography, etc.
Why are you here?: One of the most interesting things about new users is how they found out about Steem, what they think about steem and why they joined Steemit. If you don't have a vision about yourself you can describe, how shall others know if that sounds interesting to them.
Use the tag #introduceyourself: If people look for intros, they look there (or hopefully @welcoming) - If your post is not there, way less people will find it!
NO'GOs: begging for upvotes, calls follow-for-follow, referal-links, spam, etc.
If you take some time and create a good intro, it really can be your headstart in the world of STEEM. So don't rush it -> Quality > Speed/Quantity!
And please don't waste my time with ID-theft, plagiarism, etc! I check suspicious intros before voting and resteeming. Thanks to @steemcleaners all the ID-theft introductions I have found (dozens!) have been flagged to 0. So please don't even try ;)
Thank you all for reading. If you have additional ideas, critique or anything else you want to tell me, please feel encouraged to comment :)
Greets,
Martin
P.S.: For all german users - You can check the account @neuvorstellungen - A lot of german introduction posts get resteemed there!