Measuring success on Steemit is a personal thing. What is success to one is not always success to others.
If you come to Steemit expecting nothing and end up with a following of a couple of hundred and posts worth $5 - $10 you might consider yourself successful. But if you come to Steemit expecting to make $hundreds a post and only make $10 you will probably consider yourself unsuccessful.
Having targets and clear expectations are one thing but how realistic are they without some sort of benchmarking?
So to aid with your success, to help you see what is achievable and attainable, I have created this benchmarking report as a reference to your (and my) growth on Steemit.
I have taken the Comments posted table from the Steemit SQL held and managed by @arcange (awesome job by the way) The dates for which I have analysed are 1 July to 07 Aug, however the posts analysed are only for the 1st July to 31 July. The extra 7 days are to get an accurate reflection of blogs achievement during its pay-out life of 7 days
During this time there were 513,413 Blogs. This is the number of new articles or posts written, NOT Comments…..
How did July posts preform financially?
Looking at all of the posts made in July, accounting for the 7 day pay out on posts made at the end of the month, I can summarize the financial performance of posts as follows
What is interesting from this set of data is that 7% of posts earned no rewards. That seems to be a considerable amount. It is also very clear that the majority of posts (73%) earn up to $1
Setting financial targets help to keep you on track. But success for many is not just financial success. For a lot of people financial rewards on Steemit are a bonus. For me financial success is important as by creating content on Steemit takes time away from my own online business, and has a negative impact on my revenue. I need to ensure I can reach and attain a certain level as a trade-off.
Obviously I am not looking to break even immediate. I am hoping to reach the higher end of $51 - $100. Glad to report I am on my way to reaching that level. A number of my posts in the last two weeks have broken the $51 mark. Prior to this my posts were <$20. Hopefully next month I will be reporting that all of my posts are holding in the $51-$100 bracket, which only 2% of posts reach.
How many comments were made on July posts?
In my opinion comments made on a post is a very important metric for measuring success. Many people on Steemit are using voting bots, I myself am part of Minnowsupport. Therefore engagement is more reflected by comments than votes.
Only a fraction under 50% of blog posts on Steemit get 1 or less comments on the posts.
In a previous post (only two weeks ago) my personal target for success was 11-20 comments per post. I am delighted to see that in only two weeks I have exceeded this target. My posts are on average now between 21-50 comments. This is the top 5% of posts. Over the month of Aug I hope to sustain this, as with the summer months, many people might be on holidays and not reading the posts. I am not anticipating growth to the next bracket.
What are your targets for success when it comes to comments on your posts?
Posts Net Votes in terms of Success
7.5 million net votes were cast on posts. That averages out at 14 votes per post. Let’s see how this really spreads out on Steemit
An overwhelming 57% of posts get between 2 and 10 votes. As a measurement of success, the number of votes is not top priority. I have mentioned in a previous post that for me, the number of votes shows a certain level of social proof and contributes to success. For me however it is not a measurement of success.
In the last two week 4 of my posts have received more than 100 net votes. That puts these posts in the top 2% (disclaimer : I do use minnowsupport)
I would love to hear what you consider 'Success' on Steemit. Please do comment below
Interested in more posts by me? Then you might like these
Proposed Changes to the Trending Page Algorithm
How to get a post on Steemit Trending - What the data tells us
Why I love View.ly and you should too - Tips for Minnows
Great data analysis post! As an engineer, I love statistics, charts, and graphs and it's very interesting to see the breakdown of posts by number of comments, upvotes, etc.
This also made me thankful that I've managed to get some of my posts in the top 10-20% ranking in terms of payout despite being pretty new here. I really didn't know what to expect going into this and it's nice to see my time has been well spent in terms of rewards even though that's not the sole reason I'm here.
Honestly I enjoy writing, sharing photos and life stories, and interacting with other people from all over the world. I've been on facebook maybe 2-3 times in the few weeks since I've started on steemit and I see my time here as much better spent than on any other social media site. I used to get up every morning and spend half an hour or more staring at my phone scrolling through my FB feed while I drink coffee and get ready for the work day. Now I get on Steemit and either interact with others by reading and commenting on posts that I find interesting and insightful or creating my own content if I have something that I think is worth sharing.
One thing people should keep in mind is even if you're only making a dollar or two on each post, it adds up over time and STEEM could increase in value many times over in the coming years. So those $1-2 post payouts could become the equivalent of $10 or even $100 payouts if you hold the currency for long enough. I'm looking at this as a long term investment of my time and money. I've been buying STEEM in small quantities as the price has dropped and I plan to hold my earnings and what I invest here for a very long time. It's all just a bonus to me.
Exactly! The reason i keep plugging away here, that and i actually quite enjoy a little typing/researching/interaction. Nice one!
thank you for your comment @cryptokeepr. I too would consider Steem a lot term investment, where my investment is time
Many people come here expecting money for nothing. Do nothing, offer nothing, receive nothing.
On other social networks you have to put in the work to get anywhere. Steemit is no different.
Great work again @paulag!
Upvoted, resteemed.
thank you
Hi @paulag! I'm writing an article aimed at new comers and creatives of Steemit. I have mentioned and linked this specific article. I would like to ask your permission to include one of your table images. If not, no worries.
of course you have my permission :-)
Tada!!! Here it is. Thank you Paula. =)
https://steemit.com/steemit/@leoplaw/how-steemit-benefits-artists-and-creatives
Merci beaucoup! The article will go up soon. I'll comment here with the link. =)
Upvoted. I'm going to resteem this now :)
thanks for the resteem
Hey Paulag, great work again. I totally agree that setting and managing expecations is key, in many areas not just Steemit. So most newcomers should be looking for anything up to $1 for a post to begin with.
I wonder how many would actually starting out here if they were told, 'so for the first year, and maybe more', you're going to be on about a dollar an hour, ok? :)
Up-voted and resteemed!
LOL. In fairness it's at least a bit better than that. But maybe we could use that to break the perception that Steem can be like a job for everyone. It can be like a job for some, but not a huge portion of the users. I think most people should be thinking of Steemit as Reddit with small financial perks, not a source of serious income.
I realize my recent post is kind of contrary to that...
Yep agreed. This is a blog site, you might make a bit of money if you find a niche or produce original content. Or if you just waded in with $20000 when Steem was dirt cheap! haha :)
Nice to see some conversation and banter in the thread. For me at least it has been better than that per post. Every ones expectations are different. and remember in some part of the would $1 and hour will make a very big difference
yes, that's a bit more like it $ wise. And you are right, $1 an hour should not be shunned.
hey @paulag,
i have stumbled onto this post through a few of your post.
You have really got some good stats up there
and i have to agree with you that upvoting is not really the same as commenting. I do in a sence appreciate the replies more then the upvotes since that creates interaction and validation.
(even though the financial validation from upvotes also matters but on a different emotional level)
I have been on steem a little over a week and have noticed my post going up in value slowly and seem to be getting more responses as well.
the only frustrating thing in a sense is when you get an article on a serious topic that you have spent a lot of time on and some thought get no returns what so ever
https://steemit.com/news/@felander/nagasaki-day-a-day-to-comtemplate-the-nuclear-lessons-with-north-korean-threats-in-mind
and a picture of my octopus tapa gets 6 Steem Dollars
https://steemit.com/food/@felander/pulpo-tapas-tintenfish
it tends to discourage and just want to post pictures of food, lol
still i will keep trying to bring own opinion pieces while posting nice pictures as well
STEEM ON
yes, it can be... luckily there are more projects like @accelerator (MAP project) @curie, and @ocd promoting newcomers
Useful post! Thanks for sharing this. Succes imo is having a certain group of followers that are deeply engaged in your niche you write about. No?
Growing that following is not as easy as it may seem, but yes, the larger your group of followers, especially engaged followers, the better chance you have
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by paulag from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, and someguy123. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you like what we're doing please upvote this comment so we can continue to build the community account that's supporting all members.
This post has received a 0.31 % upvote from @drotto thanks to: @banjo.
Very interesting great greetings from venezuela here I will leave a link for those who can help me thanks! https://steemit.com/help/@gr3g0r/hi-i-m-from-venezuela
Helpful statistical layout. Thanks. Steemit is definitely an investment of time
wow, more amazing analysis, and great charts and graphs. your payout categories put things in perspective, and I'm happy to get into the $2-10 bracket right now (as a goal). also good to see that getting into 11-20 comments is getting into the higher ground, and definitely agree that comments are a great long-term indicator. One interesting spin-off could be # of posts/day, for instance I'm following a few people that are posting a lot each day, their content is ok but eventually I start to zone them out for their "over-exposure" ty & peace (-:
yes those that post a number of times a day do seem to lose some quality in my opinion. Worth looking further into
Great post, there is a lot of good data here, I have only gotten through the first part but I will be back later to take the whole post in.
Cheers,
@kellyjanderson
you are most welcome
You said you had a goal of increasing your comment count on your posts, i'm curious if you implemented certain strategies to increase the discussion in your posts?
Really nice article, thanks for your thoughts and the data.
Yes I do have some ideas for increasing comments in my posts. Such as asking a thought provoking question at the end of the post
Thanks for doing all that work @paulag! I'm also a numbers person and a bit of a statistics geek... this is very cool, and it'll be nice to have as a reference, if you go on and do this on a monthly basis.
Clearly... based just on a brief look at my own stuff... I am much better at "engagement" than I am at "earning" which is an interesting insight for me... and I put a fair amount of effort into creating "engaging" content...
Also, on the $0.00 posts, don't forget that a fair number of those could be "copy pasta" that has been flagged to zero, as opposed to posts that "organically" ended up at $0.00. Don't know if your analysis can distinguish those....
Good info,I'm new here. I want to share my art and journey as an artrepreneur, and help out other artists by sharing some tips on turning art into an income generator. I feel that learning about and participating in platforms like Steemit and Minds are an important part of staying on top of social media/online business trends!
UPVOTED.
very good.
I would be happy if you like to follow me and give your opinion about my posts.
Thanks.