B is for Be Original

Your greatest success on Steemit will come as you seek out methods to share your creative originality and uniqueness.

Over a year ago, @thecryptofiend posted a guide which has since been adopted as the unofficial Steemit guide to proper etiquette. This post can be found here.

In it, @thecryptofiend properly posits that the opposite of originality, or plagarism, is not only frowned upon but will be found out and punished. To quote:

This is important. It relates to people trying to make money by impersonating others, making false claims, or stealing >other people's work to claim it as their own. There is a whole community of people watching you here and you will >eventually be found out. Just don't do it.

I could not agree more--don't copy what others have done either here on Steemit or anywhere else on the web. The risk just isn't worth it. Besides, plagarism is theft.

The opposite of copying is doing your own thing.

When you first arrive at Steemit, if you are anything like me, you are going to see all kinds of people doing amazing things. You may get caught up in what they are doing and think to yourself, "That is really cool. Maybe I'll do that."

Instead, why don't you start following the people you like, upvote their posts, and begin to interact with them. After a few days, you will begin to catch glimpses of what you can do that may be similar but at the same time different--because it is your thing.

As an example--I really love to read. After several months of following a few people who are doing some great book reviews, I finally decided to dive in and make a few book reviews of my own. That is the key--these are my book reviews of books that I enjoyed and posted in the way I think best highlights not only the book but my particular thoughts on these books. I didn't copy their format, I didn't copy their style, and I definitely did not copy any of their words. So the work is original, it expresses my thoughts, and it is my creative effort to share what I think is relevant and helpful to readers of my blog.

Another example: One of my favorite Steemit posters is @gringalicious. She does amazing posts about delicious recipes. She does them right. She takes incredible pictures, creates a quality post, and then interacts with the people who comment on her posts. I know she isn't the only one who is doing food based posts. I'm sure she wasn't the first, just like I am sure she won't be the last. But what she does is make quality posts that express her own unique style and flair. Plus they look delicious. In fact, let's take a break for a minute and go follow her right now. You will be very glad you did.

Did you follow her? Good, now back to the post. B stands for Be Original. Be Yourself. Be Creative. Be a trend-setter. As you do these things, you will make the Steemit community a more vibrant, wonderful place to visit.

TL;DR

If you didn't catch it yet, here is the most important thing you can remember about the letter B is to always:

Be Original!

Be yourself. Let your ideas and creativity shine out from your posts. As you do, your success on Steemit will grow.

The ABC’s of Steemit

This series of articles is dedicated to explaining the basics of Steemit for new users and anyone else who wants to brush up on Steemit basics.

Here are the other posts in this series:

A is for Always Protect Your Password

**All pictures used are labeled for reuse. They come from Pixabay

Follow @bigpanda for more ABC's of Steemit and for flash fiction.