RE: My 1st week on Steemit--what I've learned so far
I have been around a week and a half, and I share completely your recommendations. I am taking it very easy, following advice from several people I trust, and trying to read as much as possible to discover intersting blogs and follow them to try to engage conversation, which I see as the most important point at every social network.
My posting capabilities are smaller maybe than yours, I am not used to write everyday, but I would like to get used to it, and I see Steemit as a good incentive.
Speaking about bots, I have tried a couple of them and used minnowsupport from PAL, it is interesting to encourage maybe the new users that are putting interest to avoid them loosing the interest because their posts are not reaching the public. This is something that can happen when you are new and have no followers. But it is completely true that it is annoying entering into posts and only watching bots commenting, and people self-curating even comments...
Yes, I completely understand why a new person would want to try to use bots to earn more and get exposure. I have not really explored the use of them so much so that's why I didn't really have an opinion about them (though others have very strong opinions about bots).
Re: writing every day...it definitely takes discipline. I already sit at a computer station at work for 6-8 hours per day so it can be hard to come home and stare at my computer for an additional hour or two. However, I enjoy writing here and my teachers in school always told me I was good at it. I seem to have gotten this gift from my dad as he's a journalism major and has recently gotten into publishing his own books after he retired from corporate america. At work I design machinery, crunch numbers, and reply to countless emails so it's different than what I do here. Steemit gives you complete creative freedom and I've found myself actually enjoying writing as I'm not constrained to any particular boring subject as many of us have been when we went to school and were given specific books to read and then write about. I've never really blogged on a daily basis until now but I'm starting to really like it and see the fun in writing (which I always saw as a burden because most of the writing I've ever done was way back when I was in school or technical reports done for college classes and then later in life reports for work).
I can be long-winded though. Anyway, thanks for sharing your experience and I wish you the best of luck on here!