As a new Steemian, one of the first questions I was confronted with was: How do I get my content in front of other people?
I've been thinking about this since my first day on Steemit, and today I read an interesting post about exactly this issue. That lead me to an interesting discussion with @shanghaipreneur, the post's author, and @wholeself-in, another Steemian.
The question I asked them, and that I'm asking you, the reader, is this: If using bidbots or paying for upvotes is in bad taste, how do new Steemians like myself get people reading their posts?
The Minnow's Dilemma
Just to give you some background, I joined Steemit because I was looking for a good place to blog about crypto mining, anime, gaming, gadgets, and other miscellaneous things I'm passionate about. Although it's nice to get crypto rewards for what I write and what I curate, my main goal in becoming a Steemian is to provide some value to the community.
That said, what I've already found to be frustrating is that it's hard to provide value when it's so difficult to distribute the content you create.
That's where the bidbot dilemma comes in. It's easy enough to pay STEEM or delegate SP to get upvotes, and getting upvotes does seem to lead to getting more organic votes. That indicates to me that using bidbots or paid upvote services really is a way to get some exposure for your content (although, from what I read, this is less so in #NewSteem).
On the other hand, it seems like it's in poor taste to pay for upvotes. I see other, more experienced Steemians speaking out against bidbots, and really, I can't disagree. I don't really want upvotes on my content that aren't from people who genuinely appreciate that content in some way.
On the other hand, when I don't purchase upvotes for my content, it seems like very few people see it at all. That's also discouraging. I spend a good deal of time trying to write quality articles, and I want them to be read!
What's a minnow to do?
The Choices
It seems like I, and any new Steemian, have a few choices when we write an article or provide some other content:
- Pay for some upvotes in the hopes that they'll lead to some organic votes, and that those people who are led to our content will appreciate it, follow us, appreciate our future posts, and maybe even resteem us.
- Stick to our principles, not pay for a single upvote, and cross our fingers that we'll be noticed somehow--maybe even by a big curator or a whale who will help boost our content.
- As @wholeself-in suggested, be sure to engage with other people's content, make friends, and slowly but surely grow a network.
So far, my biggest success has been with option 1, which, honestly, is a bummer. Option 2 has not worked for me at all...but maybe I'm going about it wrong.
Option 3 is a great idea, and I've done some of it, and it's worked out well. I've made some friends and gained a few followers and that's been great. The only argument against Option 3, really, is that it can be very slow going, and I'm putting a lot of effort into content that very few people will see in the meantime.
My Question For You
So this is my question for you, the person reading this: If I'm doing my best to create quality content, are paid upvotes a bad way to get more people reading what I write? If they are bad, how can I grow my audience with a clear conscience?
Ironically, I may need to boost this post in order to get more answers. But I'm really curious what other Steemians at all levels of experience think about this. Please feel free to weigh in with a comment.
Everyone was a minnow once, right?