Still Pissed Off About That Time You Did Something Awesome and Nobody Noticed?

in #life5 years ago (edited)

Yesterday my experiment finally got a name.
#Showcase-Sunday
Now I'd like to take a moment to explain the concept but first, a warning:
Leave now if you're a shitposter or someone who does the absolute bare minimum in order to milk rewards out of the pool. This is for actual content producers deserving of a second chance.

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Sunday

For a lot of us, that's a damn good day to relax.

Are you a content producer? If the answer is yes, we have a lot in common.

Were your first days here full of 'where the hell is everyone' moments?

Did you spend eight hours writing an epic post, only to discover nobody noticed your efforts, all day, as you sat there, hitting refresh, while working on your new future drinking problem?

I'll tell you something! Even after nearly three years of producing content for this platform, I still experience those quiet days.

It can be heartbreaking but at the same time, it's quite normal. Head on over to Youtube someday, pick your favorite content producer with a large following, and look at their views per video. Imagine how it must feel producing something one week, seeing nearly one million views, then the next week there's a video there with only a couple hundred thousand views.

Now look at the views rolling in for a content producer with a tiny following. Not much and some days, nothing.

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That's life.

And here, our market or potential viewership/readership is much smaller.

Sundays on this platform are notoriously quiet. Sundays are also a good day to relax. Legitimate content producers push themselves too hard. Maybe part of the reason some people quit is because of the stress and potential burnout they experience trying to put something new and exciting out, daily.

So

Instead of killing yourself.

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Use Sundays to breathe new life into old material.
As a way to promote yourself and what you do best.

Yesterday, which just so happened to be Sunday, I decided to post three previously published short stories in one shot. I felt it would have been spammy to re-post only one, even though at the time of the original publishing, the short stories by themselves were solid and could stand on their own.

I have my doubts new followers have read those stories. I also felt placing three in one post would do a finer job of showing people exactly what I'm capable of when I'm in the zone. Choosing some of my favorites also gave curators a chance to just kick back on a slow Sunday while they enjoy some proven quality material, making their life easier on a day meant for relaxing.

This approach is quite normal in this industry.

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The benefits of producing timeless content.

It holds its value and remains relevant.

Artists, photographers, creative writers, musicians, etc.: I see your usual approach. I'm a curator as well. I can safely say, after being here for three years, some of you are struggling and it has more to do with your approach and presentation than issues with the platform or general lack of interest.

With these most recent changes there's now a huge push for quality over quantity all while more and more curators are stepping up to the plate, looking for value, and hitting that upvote button. In order to make up for any losses you may have experienced recently, you'll need to step up your game to attract more eyes and then, hopefully, votes.

I'm not here to tell anyone how to run their blog but if your usual approach is to simply share one image and very few words — as a curator with a limited number of votes to hand out daily (ten at full power) — it's very difficult to choose your simplistic post over the one next to it with plenty of photos and commentary or the artwork/creative writing combo next to that.

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I can almost guarantee if you decided to take your best photograph from the past, then used the same low effort approach to re-post it, you'd get the same depressing result. Please carry on doing what you do, how you want to do it, but please don't be afraid to step out of that comfort zone sometimes. That's why I'm suggesting, if you find yourself running into problems getting eyes on your work, going the extra mile, putting the best of the best all into one amazing presentation from time to time can only help improve your situation.

And I'm sayin' Sunday

That's the day to do it.

Use the tag 'showcase-sunday' and let folks know you're either re-posting something awesome or producing a compilation best of style post.

I hope this catches on, since so many of you have felt like you've wasted time. I also hope people don't abuse it. Re-posting too much of the same material will only annoy your following, so do it in moderation. I'm not even sure if I'll do it again this Sunday or just take the day off.

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You're doing it right if:

  • It's Sunday.
  • You used the 'showcase-sunday' tag.
  • Fixed typos in the original article, slight improvements maybe.
  • You're not just doing it to be lazy.
  • It's one of your best posts ever and you're proud of it but didn't have to create the entire thing from scratch.
  • It makes you and your work look good.

You're doing it wrong if:

  • It's a shit post.
  • You heard about a tag and thought you'd earn free money so you used the tag on a Wednesday.
  • You did it to be lazy.
  • You post the same damn nonsense every Sunday.
  • You lack self-awareness.
  • You used bidbots thinking it would be wise to bury others, placing them and their work in the same damn position they were in when their work was overlooked the first time.
  • You're just a spammer and don't care about anything.
  • You suck at following suggestions like the one at the top of the post asking you to leave since this wasn't for you to begin with.

All kidding aside.

It's a simple concept.

My goal with this crazy idea most people won't be interested in is to make Sundays seem a little more lively around here. Give content producers a chance to take a bit of a break but still put out quality that was once overlooked or made them shine in the past, long ago. The tag also gives curators an opportunity to find quality work they've most likely never seen, on a Sunday, when it's sometimes hard to find good stuff. Then, maybe that Monday morning trending page will look awesome but of course, that's just wishful thinking.

To conclude.

I didn't want to publish a boring post today.

But at the same time, I don't like seeing people struggling. That two year old post you wrote when you just started is awesome and maybe, this time around, with some subtle improvements, it'll get some love, especially now since curating is a thing again.

A selection of your favorite photos or artwork from that seemingly never-ending stream of one image say nothing posts along with some commentary might actually impress a few folks so they follow along while not assuming you'll just be spamming their feed ten times per day. Wouldn't that be nice?!?!

Anyway, I'm just being a smartass. If you're interested, I'll be looking for that tag this Sunday. Maybe it'll catch on, maybe it won't. Maybe more curators will want to help, maybe not. Can't blame a guy for trying.

Have a nice day.

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Credits:
All art and images seen here were produced digitally, by me.
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All content within this blog is 100% organic ACTUAL CONTENT and contains no paid vote additives!
"If you like the idea, don't be afraid to help get the word out. Support the posts if you see them."
"And don't be afraid to use the 'creativecoin' tag as well, if it's suitable material."

Images © 2019 @NoNamesLeftToUse.  All rights reserved.

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Hey man, I have many posts I've spent hours and hours on, that mean a lot to me and figured it would be wrong to repost them. This is a good concept though and provided they identify it as a repost I reckon it's a winner - And follow your guidelines of course.

Since curating for curangel I've been looking a lot harder for good content but I just can't promote a single blurry photo of a flower with the text A flower at the bus stop or some such thing. I see so many posts that with 150-250 words of thoughtful text, an explanation maybe, I would be happy to promote and upvote. Many are just lazy and so I leave them to their 0.04 payouts and move on. It's a shame but a reality of the environment now I think. I can't count how many times I've seen a single photo post and said in my head just write some damned words!

I'm not sure if I'll repost any of mine...Time will tell, but I see it as a good opportunity for others. Hope to see some good ones.

Good post mate.

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We all have those posts. Now that you've built up a larger following and hopefully this concept gets rolling so a few new eyes browsing the tag can see, on a day that's meant to kick back and enjoy some long form content, why not show it off again. Most will probably want to make it better as well. Combinations of shorter posts, maybe with a similar theme, why not make a post of it. To me, when done responsibly, it's normal. Even with movies one can watch it with commentary, or with the deleted scenes included. So many different variations of the same content. I trust people will be able to find ways to make old stuff work again.

Those simple one photo one liner posts... I've voted for some in the past but now it's like — I can't. Not when the post next to it probably took the producer a few hours to put together and that time doesn't even include the time spent producing some of the content within, like artwork, or processing actual photos, editing video, whatever. I don't mind a one photo with a decent amount of interesting words post at all. I've done that with my art quite a few times. The art probably took half the day to produce!

Your bro did a post recently where he took some photos that he's used here in the past, arranged it all, made it look cool... and I was thinking why don't more people do stuff like this? I was impressed with that post, even though I'd already seen some of the content. It was still a new experience.

And yeah, it's totally up to you. I don't think I've annoyed you folks with a repost before? Some of those are jokes. It sucks if you already know how it ends. I try to be careful. There's also the part about me not seeing a lot of good stuff from the past produced by others. Most of the folks commenting here today, and plenty of others, I know for a fact I haven't seen all their stuff. I'm hoping to see some interesting stuff, maybe.

I guess we'll see how it goes.

You convinced me...I'll make it happen and see how it goes. You make some valid points about my greater following and the promotion of this tag so yeah, I'll find something I like and make something of it. Thanks for the inspiration.

EDIT: P.s. @nonameslefttouse I tried to start a tag #whereonwednesday a while back. Tomorrow my ninth one will go live. I thought it may give people a good excuse to post about something in their life...Anything. Anyway, I do it and enjoy it. I see your tag as a good opportunity and hope it catches on. I have one picked out for this Sunday already. Will work out how to present it. :)

Well, I'm happy to hear that. I'll be voting only for that tag on Sundays. We all know I don't have the most powerful vote on the platform so I can't make people rich! I just hope it catches on and more curators help make it worthwhile. I mean, I'm already looking forward to Sunday now and for me, that's a day when I actually have time to focus on reading and curating. Most days I'm in a rush.

Since this post is currently trending, I'll upvote your comment to the top and maybe that'll get some eyes on your tag. #whereonwednesday!

Thanks mate, I hope you like what I have selected. I'm working on it now actually and will post a link to the original also. I'll post it Sunday my time, Australian CST, not sure where you are so you might have to search for it. :)

All I'd have to do to find it is write #showcase-sunday in the post editor, click the link in the preview, and away I go to the Showcase Sunday trending page. Or I can come to this post and click the links here. Different time zones might mean I'm late but I'll be there... eventually!

Cool...Surprise surprise mine's an historical post...A topic I'm passionate about. You'll see. :)

I will see but for now, I think it's time to catch some z's. Been a busy one here today. Might have to hire an assistant...

@whatamidoing has (or used to have) a dead post contest where on his comment section you would share posts that you thought were great but didn't get attention for whatever reason.

It was lots of fun.

You can make some improvements to the old post and label it "2nd Edition", with the proper link to the first one so that cheetah doesn't get you.

Yup, that's true and very good advice. I haven't run into any problems with cheetah but it might not be the same experience for everyone. As a matter of fact, I totally forgot about that little helper who can be quite confused some days. I'll vote this comment to the top so people see. There's some good stuff, good information being added in this comment section. Thanks for the help!

Thanks. Always watching for the big cat.

Thanks, @snook for presenting this post on @pypt #pypt

I've been a content producer for quite some time.
It's always interesting seeing what others are going thru... some of the issues, and struggles, too.

Thanks for sharing and engaging with Pimp Your Post Thursday.
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I'm still rather new here, but struggling working for an audience is difficult no matter where you go, for sure! I've tried to start a couple things of my own that have slowly - very slowly - begun to catch on, but it takes work and patience. I like the idea of showcase-sunday. Not sure if I have enough "old stuff" yet, but I like the idea.

I concur about needing to put words around an image and not just dropping it (unless you're @axeman, then your pictures speak for themselves). To further that I think it's also important to try to interact with the people you're voting. Personally, I always try to leave a comment when I vote, even if it's just a sentence that lets the person know that I have actually read their work and I appreciate it. Hopefully that begins to come back around.

Working. That word is important. Everyone, everywhere, started with one account and no followers.

If you don't have enough old stuff, I'm sure you can still find ways to make yourself look good using commentary, letting people know this old work exists, even linking to old work. Hey I'm here and this is what I've been up to kind of stuff.

Some photographers can do it like that with the one photo approach. If it's working, it's working. But what works for one won't always work for everyone.

And of course getting to know people is beneficial. Posting, then sitting and waiting for a miracle vote to fall from the sky makes life difficult. If a blogger falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
LoL!

Yes!

I think next sunday I will post my fictional LIBRA story again.

It was so thought out, entertaining, apocalyptic, and ignored.

What the heck, I am a great writer, why doesn't everyone just bow down to me? Maybe they will on Sunday.

I've been thinking about a lot of the folks writing chapters. Those are often short. This could give them an opportunity to combine many short chapters into one, things like that. One of my first ever reposts was 12 episodes of something that failed and I never finished. It's nice to have it all in one link though and the story reads a lot better.

I look forward to reading that story. I can safely say I haven't heard of it... hence, this concept of cleaning up old work, fix it up, make it shiny, try again.

And Sundays are a great day for reading long juicy posts. Lots more time on Sundays

Think @whatamidoing tried something similar sometime back called deadpost initiative or something to that effect. It's a good idea given that we don't have perpetual payouts (which I think should totally be a thing but I don't know if that's something would be able to retro in if the people doing the coding ever decided it should be a thing).

I won't do it coz I don't like reposting things x_x

I'm also not too fussed about quiet days but I probably don't worry about a lot of things I apparently should be worried about.

I'll post on Sundays sometimes if I don't manage the progblog on Friday. I think otherwise if it's not a rest day Sunday might be a sports day for people who do sports or have kids that do sports, like in my area comp season is upon us so there's been a few insanoweekends.

And I don't know what it is about that middle pic (the symmetrical one) but it really jumps off the screen and punches you (or at least me XD) in the face (in a good way), perhaps it's some combination of shapes/form/striking colours, as all the other pieces are just there peacefully waiting to be admired XD

I'm hoping, eventually, we'll get a cut of the ad revenue. The first day that ever happened, those with the interesting blogs would be generating a lot of views and potential clicks. For now we have to deal with this incredibly short attention span Steem is known for.

I think it's a bit odd to write a post that tells people to go another post. You're writing a post. May as well just make it the post you want people to see, with improvements of course, and not done so much it annoys followers.

That image you're talking about took me way too long to make, but it's always been one of my favorites. Sucks how much quality I lose when posting and viewing from Steemit. It's also a big pain in the ass converting all of my old work into just the right kind of png files I've found work best and look clear. I don't even think I could tell you which post that image originally came from. You know how I like to hide things....

I think this is an amazing idea. I remember when I first started here, I didn't have much of an audience and I would spend a lot of time crafting posts and when I made them, they didn't seem to get much engagement on them. This would be awesome to see people's old posts get some new life and attention.

Yeah, and digging through the pile, looking to publish something again, once per week or once every second Sunday, that's not spamming or being cheesy, especially if it's quality that's been sitting there dormant for years. Even some of my oldest work, I know I could rewrite it, format it properly, maybe even add some new artwork. There's so much more we can do with this stuff instead of just letting it die forever.

Nice that you did a follow up post here to clarify the #showcase Sunday approach with some loose guidelines. I ended up using your idea and our quick Lil back n forth as a key component in my post yesterday titled "my what big balls you have" I hope you don't mind my mentioning that on your post as it was also a promotion of the Sunday showcase vision. I elected to not use your name specifically as is generally my approach. I also got a notification that I earned a follow so thought you might stumble across it and see that I'm attempting to give the idea my lil push as well..

Thanks for the follow it's always nice to see that someone i respect might not be bothered by one of my posts hitting their eyes.

Anyway hope the idea takes off and based on our many previous interactions I took the liberty of assuming you would be cool with my anonymous credit given for the #showcase tag..

Have a good one

This whole time, I thought I was following you and simply missing posts. Checked and noticed I wasn't. Been making an effort to check blogs more often since my feed dried up.

You showing support really helped solidify my plans. Others said it was fine as well, and I've done it in the past with no complaints. I wanted to get a good feel for it before recommending others try it out.

The tag is #showcase-sunday get it right! LOL! One dash and you can combine two words. The Sunday part is important since that's the slow day I'd like to turn into a more productive day.

I guess we'll see how it goes.

Fantastic ! #showcase-sunday it is haha
I feel sure it's a solid move that will go over well.. Good to see you're also actively seeking some steem symbiosis via curating..cant beat a win win situation

Definitely! See you Sunday!!! Can't wait to see what everyone else posts!

Could be interesting, could be a total flop, might take a few weeks to catch on — I guess we'll see how it goes.

I'll definitely jump in on this. I have a ton of work buried in the long long ago. What I'd been doing was decorating my posts where I'm talking about other stuff with old art to let some of that stuff see the light of day. I did also used to do recap posts at time milestones, but I stopped keeping track of how long I've been here. I think it'll be two years in Dec. Anyway, great idea.

I've been decorating as well lately. Even did it here in this post. Made my own image catalog over the years, so it's probably a good idea to at least use it. I'll usually do my once a month post that includes all of my recent artwork. Other than that, there's a mile long list of material just sitting there, and we all have that problem, while everyone is scrambling to find good stuff.

Glad to have you on board.

That's a pretty cool concept! Awesome man!

Thanks! And I think as long as folks use it responsibly, as a way to make their blog look impressive, or something, then I hope it helps.

Yes, I agree! I think #newsteem forces them to use it responsibly :)

Well, I was going to include a little tidbit in the post about how I'm not afraid to use my downvotes...
but I wanted it to be a surprise.

HA! I just hope people can respect an opportunity. If they do good and still run into problems, I can probably get that sorted out.

I thought the same hah :) Nevertheless, I think most will respect it!