The Power of Commenting

in #steemit7 years ago

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Everyone on Steemit seems to have their own strategy for becoming successful on the platform. For instance, some individuals find success by posting only a few high quality articles each week, others post many smaller articles daily and still other individuals become successful by curating, promoting, upvoting, and resteeming articles produced by others. Though each of these methods holds merit and leads to success in its own way, I personally believe that one method stands out above the rest and that is:

Commenting!


I’ve come to this conclusion by observing my own experience of commenting on others work as well as by observing the comments that others have posted in various trending articles. So, with all of that being said, this article outlines why I believe that commenting is important to the Steemit platform and how it leads to success on the forum.

Commenting Builds Networks, Communities and Relationships Among Individuals


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  1. Commenting shows interest: When someone shows interest in another person work, they are telling that person that they might have a similar belief system as that person. Generally, people tend to gravitate to others who have similar interests and belief systems as they do.

  2. Commenting leads to discussion: People like to discuss their ideas because it validates their perspective and outlook on life.

  3. Commenting brings others into the conversation: There seems to be a snowball effect with commenting in that when a lot of people comment on a post, many more people begin to make their way to the conversation and pretty soon, several different conversation threads have broken out.

All of these factors lead to the formation of groups and networks on Steemit. In general, people tend follow others who have similar interests as their own so you can build a following by creating relationships with others.

Commenting Leads to Votes


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  1. Individuals often vote for people who leave meaningful comments on their posts. In general, people try to encourage others to come back and read and upvote their posts in the future, so they upvote comments as a method of encouraging others to come back and see them.

  2. Other Steemit users often read the comments on posts and they often vote for the ones that they agree with. Sometimes a comment on a particular post will receive several votes from other members who agree with what that person has to say.

  3. Curation rewards are often very small, so the votes that one receives from commenting are often worth more than what one would receive from individually curating other posts. Some votes for comments are even worth more than what we would receive from our own personal articles so individuals can earn quite a bit simply by commenting on others work.

Commenting Shows Appreciation and Encourages Others


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People appreciate that their voice is being heard and that their opinion is being validated and when people feel good about themselves, they will continue to produce good content and give back to others. Encouraging others on the forum ultimately strengthens the Steemit platform by creating a strong sense of community, by producing quality entertainment and by bringing in new users. Ultimately, if Steemit grows, we all do better.


All in all, each of the factors listed above results in the commenter being noticed by the original poster as well as other Steemit users. Many individuals build a large following simply by commenting on other posts.


Guidlines for Commenting


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The following are some general guidelines for commenting on posts. Though these are only my personal opinions regarding comments, I believe that these views are shared by many community members.

  1. Read the article: This is self-explanatory. If you didn’t read the article it will show in your comment and your comment will ultimately be meaningless to the original poster.

  2. Upvote the article: Sometimes people make comments about how good an article is but then they do not give it a vote. This comes across like you do not actually care about what was said in the article and that you are only looking for an upvote yourself. In general, people do not appreciate that sort of behavior.

  3. Make meaningful, quality comments: Demonstrate that you read the article and that you actually value what the individual has to say. Otherwise comments come across as superficial and largely meaningless. They do not benefit the forum and they often do not lead to upvotes by the original poster or the Steemit community. Spamming comments are frowned upon on the forum and can even lead to flags, or down votes. Generally speaking, avoid copy and pasting several comments to several users (these are easily recognized). Also avoid comments like "Nice article!" or "Please follow me" or anything similar. Ultimately you want to demonstrate that you actually read the article and not that you are only looking for an upvote.

  4. If the original poster provides a follow up comment that asks a question or seeks to clarify what you are saying then respond back. Sometimes people post vague comments on posts that are meant to sound deep but that are actually not relevant to the article. Sometimes they do not actually make a lot of sense. If the original poster asks for clarification and you ignore it, that demonstrates that you are just looking for an upvote and often you won’t receive one.


And that's it. I encourage everyone to comment on posts that they find interesting or insightful and to build relationships and networks on Steemit. Ultimately, commenting can grow your following and add to your success on the platform. Good luck!


Thanks for Reading

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Upvoted and resteemed. Do you want to know why? Visit @pf-coin.

As always. Thank you!

i have started working on steamit from yesterday and i have also observed that commenting grow up you followings and upvotes..

yes I agree. I think i get more followers from commenting then I do from posting myself

yup right..

bro plzzz visit @jemisweet ..

I think you are right... a comment means so much more than just an upvote.. Also, for me, it's easier to respond to someone else's content than just come up on my own.

And I've got to see this post through a reblog that started from a comment that was left by @maxwellg on an introductory post that I've just published about an hour ago. That shows how powerful commenting can be! :)

thats great. Its working!!! hahaha

Yes I agree. When you can't think of something to write, comment on others work. Sometimes others can pull ideas out of our own minds. Thanks for commenting. The process is already working lol

To be honest, this write is beyond those that are not to here to understand how the system actually works but just to come here and seek for upvote as said. I like it, because I actually learnt the 'power of commenting' and which actually strengthens the relationship between you and another.
"Demonstrate that you read the article and that you actually value what the individual has to say" I fully agree with your post that is I had to quote that, your comments shows if really your read the story or understand that story and point you out clearly. Keep it up.

Yes I agree. It does help to demonstrate what parts of the article that you found valuable. Thats a really good point. Thanks for sharing that :)

To be honest, this is my problem since I am busy and I seldom blog on steemit. New Year's resolution should be is to visit a lot of blogs and leave valuable comments.

Well, you do what works for you on Steemit :)
Everyone's situation is different.

I hope I could do better XD

so, this articles really makes me change my mind about this platform, thinks different about how the platform and communities can work together and build a new power. Sometimes some people are still use their habits from other existing platforms, Hopefully this post can open different minds about this steem platform. I will re-steemed this.

Thank you for sharing!
keep a good work :)

Regards @bobbychahya

Thanks for re-steeming and for the support. Yeah I think Steemit is great and am trying my best to get more users. regarding your comment

makes me change my mind about this platform

I'm curious as to what your initial thoughts were of the platform? Any constructive criticism may help identify areas in need of improvement or for marketing strategy, so it you are willing to share - that would be appreciated.

honestly.., I'm not such people who like to write and show off their work. On some platforms I try to do that, but I do not think it works, because everyone may have thought of themselves.

Steemit is very different, here the ecosystem is formed naturally and the creators support each other. They share, give feedback and opinions to improve a particular work. The more important is they care the originality work from a creator. (This is happening in the steemit community in my country).

This is what makes me like getting support to dare to show my work, especially works that can be useful for communities in steemit.

maybe that's what i can say...

here some works that i create for steemit community
https://steemit.com/promo-steem/@bobbychahya/memperkenalkan-frameit-app-untuk-stemians-or-introducing-frameit-app-for-steemians

u can check if u have time..and u can give a feedback for this.
that would be appreciated :)

Thank you

@leaky20 you are so right on here! I officially started posting consistently on December 1st and it was pretty clear to me that in order to actually encourage people to read my content - I had to go out and read there's.

That's a very fair trade off in my opinion.

Once I started to read and comment on other Steemitor's posts, I actually really started to enjoy the platform more. Not only was I reading interesting material, but I also began (as you stated) forming new relationships with others on the platform. Before doing that, I was all alone!

Thus far, reading and leaving genuine comments on other channels, then inviting users back to my own channel has been extremely effective. 95% of my followers right now are people who I've personally connected with, and that feels really good to me.

I'm glad there are more Steemitors out there that embrace this model. It's ultimately - in my opinion - how we will collectively grow Steemit into a platform (and marketplace) that can bring a ton of value to the world!

Thanks for the fantastic post here @leaky20. I'd love to hear your thoughts about my recent post: Expand Your Options, Expand Your Life

That is really great. I'm glad to hear that its working for you! I think you will grow quickly with that attitude/outlook. Thanks for your support. I will check out your post :)

I totally agree with you. When I comment I create a new relationship with the authors, and maybe other people could be interested in me and my posts :)

yeah exactly. :)

I agree with this too, commenting is really powerful, I mean, I can't write and post nice articles every single day, but I can leave good comments on what others write. I believe the relationships built is even a bigger advantage with long time benefit than the upvotes received.

yeah. agreed. the relationship is what matters most. you build a network of like minded individuals and often it leads to helping each other out

exactly. It's a very good strategy i will try to keep in mind.

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