Blogging on Steemit: one year later

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Hey everyone. Klebs here and today, I will do a recap about the past year when I finally decided to express myself on the web, what brought me to the Steemit network and eventually, my own website.

Before Steemit

For many years, I’ve watched countless YouTube videos and thought about becoming a YouTuber to make funny sketches but I was never motivated enough to start. Since then, I’ve started a family and my interests somehow shifted when I started watching some videos about motivation in general and others about video game guides and tutorials. My goal was then to create video content helping people solve problems related to video games knowing my biggest roadblock was time. After all, I also had to do that while balancing time for my family, my job and of course, sleep.

Discovering Steemit

I was still struggling to make videos faster when one day, someone on Twitter mentionned Dtube, a YouTube competitor but on a decentralized network operating on the STEEM blockchain. This led me to Steemit, a social media similar to Medium but decentralized and operating on the same blockchain. The idea behind those is to enable users to express themselves more freely while monetizing their content via the STEEM cryptocurrency. After some thought, I accepted the fact that for now, writing blogs and tutorials about video games represented the best compromise between expressing myself on the web while still honoring my other commitments. I still intend to create videos but that will wait for the time being.

My time on Steemit

At first, I was warmly welcomed by the community and people kept saying the following:

People come for the money. They stay for the community.

That was in March 2018 and while the crypto market was losing its momentum, people remained on the platform and were still fairly optimistic. They would regularly post content and engage in the comments section.
However, as months pass, I noticed some prolific writers being less consistent with their content and others simply disappearing altogether. Optimism left and pessimism crept in as well as bitterness towards users with more influence thus capable of generating at least 100$ with a simple photo while those who write newspaper-worthy articles could barely scrape 1$. Seeing my readership slowly diminish, I needed to leave my comfort zone and create my own platform.

Combining blogging and social media

While I kept on being consistent with my blog posts (still working on it), I continued watching videos about motivation, entrepreneurship and personal growth. That’s when I decided to create my own website: Les Ateliers PHV
Thanks to the Steempress plugin in WordPress, I was able to publish my blog posts simultaneously on my website and my Steemit account. When it comes to social media, Share2Steem was the tool I used to repost on Steemit whatever I publish on Instagram and Twitter.

What’s next

Before, my main focus was on retro video games and now, I’m adding Linux to the list of subjects I’ll be covering in my next blog posts and tutorials. If you’re reading these lines, it means you’ve decided to join me in my journey as a blogger or at least, you’re considering it. For that, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

If you have questions or comments, feel free to reach out and see you on the next blog post.