Guide to Hive [1.2]

This is a compilation of tips to survive Hive. When I wrote this, I was writing from a point of view where if my past self read this guide, it would save me from a lot of trouble navigating the entire ecosystem. If there is one post that would set me to the path that leads me to where I am now, it would be reading this post in the past.

If you want more guides to Hive, see newbies-guide for a collection of posts. In fact, I recommend you just read those collections over this post. Warning: 3k words ahead.

EDIT: Sometimes I look back on a post and then have those moments where I forgot to add some thoughts. To make it easy for those that want to read the changes, I'll put them in quotes to highlight.

Mga bagay tungkol sa Hive na hindi madaling sabihin at matutunan mo nalang pag tumagal kana sa pakikihalubilo sa mga tao dito.

Hive has a lot of unwritten community norms. If you don’t have an established following outside the platform, I highly doubt that a lot of people would care about what you ate for dinner, where you went or your food recipe. It’s the same way you would hardly care about people that aren’t famous be sharing about their stuff on social media.

See the act of content creation from the lens of a creator and consumer. Out of the different social media where creators try to compete for attention, you as a consumer have ingrained a habit to scroll away or swipe off content you don't like. Competing for attention is hard and it's even harder if you haven't built a skill set that could attract patrons to your work prior to joining Hive.

Content and Rewards:

I liken the size of the circle as the type of content you want to put out. If your interests are more important than that the community you’re into, then it’s less likely that your content will get support from the community curation or your social circle.

And this goes both ways when you’re just posting for stuff the community wants to see from you and it compromises what you really want to share with your time on the platform. Prioritizing one circle over the other will still end up narrowing your opportunities for social rewards.

You can still do some lip service like you like tribe/community X and people from that community will reward you for it. Some people actually thrive by faking their interests in whatever the community is up to but it can take a toll on your user experience on the platform. How long can you really last faking your interests and still find satisfaction?

It’s possible you can just post random stuff out of the blue on your blog because you got multiple interests. You know who else has multiple interests? Normal people. But the thing about random posting is that your followers usually follow you for the content you put out that they are familiar with, and if you start being inconsistent about the topics you post, you become an eye sore to their newsfeed. Some people aren’t interested in your food recipe, or game reviews, they want your opinion on the latest NFT craze because that’s the reason they subscribed to you in the first place. This doesn’t mean you have to nail your blog to one topic. Do whatever makes you happy posting.

The best way to get consistent rewards is aligning your interests with what the community is into and the space of opportunities grow on its own. This means finding a niche or community that has the same interests as you than shopping for communities constantly. It’s also convenient to be part of a community that is into what you are already into for quick social adjustment.

Hive is a weird spot for content creation where majority of the people that follow you aren’t exactly your patrons but people you can consider online friends. More than half the time, the people you engage with have small things in common but mostly keep tabs on you because they like you. It’s less about your content. Content is one thing that got their attention to you but it’s your personality that they are subscribing to.

Never expect the people that follow you will convert to upvotes. It’s this kind of thinking that devalues the bonds that could’ve been formed which offers more social rewards than upvotes. Let’s not limit our relationships as mere transactions to wallets. Hive has a social ecosystem where you can interact with people you would never have met in your entire lifetime because by some chance cryptosphere has made these interactions possible.

The people you follow don’t necessarily post stuff you are interested all the time and this goes both ways when you post random stuff your followers aren’t also invested into. So don’t whine about the lack of engagement on your posts because you know who else doesn’t consume your content? Probably more than 7 billion people.

You can make the best article about a certain subject of let’s say apples, but there’s always going to be a person out there that will prefer reading about oranges. And by chance, that person who isn’t into apples has a lot of stake that would reward creators talking about oranges. This is content creation 101, not everyone will be into what you share.

The amount of effort you put into something isn’t directly proportional to how much social rewards you’ll be receiving as nothing here is guaranteed before the 7 day payout. Your chances to get better rewards are higher if you put out something relevant to the community you’re into and that community also happens to a lot of staked hive power to upvote you with.

Photographers and digital artists may share one photo or two and these turn out to be amazing content with hours worth of effort condensed into, and they can still end up having low payouts on their post because it's a matter of presentation. Not every curator is an expert at the subject you may be sharing so a lot of times your posts can be over or undervalued.

When you have decided what to post, ask yourself whether it’s going to communicate value to the audience you’re aiming for? If it’s more about you, then there’s less in it for the community and therefore it follows that the community will not benefit from supporting such content.

Answer who is going to find the information you share useful and how many are going to appreciate it? If you blog about your trip to the park, that’s probably interesting to some core group users on the platform but the masses won’t care. But if you blog about NFT games existing on the platform, there’s a chance that the content can get traction when viewed by outsiders looking for NFT games over your trip to the park.

If you trust your content really has value, it will attract people to your blog. It's possible that the right audience for you hasn't been onboarded, was busy doing something else to see your post when it was fresh, or doesn't have an account on Hive to upvote you with. Never restrict your content's worth on the digits displayed past payout. A lot of content out there is over and undervalued and this is just how the internet is on any social media platform.

Curation here is done manually or automated. People will see what they like, they press upvote. If they like you, they will press upvote without bothering what you’re posting about. Automated curation is when other users have set their accounts to upvote you regardless of what you post, or they could subscribe to a curation trail.

If people wanted to pursue promoting posts that screams quality, a lot of users won’t make the cut and most of the rewards will be funneled the same recurring names who are good at their craft. Not everyone is a content creator when they got onboarded on the ecosystem. A lot are just content consumers trying out the content creation gig cause why not?

While the platform was used to be marketed as getting paid to share your opinions and interests, it does not necessarily mean your opinions or interests deserves to get paid.

The community can decide on that just as anyone is free to decide to upvote, downvote or ignore the post entirely. Welcome to decentralization where your individual actions actually influence the ecosystem without fear of being deplatformed. It’s really conceited to think highly of one’s content deserving more rewards just because it’s been place effort on and so.

Whatever appears on trending isn’t a measure of what the community is really interested in (maybe it is if the post is shared within the community but not on broad Hive). Sometimes it just takes a few accounts with a lot of stake to get a post more visibility and rewards.

I don't think people really spend a lot of time looking at every content recommended on trending reddit, youtube, and other social media.

Blogging is an unreliable way to earn. Your content can get downvote, ignored, market prices going down, and lose support systems throughout the course of your stay. There are other ways to earn from the ecosystem and passively if you bother to learn it. Relying solely on blogging rewards would mean no income during days when you are sick or just not up to writing anything.

Posting to earn is also vulnerable to people's whims. Mainstream curation habits are see what you like, click upvote. There are curators that take more time examining the post and author but even that art goes under appreciated because the end point is clicking upvote. The rewards your post could have been well deserved but because the curator doesn't like you, it's not going to get you any votes. There is a human element to the social rewards, deal with it.

Between you and a random stranger, I think it's fairly easy to tell which one your friend on the platform will likely vote on even if they don't really look at your posts. Keep this in mind when looking at users that have a large network. It's not the content that's being supported, it's the person.

A post's visibility usually has around 48 to 72 hours before it fades away from people's minds. If it's really useful, people can comeback to it months or years after and that's when you know you've done something that has value (unless it's a drama post). That's why it's less about your posts and more about you that people will remember.

Getting paid for sharing your content is on Hive is a giant leap when it comes to content creators monetizing their content. It takes 3 years to earn cents from ads, and 5 years to get anywhere near dollars for bloggers on average. This is under the assumption you are consistently putting out content people would want to come back to and most creators quit during the first year.

Engagement:

Getting your posts ignored because you don’t have a lot of stake, are a nobody, or people who happen to pass by it don’t find it worth engaging is just as common as what you would be doing on other social media platforms to other people that share their stuff.

While Hive may have a lot of active users visiting the site, it doesn’t necessarily mean the average user would go out their way to browse what other people are up to because everyone is self-absorbed with their own preoccupations and find something else that can distract them from the internet.

Hive is a small ecosystem and it’s even smaller when you have to think about competing with other creators for attention. It’s unlikely that you’ll find yourself spending a lot of time using Google translate to figure out what other people are posting in a language you don’t know. It’s probably good if you have the time for that but majority don’t. And the same could be expected about other Hive users that could’ve have curated your post but got turned away by the language barrier.

Never expect a discussion but always be ready to converse when the opportunity presents. People don’t generally go on social media to discuss, there are other better avenues for those. If a discussion does arise, do not expect that the other party may be as invested as you on the conversation.

It’s never a wrong move to put more effort into growing your network. The amount of social rewards you receive is directly proportional to how much you’re willing to invest in other people. Why should the community care about you when you can’t even be bothered to care about the community? Everything is a give and take and attention online is no exception. You have to earn your audience first and that means putting out consistent content with that they want to see, be likeable, or useful to the community you belong.

Mistakes:

By all means necessary, avoid doing stupid shit you don’t want to be accountable for. Acts of plagiarism, spam, and other shenanigans that goes against community values should be taken seriously because the blockchain does not forgive and a permanent record about your mistake will be pulled up and used against you regardless of whether you have reformed or not. Losing credibility isn’t worth the pocket change of upvotes you could receive and it just limits your future on the platform.

Instead of trying to be someone that earns a lot of votes, strive to be someone worthy of people's support and praise first. Earn your audience first and then you may as well earn the support too.

You Reap What You Sow

Let’s say you haven’t invested anything into the platform other than your time and effort to make some posts. You get some free stake from those that supported your posting. Now if you spent a lot of your time poweringdown and cashing out, don’t ask about why some users that staked more get a better harvest when you ate your seeds freely given.

Never go Karen in begging for support. This is a platform where there are people that haven’t invested into the token complaining about lack of support from those that actually invested in it. You don’t want random people telling you how you should use your money. Not a financial advice but maybe there’s a good chance you can raise your curation rewards if you staked up more? Maybe?

Everyone is entitled to have an opinion but it doesn’t mean that free speech has no consequence. In a platform where you can freely express your ideas on a global scale, you think grown ass adults should know better than to expect 100% support from any idea they spout. So if you get flak for expressing a piece of your mind, that’s normal.

If this was your standard social media, most problems could be fixed by reporting users and have those accounts deplatformed but it’s not. Free speech has nothing to do with rewards. Your posts and comments may get muted but it only takes another click from your patrons to see what you got going. Whenever someone arguing about censorship and using deprivation of social rewards as a support, it’s like undermining real people who really deserve the visibility and they don’t even speak out for rewards.

The message is beyond whining about pending rewards. There are real social issues out there about censorship online where people wish their advocacy can be seen if only it takes an extra click to display the content. It’s on Hive where you can see people go reee for some pocket change then cry foul at the system before they elaborate how successful they are off the platform.

Look First Before You Post

Hive has a long history of drama so when you see people argue about something, there’s always going to be someone commenting about a related link that pulls you into a rabbit hole. Because those dramas can’t be censored and are readily accessible for people that know where to look, you can actually appreciate how events transpired in the timeline.

This is probably one of the most inconvenient parts about thriving in a community that has a long history on the blockchain. That’s why you need to get a feel for the people within the community and observe the norms existing before you decide to make a splash. A lot of problems could be avoided if one takes the time to look at the community rules before they post.

It doesn’t hurt to ask when unsure.

Community is the Core of Everything

Having a core group you can grow along on the ecosystem affects the quality of user experience. When everyone else rejects you, you will need people that still cut you some slack for your shortcomings and they expect you to do the same for them for their down times. There’s a limit to how much motivated you can be by just being driven to post for cash. You need people around you to celebrate the small victories and share the drama. This isn’t just some feel good shit talk because no one else can understand you better on the blockchain than the people you grew along with in the platform.

You may be continents apart or live in a different time zone, your connections may not give the upvotes that can make you rich, but with all the shit that’s been going on with the platform and the world out there it’s not really a bad idea to have a few people online to chill and chat.

About the Author:

I wanted to make the post pretty but then got lazy. It’s just too much work for I'm just a shitposter.

If you made it this far reading, thank you for your time.