RE: Tradeqwik Dogecoin joke/meme upvote contest
I'm not the one who flagged your posts but I did take a look at them and believe I can give you some helpful insight.
1. Affiliate links You are correct in that we all use them, and it's certainly OK for you to use them. But please, be subtle about it. All you have to do is link to it. So, if it's Genesis Mining, you hyperlink that and the target link is your affiliate link. That way anyone who's interested will click on the link and if they sign up, voila, they've done it through your link. But posting your referral code and asking people to manually enter it when they register is a complete turnoff. Don't do it.
2. Post content Sharing a lot of long numbers about your personal earnings is not particularly interesting. A simple percentage of earnings compared to what you've put in, or a time frame to ROI is enough. What would be even better is if you post helpful information about the service itself, and even better, if you compare it to other similar services. You write about it in a conversational, I'm sharing information sort of way, not like a sales pitch or call to action. You let your readers walk away feeling like they've gained some useful information and were free to make their own choices. Most of them won't sign up, but a few will. That's how it works.
If Genesis Mining were to get a Steemit account and use it to post their overall statistics, that is different from one Genesis Mining customer posting personal statistics. The equivalent of this is what is going on with these update posts. Tradeqwik is using this platform to communicate with customers who have funds under management and letting them know information about those funds. TQ is also using the platform to run promotions.
My advice: when you're on Steemit, relax for the time being about the money making, especially through trying to get other Steemians to use your affiliate links, and write about things that interest you and which you think will interest others. Go read articles that interest you and post insightful comments on them. In other words, network, form relationships. In doing so you'll find what works for you and what you enjoy and you'll most likely also find yourself earning on your posts and comments. And you'll make some friends along the way. I hope this helps, and wishing you the best.
Appreciate the informative reply! It's certainly helpful. Though, I really don't care much about the affiliate link, just thought everyone's doing it, I might as well :)! And people are actually finding it useful, at least some of them; I've been in the same boat as most of them, and would have found someone elses' experience very useful. Anyway, once again I really appreciate you taking the time to write this post, you certainly made some good points and I will try to improve my posts accordingly! Thank you, I followed you :)!
I just realized, genesis mining does not have an affiliate link, it's just the code that you enter when you're checking out for your order. And that's how everyone else shares it too. Don't see why they don't get flagged, and I do.
It's possible you have to dig deeper for actual links, check out this article: http://blog.genesis-mining.com/improved-affiliate-program
Even if there truly aren't actual links it's still a turnoff to ask people to enter a specific code. As a customer you should contact them and ask them to provide actual links if they don't.
Keep in mind that so called cloud mining services do have a murky reputation. A number of them have disappeared (I used to review these services and I can't tell you how many of them were gone within a few weeks of the review being published). Genesis Mining has been around for years, so it has staying power, but even so there are mixed reviews out there. Cryptocoin mining in general tends to only be profitable when the coin prices are high. So right now it's probably doing very well. But if the prices ever drop again to below $1000 for Bitcoin, that's a good time to consider exiting.
There are other authors, for example: https://steemit.com/@trevonjb who post their affiliate codes all the time, and tbh I don't really mind that, and his posts are good too. I strongly feel that people have a bias towards genesis mining here, and all the posts by lower-ranked members are flagged unjustly! Double-standards on steemit whether you agree or not!
It may not be 100% fair, but it is what it is. You are the one who needs to adapt in order to make Steemit work for you. I'd recommend taking a rest from posting about GM, and focus on other types of interesting and engaging content, networking, and in general writing great posts and comments. Not all your posts are being flagged.
Yes, but the question is why are some posts being flagged of the same nature and some are not? Why are some people getting the leeway, and some not? Nevermind I guess, at the end of the day it is what it is, and it's pretty unfair.
I can't answer that, as I'm not involved in the process.