Thinking About Engagement and Interaction on Steemit

I have been happy to see that recently our Steem token has been making a good upwards move, after a very long time in the proverbial doldrums.

I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling good about that!

Of course, with the potential for better times for our token, it also means we're likely to experience an increase in activity here. Historically, people who at one point "gave up" tend to come crawling back when prices rise.

That said, we also have consider what kind of community potential newcomers will find here.

One of the things that sometimes worries me about Steemit is the relative lack of engagement. There is a little here and there, but it is rather scant, in the broader context of social media.

The thing about social media, though, is that people tend to become part of a community for social reasons... they want to interact and engage with others. Around here, we seem to have become rather accustomed to only being content creators and not content consumers.

Why does engagement matter?

A community where members are engaging and interacting with each other conveys a feeling of being alive and thriving... and it's a positive image to convey to the world.

Of course, it is not a one-sided equation.

It may come across as painfully obvious, but the best way to encourage engagement on a blog is to create engaging content! Ask readers questions; suggest they share their own experiences related to what you wrote about!

"But shouldn't people just comment on their own accord?"

Well, that's what we'd probably like to think, but the reality is that most folks are "triggered" into action by requests and instructions.

With a higher price of Steem, one of the other things that becomes more feasible is the ability to upvote comments on your posts, without such votes being lost due to Steemit's "dust threshold" of about 0.02.

It definitely does encourage newcomers to comment more when there's a chance to earn a reward for a meaningful comment. It was one of the ways I built my Steemit account during my earliest days, when my posts were only making a few cents each. There were quite a few times when comments meant more than posts!

At the moment, there are only a couple of thousand accounts with sufficient SP to upvote comments beyond the "dust threshold" but that number grows with every cent increase in the tken price!

A community can only be as good and welcoming as its membership makes it!

And a thriving community doesn't magically happen by itself... we have to make it happen... and engagement and comments is a very important starting point! Remember that we all must be content consumers as well as content creators.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful rest of your week!

How about you? Do you actively read other people's posts and leave relevant comments? Does active engagement increase your enjoyment of Steemit? Do you wish more people would interact with your blog? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2024.12.03 01:18PST
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