A Complete Beginner's Guide to Steem

Steem is a “blockchain-based social media platform where anyone can earn rewards”.  An incentivized platform, Steem supports community building and social interaction by rewarding those who take part by posting, voting on, and curating great content with cryptocurrency.

“By taking inspiration from lessons that have been learned from building cryptocurrencies, the cryptocurrency communities, and concepts we have become accustomed to from the various social media platforms already available”

CEO Ned Scott and Daniel Larimer, CTO of Steemit and founder of Bitshares, came together and created Steem in 2016.

The key statement Steem stands by, is how their platform is ‘the first cryptocurrency which attempts to accurately and transparently reward an unbounded number of individuals who make subjective contributions to its community’. They employ a fair accounting system which will always reflect your own contribution, so if you simply participate then you will be rewarded.

Who can benefit from Steem?

Steem has been built for regular people, to reward regular people for their contribution to online communities, with the goal to empower people across the world. As the technology Steem is built on can process thousands of actions per second, rewards are plentiful and can be earned quickly with digital tokens being rewarded around 24 hours after content and votes have been submitted.

The groups of people Steem say can vastly benefit from using their platform, include:

• Creators
• Curators
• Remitters
• Merchants
• Market makers
• Shoppers
• Entrepreneurs
• Bloggers
• Commenters
• Internet readers
• Community leaders
• Referrers
• Sign up party hosts

Social media platforms such as Reddit, Facebook and Twitter have seen user-generated content posted by its members create billions of dollars’ worth of value for the shareholders of the company. However, Steem works in a different way. Much of the value created by the people who provide the contributions on social media and online communities are rewarded themselves with virtual currency.

What is Steemit?

Steemit.com is a social network and content rewards platform which uses Steem technology to reward users for curating content all over the internet. It gives rewards in 50% Steem power, and 50% Steem dollars.

By building an online community which is rewarded in cryptocurrency for sharing their voice, Steemit is redefining the world of social media, and is quickly building a growing social economy as it is the users who earn rewards from using it rather than only the company shareholders like other platforms. 

A community is being built by allowing users to reward other users for the content which they post by using the revolutionary Steem blockchain and cryptocurrency. It is free to post on Steemit.com, which is what makes it perfect for the regular person as well as the content creators, and it is ‘minted’ daily. That daily currency is then distributed to content producers according to how many votes they get for the posts they make. 

How you can earn digital tokens on Steemit

 Steem has several types of tokens, Steem, Steem Dollars (SBD), and Steem Power (a denomination of VESTS). Steem and steem dollars are liquid while steem power is not. 

 When you are paid on the website Steemit, you can choose to be paid 50% in STEEM Power and 50% in STEEM Dollars, or 100% in steem power. Here’s an example of a 50/50 payout: If you earn $200 on a post, you will get $100 STEEM Dollars, and 50 STEEM Power (assuming STEEM Power is worth $2 each, at the current time). 

 Steemit has three ways in which you can earn digital tokens as a community participant, and it’s easy and simple to get involved and start being rewarded with cryptocurrency. 

 As shared on the Steemit website, as part of the community you can earn digital tokens by: 

 Posting – By sharing your posts, you can earn upvotes from community members. Depending on the upvotes you receive, you will get a portion of the ongoing Steem reward pool.

Voting and curating – If you discover a post and upvote it before it becomes popular, you can earn a curation reward. The reward amount will depend on the amount of Steem Power you have. 

 Purchasing – Users can purchase Steem or Steem Dollar tokens directly through the Steemit wallet using bitcoin, Ether, or BitShares tokens. They are also available from other markets and exchanges including BlockTrades, Poloniex, Bittrex, Shapeshift.io, and Changelly. Steem tokens that are powered up to Steem Power earn a small amount of interest for holding. 

 Earning digital tokens is easy, and the Steemit policy makes it fair for all users to be rewarded no matter how often they participate and post. Digital tokens are created constantly by the Steem network. Some of the tokens are given to the users who add real value to Steemit by posting content, commenting on other users’ content, and voting on the content of others, and the rest of the daily digital token pot is them distributed among the holders of Steem power and the witnesses who power the blockchain. 

Storing Your Steem Currencies

 The official Steemit website has wallet functionality built-in, so by signing up to the site you have also created your wallet for storing, Steem, Steem Dollars and Steem Power. There is also a command line wallet you can download and also a mobile wallet known as eSteem, which acts as a mobile interface to the social network itself allowing you to access all the main features of the site and also transfer your funds. 

What makes Steem different?

 Although there are many other tipping platforms emerging at the moment, Steem is different from the rest. Many other cryptocurrency tipping platforms require their users to give something up in order to reward others for their contributions. However, to reward others on Steem all a user needs to do is to vote for another users’ content or post, much like you would like a post on Facebook or upvote a post on Reddit. This encourages users to participate in the community and rewards the best contributions with currency which can be collected in their own personal wallet and exchanged at any point for real-world fiat currency. 

Conclusion

 We all use social media, but it’s probably never occurred to you before that you could be rewarded for the content you share.

Steem is changing the way we use social media, by allowing users to earn rewards for their active participation. By putting an incentive behind interaction, this technology is creating a thriving community where quality content matters.

If you have content to share which deserves to be seen by a large audience, and which you deserve to be rewarded for, Steemit is perfect for all the aspiring writers among us, as well as regular people with views to share and discuss.

Incentivizing and rewarding the users of a social media platform is a great idea as it promotes growth, and creates a community of people interacting with others. On top of that, digital tokens are distributed in a fair way so that the best content gets cryptocurrency recognition and everyone gets recognized for their efforts of taking part.

Steem is a forward-thinking blockchain-technology platform, which could make a huge impact and contribution to the already buzzing social media world as its rewards give people a reason to join and to actively get involved.