How To Improve Your Posts
Sometimes we get asked the question of why a certain post didn't receive a high amount of curation rewards. Typically, there could be a number of different reasons as to why a post hasn't been chosen: perhaps the person is frequently posting and already receiving high rewards, or perhaps a persons general engagement within the community is rather low to justify higher rewards. However, the main reason as to why someone may be left curious as to why they didn't get curated is down to presentation and effort.
In this post, we'll be taking a look at the general presentation and effort that we'd like to see in your posts, and provide you with a checklist of certain criteria that we generally follow prior to curating your content. Not only will following the content in this post increase your chances of being curated, but should increase your likeliness of attracting others here on Hive as well.
I, @namiks, will also provide some visual examples from my own posts that you may see for references going forward.
Presentation
The first thing people will notice about your posts is the thumbnail: the very first image in your post that people will see when roaming through their feeds here on Hive. As you would expect, you should aim to make your thumbnails as appealing as possible so that people stop at your posts and click on them to find out more regarding the subject. We see many posts in which the thumbnail is a low resolution poster for the film they're reviewing, which gives the rest of the post a bad look even when the text could be excellent. Sadly, this encourages us to prioritise the posts that do have better quality images in their posts.
This brings us to our next step: how do you improve the images in your posts? Well, this is rather easy for the most part. The majority of people will be watching their movies and television shows from a streaming service. This means that you'll be capable of logging into them on a device capable of taking screenshots: desktops, smartphones, tablets, and laptops. From there you can choose key moments within the movie or television show that appeal to you, and may be of interest in your writing later on.
By taking and using screenshots, your post is not only going to be more appealing to your potential readers, but will have a significantly better level of presentation and formatting. Your subject will be more appealing, and more direct in telling your readers about the very thing you're discussing. Not only does this tell your audience more about the subject, it displays to them that you've taken the extra effort to visually convey interest in that subject.
Take into consideration the scene, what's happening within it. Find moments that appeal to you either through the narrative or visually. Interesting screenshots that show beautiful composition and use of colour will hold more weight than those taken at random intervals.
With images, it is entirely your decision as to how you place them around your post. This isn't something we take too much consideration of, since the formatting of the post's text itself differs from each person's style of writing. Though, we do recommend that you use multiple images in your posts, for it can serve as a break between your text as you change to different areas of interest within the subject. These breaks allow your audience to breathe and slowly take in the information, rather than being greeted with an overwhelming wall of text.
Effort is something that can be broken down into three main areas: post length, context, and style. These three areas come together to create some very fundamental aspects of writing structure that results in a finished piece that is informative, entertaining, and well written. To break things down more visually, here is a general template of post structure to follow:
- Introduction: the foundations to the post and subject.
- Context: the narrative description.
- Opinions: your thoughts.
- Conlcusion: the end of the post, final thoughts.
We welcome our readers into the post by providing them with some slight pieces of interest about what the post is regarding. We can tell them how we found this subject, why we are to write about it. From there we can begin to provide some context about that subject as we dive into elements of narrative and characters for the readers to understand; this sets us up for the areas of our piece in which we provide more personality and depth by voicing our own opinions. What did we like about certain scenes we've discussed? What did we dislike? Did any scenes or performances encourage the audience to think or feel certain emotions? And after, we can finalise our thoughts and bring our piece to an end.
It can be very important that we do not fail to provide strong opinions that dive deep into our subject. People are ultimately not all that interested in seeing a general synpopsis of a movie or television show, but instead are interested in your thoughts. Opinions can also extend beyond simple thoughts of whether you liked a scene or not, but can take a deeper look into the filmmaking behind the subject itself: why did they choose certain colours? What difference did the tone of lighting have on the story? How did this change the dynamic of the scene? Alongside the aforementioned screenshots you've taken, this also encourages readers to engage with you and your post by providing their own thoughts on the matter.
This also helps to again encourage people to check out your post: is your post's title engaging? Perhaps summarise the post with a few words and add that to your title. Tell people what your post is about! You can see an example below:
The Checklist
Below is a general checklist for you to follow. It takes into consideration the few tips we've discussed in this post that should increase your post quality and thus your chances of improving both engagements and rewards:
- High quality screenshots (at least 3).
- Post structure: introduction, context, opinions, conclusion.
- Word count of at least 800 words.
- Engaging title.
Utilising these tips, you should quite easily reach at least a standard of 800 words in your posts. While we don't have a particular requirement, we do look for posts that have a stronger word count typically above 1000 words for curation consideration. Video entries in the community are naturally exempt from this, as we look more into the editing and speaking. Perhaps we'll have another post in the future for videos!
Remember, Hive is a social place in which we come for the creativity and personalities of others, so do not be afraid to display that personality! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us either on Discord or in our comments.
Very interesting this content, encourages us to improve and offer better contributions every day to the community, grateful for this sobering publication! Fraternal greetings!
Gracias por su recomendación, me encanta hablar sobre series y películas, tomare mucho en cuenta sus recomendaciones para mis próximos post.
Hmmm what's the percentage of the community engagement (in addition to presentation etc.,) that would make one get a higher upvote?
I plan on having us throw out more of these educational posts (maybe even create a space elsewhere for them for easier discovery in the future) and this is definitely something I want to address with more depth.
We generally look at how people respond to comments they're given in their posts, as well as how often they're likely to curate and comment on the posts of others.
We have a pretty relaxed standard regarding this since we know not everyone will post in the same community all the time, or will have the time to immediately respond to comments. But we still monitor engagement and consider it a factor into whether a post is chosen over another.
If someone enters the community and posts something great and then doesn't respond to any comments or bother making any comments/upvotes, then we're more likely to just focus on those that do. Particularly if this is a frequent occurrence.
One of our mods actually scouts for good engagement in comment sections and rewards them quite generously via OCD when found. Though such levels of engagement can be more of a rarity.
Let me know if you do want to see this explained in more detail and I'll prioritise it for the next educational post.
Aha so that's how it works... 🤔 Maybe I will check on those that got upvoted soon to see how active they were to have gotten big upvotes (except if it's not from OCD which u mentioned).
Wow, this would have been really useful when I started here, haha.
I think it's an excellent guide for those who are just starting out in the community or have been trying for a while to make their content stand out.
For me, the engagement part for example has been crucial, it seems important not only to reinforce the chances of being voted, but also because it helps you generate connections with the content of others and the style with which they usually post, if you you take the time to read other people and comment on their work, perhaps they will take the time to do the same with yours, apart from that you can enjoy their post and feed yourself with information along the way.
Another thing that has helped me a lot to improve my experience in this community and the HIVEGC (The two where I am always active) is to take care of the amount of post that I publish, both in a negative and a positive sense... it is important not to exceed in the number of daily posts to avoid spam but it feels nice having a constant rhythm of writing and publications, more than anything because it ends up being an intelligent way to rehearse your redaction and layout style while connecting with the community, although you always have to prefer quality over quantity.
Engagement is something that I feel really needs a bit of a kick here. Across a large portion of Hive, even.
I'll be getting a post out for the engagement side of things at a later date. I really want to address it and hopefully see some improvements in how people use this community. Comments alone are such a fundamental aspect of the Hive experience; it's how you meet new people and how you even market yourself on here. The same with curation.
You're also very right about post frequency. I do sometimes see people posting multiple times per day and it results in two posts that ultimately are too overwhelming for anyone to properly enjoy. And it ruins the experience for the poster as well given they could've spent that time putting in the effort of a single post which is much more likely to attract attention.
My personal limit for posts in a single community is one post per day. If you're posting more than once in the same community in a single day, you're doing something wrong and most certainly sabotaging your own growth. I think I'll also address this in that engagement post.
Speaking of engagement, however: I had the neat idea earlier today of conducting interviews with our community members. These interviews could highlight people, spread around their voices and interests and allow us all to get to know them better. All while rewarding them in those posts. Great idea, huh? :^)
oh man that would be amazing, I'm looking forward to see how you're going to address that idea. 😎👍
Engagement is vital, across the board. I spend most of my Hive time at LeoFinance, and there it is a major topic every day. Comments are integral to what we do across Hive: not everyone can post daily or even weekly, but everyone can make a comment which turns a so-so post into a trending post.
This would be an excellent idea. It's a way to build buzz around a community member for a while and to keep the buzz going as long as the interview project lasts. If it's really successful, it could be a model for other communities to use to revitalize themselves, and in the long run that helps the community, Hive across the board, and HIVE the token.
That's correct
Great post! These are indeed many of the things I'm looking for when seeking out quality content to shine a light on. One thing I'd add is subheadings. Headings are great, but subheadings help space out a post so it flows better and is easier to dig into.
For example:
This Is The Best Title Ever!
I like talking about stuff.
Here's My First Topic
Let me introduce you to something I want to talk about.
Excuse My Momentary Side-Comment
I just remembered a cool side-fact about this!
Now Back To My Topic
etc.
A good subheading anchors the paragraphs that follow and are a sure way to catch the attention of the reader!
!1UP
Great point. Subheadings make it easier to read
Wow, good tip, I hadn't thought of it that way, the subtitles seemed very technical to me but putting it that way as you say, completely changes the perspective. Thanks for the idea!
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thank you I will do my best to make a quality review.
This is beautiful and well written. Thank you for the information.
I believe movies are fun and shouldn't be written with much expectations. I write movie reviews here from time to time and I have never really gotten above $11 on my post, but I don't mind.
It's a growing fun community that i love and enjoy. Yes, engagement seems low but there are some consistent engagers here. I know am not part of the list but sometimes i drop by when am in search of something to watch😅
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I love this post so much. People ask me how I write reviews and this right here is the structure I usually go with. It also should be noted that you can choose an angle to base your review on. Some focus on the story, others the filmography, special effects, narrative arcs etc. Whatever angle you want to take it from, having a structured post as mentioned in this guide will help for better presentation.
This should be pinned!
this is very educative for someone like me who is just starting in this forum. am here more about movies and post about the interesting movie I've watched.
thanks for this tip. it will help me to grow and contribute to the community
I’m just about to get started in this community and reading this post has automatically answered all the questions I had.
Thank you for taking your time to share this detailed information, you truly care about the Grier’s if the members of community and that’s amazing.
This is truly good... If I had known all these before I would have been able to make good posts.
Thank you for this...
It will definitely help me make better posts.
When it comes to screen captures or images taken from web sites such as IMDB.com or web site for the movie, what's the proper way to note them? After all, they come from "intellectual property" which itself is (usually, but not always) under copyright. We know I didn't make the actual image, but there could be someone out there looking to bang me over the head with some legality or other. I just want to know the rules so I don't cause trouble either here or wherever else I use screen captures from cinema or television.
I had lots of movies and television shows watched before, but I don't have any idea on how to spread the news to online people how good was it, the way it will look appealing in them. This post gave me a reflection, a certain guide on how will I do it.
Thanks for this amazing guide. I'm more into video contents. I guess I will see how you react to my videos. But this is a well thought out guide and I will use the structure to make my videos. Thanks for this @moviesonhive
Wow. This is a very nice write-up. I learnt a lot from it. Thanks
wow
thanks so much for this
Its detailed and explanatory
Though I haven't made a review here but with this i can give it a trial
Thanks for the suggestions, I stopped for a while to read this review. I will try to give a little more of myself for a next publication
Gracias por las sugerencias, me detuve un rato a leer esta reseña. Intentare dar un poco mas de mi para una siguiente publicación
I appreciate the recommendations. I have just joined the community and I think it is essential to know these things.
Whao, thank you so much.
I'm new here and this has just answered most of my questions.
I've been considering posting here or not because I wasn't really clear on how things work here, but now I know.
Thank you so much
This is very educative and I have learnt a lot from it.
I’ve been trying to write a movie review but I always seem to get stuck at some point. I think I I can finally finish it up now.
Thank you very much.
I find this really helpful and useful.
Thanks for the tips
nice, going to write a review which I've been considering for a very long time. keep these points in mind.
Thank you, this has enlightened me more about the community and how to write. I´m a movie buff.
Any critic can give a great review even in 300-400 words if he has good knowledge about film. Limiting a review to a certain number of words is a childish decision. The quality of writing can never be improved by imposing rules.
¡Saludos! Excelentes las sugerencias, aunque me quedó la duda de en el caso de tomar capturas de pantalla en las películas, ¿Cómo se debería referenciar? ¿Y de qué páginas sería recomendable hacer eso? Gracias.
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Excelente información 🥰
Buena guía para los que estamos empezando, más dudas aclaradas. Gracias por compartir!
Thanks for sharing this important piece of information I would do better in my next post….
Magnifica informacion, mis felicitaciones y los comentarios verdaderamente sorprendentes, muy util y didactico.
Thank you for your guidance na I will always use quality pictures while posting and i also know how to make my review interesting