Hey there, Zak Ludick from Cape Town, South Africa.
This is as much a guide as it is a reminder to myself about what the most important attribute we must have to be good bloggers on Hive.
The most powerful attribute and concept can be called many names. For different people it comes from a different places but it can basically be summed up in one word:
Determination
Other things that this can be called are: Consistency, Constant Engagement, Keeping Busy, Goal Orientated, Guts, Always showing up and many more.
The concept it this: You can write a beautiful post, or share an amazing idea, or post great art or masterful music or any number of things… once… and it will do good. It will do great, but in the greater scheme of things, it can only do so much as once single post.
I have seen people with immense skill/ability come in red hot into Hive and then fizzle out in a week. I have seen people who have the gift of Charisma and style who captivated dozens of new followers within days or a few weeks gaining hundreds of followers and then falling dead silent and thus, losing all the interest they gained in the first place.
I have taught people how to use proper tags and how to format posts better. But nothing seems to beat post consistency and engagement consistency.
This word Determination is an concept in a nutshell, but by no means is it EASY.
In fact, it is the HARDEST THING TO MASTER, because it revolves around managing ourselves.
Hive is not a get-rich-quick cash cow. But when newbies look at my 5000HP account, and the vast average of my post earnings, they want to be there too. They want the same as me.
And then I need to explain it to them, that they might get the same as me some of the time, but realistically, they will need to spend some time getting to that level in the first place. Even if you were to buy yourself a healthy hunk of HP Stake, it will take you a while to make friends and followers. You need to interact with people, sometimes on a daily basis to make a dent of an impression and this will put yourself in a position where there will be constant influx of attention.
Determination means that you need to both write and post a lot as well as engage a lot. Nothing is on auto-pilot. Nothing can be just a “set it and forget it” money making machine… Well… there IS a money-making machine on Hive, but it does not come for FREE.
Making money on Hive by being a successful blogger can completely change your life. This I believe and this is exactly true for myself and my family. Without Hive I would not have survived.
But it gets tough to work hard and not always see massive rewards, but when this happens it does not matter! A post never makes zero when you have friends. And another golden rule that I learned from someone else on Hive is that “if you do not like the rewards your posts are making – go make 50 comments!”
Also, a person sometimes gets to a level of burn-out where you have worked hard and gotten to a certain point but not always where you wanted to be, it is then important to reassess and look at the bigger picture and try again.
So DETERMINATION is about more than just frantically posting. It is about being goal orientated and flexible in the way you approach blogging. It is about constantly learning and evolving and engaging with the platform.
The opposite of this is doing nothing or stagnating. If this is happening to you then you are either posting zero or putting zero effort in and being rewarded zero. You can easily turn this around.
And for myself. I am proud of what I have done on Hive. I am extremely grateful of the blockchain and the Ecency front end/app to allow me to post, engage and format in a way that I enjoy.
I commit to keeping my blogging Determination up and hot!
Thank you for reading this post!
Cheers!
@zakludick
