How To Break Steemit
So for those of you who are new to Steemit, there is a major functionality of Steemit that is exploited that I believe is causing the #1 issue for all users; that being a follow for a follow.
What Is A Follow For A Follow
This is the #1 tactic new users are using to gain followers very quickly. Basically, what is done is you go into other peoples posts and say "I'll follow you if you follow me", and therefor both users follow each other.
The other way this happens is new users look for Steemit users with a lot of followers, and follows all of them hoping some of them will follow them back.
The Problem With This Method
For Full Disclosure, I've done this and regret doing this. It is the worst thing you can do for your channel in the long run. Before I go into the full problem, I want to point out some statistics I got from following users.
Each Follow =.001 users
Weekly Active Users = -10%.... This is higher then normal channels as many new users just give up
So going back into the problem, when users cross the 1000+ followers mark this basically makes it so any content in your feed is unwatchable. To put it simply, every 30 seconds you go back to "Home", you will see brand new content then the last 30 seconds. For content creators like me, this is disheartening seeing that followers are not able to find your content that you normally post.
The second biggest problem is active views of your posts are very, very low. A shocking statistic I have for you is a user who has 35,000 followers might get 100 views, and 50 likes. On a good day you are getting .003% of the likes from your total followers & .006% of the views.
Impact & Solution
I personally believe this is the worst killer of Steemit as you can post as much as you want, but if users are using this tactic to make money, It is hurting them and other channels in the long run.
A simple fix Steemit that will help mitigate, not prevent this would be for Steemit content creators to have the option to hide their followers and who they are following from the public. This would be able to cut down on users spamming feeds and would lead to a more prosperous community for all.
What do you think? Agree or Disagree, let me know below.
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Did the whole follow back thing on Twitter. Not worth it, had to go through and unfollow them since all the ever posted was follow back messages, and maybe a referral link to some junk I didn't want. Learned my lesson.
Most of us have used the any of the old social media platforms. We bring our good and bad habits with us. We consider the lessons learned, over time and as we collect rewards we learn and improve.
I did one of those follow trains on Twitter and some website that gives a new follower for following 2 or 3 people. Eventually I had to go through my Twitter and unfollow a bunch. Total waste of time trying to inflate the stats.
Most of us have learned from the old social media platforms so we bring our good and bad habits with us. As time goes on and we gain experience with steemit we will get better.
I agree. I really would like to see granular control of all privacy options on Steemit, or the Steem blockchain itself.
I like your reasons, but there are an array of others reasons too, such as journalists and other government goon threats that people will want to lock down privacy.
I think this could add a huge amount of value to the platform.
Agree
It seems so easy to say from someone who has 5400+ followers but only seems to find 10 people on Steemit worthy of following. I saw another comment here asking how you got so many followers but I'm not seeing any re-engagement here to answer the question (or did I miss it with all of the attaboy comments?) Those of us who are newer here and trying to have a positive impact on the Steemit Community may need some additional wisdom from sages like yourself. It's great to lecture people not to simply do reciprocal following (and I tend to agree) but if everyone here limited those they follow to 10 people like you, then wouldn't Steemit be a pretty lonely place where you're just talking to yourself? And how does one get 5400 followers with 370 posts? Would you be willing to shed some additional light with a response?
I would prefer private weight systems you can apply to people you are following that affects how they show up in your own feed. Everything from keeping them at the top longer if you give them a highly weight (those you just can’t miss blogs from people who put always put out grade A content) to not showing what they resteem if you don’t want see that and give them a low weight (some people you want to follow but they just resteem to many things you are not interested in). I’ve gone into this a few times in details elsewhere so I won’t be going into that much detail here.
I would prefer who you are following to still remain transparent and public knowledge. I spend my time every so often to check up on every SINGLE person I’m following and decide if they are worth still showing up on my feed. I consider the people I’m following part of my social network. I feel that’s how it’s supposed to be.
well said ^_^
Definitely I agree!
I definitely agree.
Yes that would be a nice idea. I'm always watching on my followers and thinking about following them back because I have to. The feed is becoming more and more unusable.
An additionally idea might be to categorise ("tech", "crypto", "travel", "recipes", etc.) your feed or the people you are following to get a clearer feed with sub-categories. YouTube had such a feature once and I loved it. I don't know why they removed it...
I have to agree. I'd rather just have followers who might be interested in my videos. (That's why I have so few followers of course ;) )