TO BEGIN WITH!

Dear Friends!

Few announcements before I start with the actual guide :)

I wanted to do this post for quite a while and for couple of reasons: it's my first month anniversary here on Steemit, it's Christmas, I was inspired by @zeroooc's great educational post, there's this great contest going on, and last, but not least, I wanted to show my gratitude for all the Steemit's generosity I experienced in the last few weeks!

Man, did I feel the PRESSURE working on this post! Let's just say the prize in the contest is huge! :)

I would like to dedicate this post to some good old friends, who have supported me many times and made Steemit very cozy for me in the past few weeks: @mikepm74, @zerooc, @vermillionfox, @reddust, as well as to some newly met friends: @marinaart, @razzek, @martinsandersuk, who I hope will share more of their great content!

In this guide I speak from my experience as an artist here on Steemit. I tried to share all that has worked best for me and my content. I really hope this guide will be helpful to everyone who needs it!

FEW MOST BASIC RULES

TERMINOLOGY, SETTINGS, ATTITUDE, MONEY

TERMINOLOGY:

My first (strong) suggestion for a newcomer is: read FAQ carefully! It's really worth it!
As a minnow, you may ask yourself a question 'who am I?', as well as several other questions- who are dolphins, whales, what's SBD, SP, curation etc. Here's a great vocab glossary to clear things out for you!

SETTINGS:

It is a great idea to start with setting your profile & background pics and putting some information about yourself (here's how to do it);
It's also good to write something more and/or funny about you in the about section; some users get very creative (well, I wrote "Creator of Shiny Forest :), Artist" and posted links to my Etsy shop).

ATTITUDE:

From my point of view, Steemit requires:
engagement ( I read a lot about how things work here and asked people for help);
action (I wrote comments and started posting immediately);
patience (I gave myself time and didn't give up after first few days without earning a fortune hah! ;));

MONEY:

Here are some excerpts from the wonderful Economics section of FAQ:

Posts and comments remain active for 7 days- so it's important to get upvotes before this period of time! After that time the upvotes on the post don't earn Steem any more!
When this period is over, you may claim reward by clicking the Claim Rewards button in the Wallet section;
The rewards for the posts are split between you- the author, and curators- those who upvote your post (here are the details)!
The proportion of author-curator reward is 75% to 25%, but depending on the time of the vote more or less of the curation reward goes to the author (check it out here!);
The more upvotes you give, the less voting power you have, meaning your votes carry less influence;
By using this link: https://steemd.com/@youraccount (replace 'youraccount' with your actual account's name) you can check your current voting power;
If you ever wondered, where does all the Steem come from- here's the explanation.

FIRST FEW STEPS

INTRODUCTION, REPUTATION, RELATIONSHIPS, DISCORD, POSTING, COMMENTS & REPLIES

INTRODUCTION:

One of the better ideas is to start with posting a proper, talkative, well illustrated introduction post with a 'introduceyourself' tag- here's an excellent guide about how to do it properly;
To encourage you, I will tell you that I instantly welcomed, followed and supported several people who caught my attention in their introduction posts! And I was welcomed and supported as a newcomer as well!
If you'd like to introduce yourself with a video (good idea!), it's best to use Dtube for that purpose.

REPUTATION:

Before we move onto the relationships, posting and comments, it's important to focus on the matter of reputation. Oh, how thrilled was I when that reputation number of mine started to increase! Reputation is extremely important here on Steemit, and here you can read more about its significance and ways to increase it;
In my case the best way to get reputable (hah) was to post a high-quality content, e.g. posting not only my artworks, but also a step by step tutorials (to prove it's my original artwork) with nicely written descriptions and many HQ pictures and occasionally a GIF. Putting considerate effort into the process of the post creation proved to be quite advantageous for me- check out how it worked for me with this post (all thanks to a helpful suggestion of @mikepm74 and @curie's good will <3);
Reputation number can also decrease! Here, here and here you can read great and hilarious posts on Steemit etiquette - and some big no no's, like: blind following, begging for upvotes, stealing content, spamming etc.;
You can read about some common forms of platform abuse and causes of being blacklisted by MSP in the MSP Anti-Abuse Team Weekly Report;
Also, about the flagging: flag by user with lower reputation score doesn't do much to a user with higher rep, but the other way round the impact gets quite substantial!

RELATIONSHIPS:

At first I didn't know where to reach out, how to search for new friends?
And so the first thing I did was picking the tags (from Steemit's homepage, list is on the left) that interested me (mostly art and introduceyourself) and started checking out the posts, hot, trending and new, and reacted to posts that caught my attention;
After some time I connected to people who created fascinating, engaging and interesting posts. Now I wait impatiently every day for their new posts and enjoy reading them!
I tried to reach out to both influential long-time users as well as newcomers, mostly artists and Steemit enthusiasts in my case. I got a lot of help from more experienced users, who guided me and showed lots of support. I really strongly suggest following @mikepm74, he's a precious and very helpful guy!
It was important for me to pick users with similar interests to mine, so that in my posts I would also have something nice to offer to them. This was especially important to me, because even though I try my best to be supportive and helpful, I am not a big fan of unromantic propositions like 'follow for follow' or 'upvote for upvote' when someone is clearly not interested in my content and is just looking for a transaction. This doesn't get both of us anywhere. I want to build an audience and find fellow Steemians that I can entertain and interest with my content.

DISCORD:

Well known to many, to me Discord was a novelty (and still is, in many aspects). Discord to Steemit is like Messenger to Facebook, an app/place where you can chat with other Steemians.
Why it's worth joining Discord? Actually you can do much more there than just chat! You can network, upvote your (or others') posts, gain support, find out about great initiatives etc.;
There are three friendly channels on Discord waiting for you to join: PAL, Steemit Bloggers and Steemgigs and it's good to start by joining them! Here and here you can read about the advantages of joining PAL and here you have an instruction how to register on PAL;
On PAL there may be a chat room for your country;
There are also many other servers on Discord worth joining and here you have them listed;
But that's not all! I also installed myself GINAbot and get notified every time I get an upvote, comment, resteem and follow, when my favourite users post new content and more- read about it here and here! Without GINA checking your replies section frequently is very important!

POSTING:

As I said before, high quality content is what's a must on Steemit :)
I want my posts to be interesting, rich, funny at times, and nice for the eyes!
One basic thing is to add at least one photo (and a pretty one, I'd suggest ;)) so that your post will have a thumbnail;
It is also crucial to format and style your posts in a proper way! I started with checking out the Markdown Styling Guide, but there's more to the topic, and I strongly suggest reading those excellent guides here (more on the markdown), here, here and here (many good general ideas as well as instructions), here (about content alignment) and even here (about adding music to your post)!
I always try to proofread my posts in search for grammar or spelling errors;
Tagging a post properly is extremely important for the visibility of your post- failing to do so may cause you to lose audience (for example when it's your introduction post but because it doesn't have an introduceyourself tag, people who are eager to welcome newcomers cannot find your post in the introduceyourself section). Here are some great general thoughts on tagging.

COMMENTING & REPLIES:

I like commenting a lot and I try my best with replying!
I try to react to all the support (comments, upvotes, resteems) that I am given. I'll repeat myself because it may be helpful to you- if you don't have GINAbot installed on Discord, it may be good to check out your replies section frequently!!!
And in Comments. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly there are many good points made on what to put in the comment or reply! It's a really great read for those interested in success on Steemit! ;)

AS YOU CONTINUE YOUR JOURNEY

STRATEGIES, BIGGER PICTURE, CURATION, FIRST MONEY, MORE LINKS

STRATEGIES:

Well, I'm not some big mastermind of mischief, but once in a while I read some interesting posts on good strategies on Steemit and I'd like to share some thoughts with you;
I try to post regularly and be consistent;
If my post takes longer time to get prepared, I try not to disappear completely from Steemit, but upvote, comment and resteem the work of others;
Recently I started taking part in artistic contests organised by other Steemians, because I wanted to show my support for their helpful initiatives, learn about the community and also get to know other Steemit artists! And of course there's always a chance of gaining visibility and winning that prize- important when you don't earn that much yet;
If you're an artist, and you've joined PAL or Steemgigs on Discord, you may use a tag in a comment: @originalworks, @untalented, resulting in a small upvote;
In time you may want to start using a markdown editor, I started using Typora recently thanks to a friend and it made my work on new posts much easier.

BIGGER PICTURE:

Steemit thrives when the community grows. Perhaps you'd like to invite some friends that would be a good fit for a blogging platform?
I became inspired by @mikepm74 to welcome newcomers, I follow his Fresh Five series and try to connect to the users that I think share similar interests to mine.

CURATION:

Well, I have some thoughts on that topic in mind that I believe could be covered in A Dolphin's Guide to Steemit more than in a Minnow's one, but as this may become relevant at some point of your presence on Steemit I decided to cover this topic;
Two points caught my attention: first- importance of leaving your voting power for your followers who comment on your posts, so that you reward them for their support; second- curating comments starting from the best ones- here's more on that issue;
And if you want to become a great curator and find out how to get the most out of curation, you should check out this post.

FIRST MONEY:

You may find some basic info on payouts here.
When waiting for your rewards, it's best to leave the payout in default 50%/50%, meaning half of your payment will be in Steem Dollars, and the other half in Steem Power. To understand why, it's good to learn more about the currencies.
If you're confused about the three different types of currencies, you may find out more on that topic as well as other money related issues here, here and here.

TO CONCLUDE!

Writing this post was a tough call, there's a lot to comprehend about Steemit. Both finding out and writing about it took time in my case, but it was totally worth it!

I hope my Minnow's Guide to Steemit will prove to be educational and beneficial to those who read it, I myself learnt a great deal by checking out all those links from the contest's post.

There are several other issues that interest me, like delegating power and money, creating a chat-room or Discord server for one's country, organising contests, vlogging, and couple of more advanced topics that I will cover in another guide or series of posts in the future, once I'll become a whale, you know ;) Hah, I'm just joking, it won't be that easy! But once I'll learn more about this stuff, I guess I'll manage to share my knowledge!

I wish good luck to all the new Steemians! Welcome and I hope you'll find Steemit friendly and rewarding!

Thank you guys so much for reading, and thank you for the wonderful first month here! I appreciate all the generosity, support and good vibes I received from you!

Merry Christmas & Love,

Klaudia

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A Minnow's Guide to Steemit