Hello everyone and welcome to the amazing community of Steemit.

As an absolute newbie, I joined here 6 days ago and already reached reputation level of around 40 in just six days, using 100% organic ways and means of growth. There are certainly people who made more than I did over the same timeframe, but also I still see many minnows, lots of whom are older than me trying to break through using completely wrong ways. This is why I want to share some of the basic rules in this community that are proven to make you break through in your early days quickly.

For now, I will sustain from anything related to the Steem crypto, Steem Power, Powering Up and payouts. My first weekly cycle is still not over so I am not much about the financial part. I am now concentrating on how to contribute well to Steemit. This is the core idea of this whole post as well.

POSTING

1. Use only genuine content. Do NOT plagiarize at any cost! Do NOT steal multimedia (photos, graphics, video, and audio) from other sources. Use your own. If you want to write about an event or thing that just a few people had a chance to photograph or record, find a non-watermarked image on the Web and give credits to it.
2. Post only high-quality content which means: quality images using quality equipment. Quick Hint: a cheap $100 digital camera can make better photos than a flagship phone worth $800.
3. Write only in the niches you are knowledgeable at. You can also share your opinions on anything, but it has to be grounded with strong arguments.
4. Do not post more than 4 times a day. Every post after the 4th one drastically lowers your reward stake.
5. PROOFREAD!
6. Find time to learn some Markdown. Markdown is the styling syntax of Steemit. The Markdown styling guide link is below the right corner of your writing area. If you have difficulties understanding it, try various codes and see what they do in the post preview below the typing area while writing.
7. Share your posts on appropriate social networks. If your post is a photo art, it goes to Instagram. Travel blogs may go to Facebook and TripAdvisor. Cryptocurrency insights and news naturally belong to LinkedIn. You should share each blog post on two or three social networks.
8. Use five tags for every post. Do not miscategorize. It is lame and can get you penalized AFAIK.

COMMENTS

1. Comment on trending posts in every category of your interest. If people find worth in your replies, you will quickly grow audience, in particular, those highly ranked who can bring a GIANT boost of your power and affluence on the blockchain.
2. Find time to answer all comments on your posts. This will keep your blog visitors engaged, and increases their chance of clicking Follow.
3. Be kind and nice, even towards the people you don't agree with.

NETWORKING

1. Try to build close relationships with correspondents from comment threads on your posts and those of others.
2. Use reward pools to grow your audience quick. IT IS ESSENTIAL FOR MINNOWS! But look only for legitimate ones that do not make upvote-for-upvote or anything else that can harm your reputation. I sincerely recommend SteemFollower. This system requires you to make between 5 and 10 upvotes every day but doesn't guarantee any upvotes back to you. Only quality content that gains the attention of other users gets upvotes there. SteemFollower also has many reputable posters, not just minnows, and can bring you really valuable upvotes.
3. Use some of the Discord chat groups to socialize with more people and share posts with other Steemians. There are tons of these, and you are very likely bombarded with invites.
4. Spread the word about Steemit among people who never heard (enough) about it. Albeit there is no referral program to reward you for bringing people, it can help you build your own pool.
5. Follow anyone who seems friendly and valuable to you. By valuable, I mean their content quality, not the reputation level in the brackets behind their username.

UPVOTING

1. Do not go upvote rushes. Browse as much content as you can and upvote only those posts and comments you really like.
2. DO NOT USE VOTE BOTS!!!!!111 Although they're used by many Steemians and lots of them, even including some whales swear in their efficiency, it is too early for this. Many bots can make you a harm, or at best, you will waste money or SteemPower. First familiarize with Steemit, Steem blockchain and the blockchain technology in general before you start playing with and paying for vote bots. The best would be to maake soooo good content and draw the attention of valuable Steemians quickly and you will never ever need vote bots.
3. Upvotes and comments usually go together.

LEARNING

At this early stage, this should be the most important point. I shared most of my knowledge so far, but for sure there is still a plethora of stuff I missed but I sholudn't. Hadn't I missed them, maybe I would've been at reputation level 50 now. Or even a whale. But Take Steemit as a science and find time to learn. Focus on legitimate stuff. And be blogger-minded rather than business-minded.

Feel free to leave comments and help me and others with something that can be added to these tips, but I did not mention due to oblivion.

Concentrate on quality and learning. Not on earnings. If you remain persistent in making quality posts and growing relevant audience, monies will certainly come.