First of all, Happy Birthday (belated birthday actually) to the Steem Blockchain. On March 24, 2018 the Steem Blockchain celebrated its 2nd year of existence and the creation of its first block. It's hard to believe that 2 years have gone by and that in such a short period of time, Steem/Steemit has become one of the top technologies and sites in the world with a continuously growing user base - time just passes by so fast.
I found Steemit a few months later in July of 2016 by following daily new coin offerings and announcements through the bitcointalk website. Learning that I could make money doing what I do normally by posting blogs, pictures, and other social media content, I quickly signed up. My journey, like most people, started out slow. I was enticed by the big figure earnings listed on the trending page and thought that my posts would almost instantaneously gain the same recognition and rewards. I was wrong. After a number of failed attempts, I figured out that just posting was not enough.
Steemit is like any other Social Media platform when it comes to attracting viewers to your content, you need to build a following, establish relationships, and provide enriching content that will capture and hold the attention of your audience. Not everyone enjoys reading or watching the same thing and because of the number of posts that are created every second of every day, it's easy for your material to get lost in the infinite capacity of the Steem blockchain.
I started joining a number of groups that catered to supporting minnows and new users to gain help and build my follower base. The first group I joined was @curie. Not only did they help boost my earnings and visibility, but they helped to teach me what quality content looked like. They took me one-step closer to better earnings for my posts and gave me that little boost I needed to help get my content recognized. Curie started me on the path of becoming a better writer and content creator but perfecting my style of writing and content is a continuous journey.
Once I graduated from Curie, my follower base had improved, but like most people, my rewards once again started to diminish. This of course, was a discouragement, but nothing I hadn't expected. My main goal was to become a better writer and to build a foundation support base, which is what I accomplished. I had regular viewers and people who read and commented on my posts.
At about this time, @minnowsupport and @whaleshares had started to form. These two groups like @curie were dedicated to helping minnows grow and become successful. Both were led by a number of very influential and supportive leaders and were great places to meet and network with people with similar interests. Because of this unique arrangement, I met a lot of very interesting people and built some great friendships that helped me learn a lot about the Steemit community, how to be more successful, and what I could contribute to the platform aside from just creating posts every day.
Being a good writer is very objective, what you may consider good writing may not be what other's consider good writing. I find that I learn every day and just reading other users posts leads me to become better myself. It's a continues journey of improvement which you will never master, but through trial and dedication, you will become better and eventually get noticed - that visibility may not, however, be for everything you create and one should never expect that. I found myself wanting to do more and inspired by these organizations.
I eventually joined and became fairly active in a number of sub-groups where I met a few people who I became fairly good friends with. Eventually, we banded together to build a foundation for Steemit Philippines. It was a rough start and like most startups, there was so much to do. I found myself online meeting people and building apps almost 24-hours a day. It was a very exciting time and days and nights passed by so quickly. Most of my time was spent setting up my witness and learning to code apps that would one day support the organization. Before we knew it, @luvabi had kicked off the first official Steemit Philippines meetup.
That one meetup was the defining moment in the organization's existence. It set the foundation which would lead to one of the fastest growing groups on Steemit Philippines. Not only did we get the opportunity to share our knowledge about what Steemit and the Steem blockchain was, but we formed a core group and community of people who would collectively built what SteemPH is today. With a strong, passionate, and fun loving community, SteemPH has achieved and grown faster and bigger than any of us could have anticipated.
I continue to look forward to supporting the PH community as well as a number of new communities and projects that I have started to partner up with and join. There is still so much to do and this is only the beginning. Based on my experience as a witness, the Steem blockchain is new and continues to grow at a lightspeed rate which is shown by the number of times I have had to upgrade my servers and the constant discussions among other witnesses.
As for myself... Without the 2000+ followers, I would not have gotten to where I am today. The numbers may pale in comparison to others and may not be considered an astronomical achievement, but to me it is amazing. I wanted to take the time to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for the support you have shown me over the past two years and the continued support you honor me with for the next two years.
Thank You!
Image Sources: [1] [2]
