RE: ❓Answering Common Questions: I'm getting frustrated...Are my Expectations too high? 🙍
I'm exhausted this evening. Even though I'm not quite able to spend as much time as I'd like right now, a couple of things came to mind that you may try in your posts.
First I wanted to say you have some VERY powerful stuff with strong writing. So I really don't think you're issue is the content itself...you've got that down pretty well. All these tips are more with marketing and/or readability.
- Use at least one picture in your posts. While working to build up your following, all your posts are among huge lists of other posts. It's common to skip over things without a thumbnail picture, which is what having that one picture will create for you. As an example for your latest post:
Source
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It didn't seem your story included the military, so I tried to find something ptsd more civilian, but they didn't come up quickly and I've got limited time tonight. If you do a google image search, click tools and set usage rights to labeled for reuse...everything it shows is safe from copyright concerns.
Try tweaking your title. Personally I try to go as short as I can. So my first though was something like PTSD: Life After Death or Life, Death and PTSD. It could also be something emphasizing your struggle, what you've learned, etc. We've got about 3 seconds to get someone to click on your post, so a title has to grab people, so focus on writing titles around the key buzz words that pertain to your post.
Remember that in list view, the first sentence (which includes headings) is shown along with the title and thumbnail pic. So if you start the first paragraph with " My PTSD began back in '02." I think it would help grab people.
Try to break up text when that long. This can be done with a heading and/or page divider where applicable...ideally every 3ish paragraphs. Using headings and bolding important words/points also help to let people follow while just scrolling down.
The life and health tags you have are great. You might try working in a psychology and/or story tag in for some of the others. These have a bit more traffic on them.
These are just some quicker things you can try out to see if they help. Remember that your content and writing is really strong! Now it's just a matter of getting more eyes on it. :)
While it can seem cheesy, you might try something like 5 things I've learned from ptsd or some sort of 5 things... post.
Wow, fantastic advice and instructions. Thank you. I have tried to post a few pics in text before and when I do the box where the pic usually is blank like there's supposed to be a pic but there isn't. It's just an empty box. Of course when you click on the blog it totally works but it doesn't show up in the preview. Thank you also for your guidance. My posts sometimes start out with a little different intention and I start writing and it takes me on a similar but different path and I just go with it. I should redo the titles and first sentences. Thank you again. I really appreciate you and your help.
I'm happy to help out.
It's definitely way easier with strong content. :)
How are you putting the photo in? Copy/paste image, upload from your computer, link from a hosting site (like imgur)?
You might just try swapping methods, resave the file as a different image type (jpg, png, etc), or a different image hosting site.
I've had that happen before. Changing stuff fixed it. Upside is that it will fix the thumbnail for you. In steemit.chat just paste post link along with image link of the first post image.