Don't Beg for Upvotes-- Do This Instead

Don't beg for upvotes. That's reeks of desperation, and that repels people. Instead, first we show value, then we ask.

Even then, we do it with dignity.

^{Cover image made using HTML and CSS with light edits using MS Paint.}

TL;DR-- General Outline

Introduction
Engagement, Enagagement, Engagement
Who Was Begging? Fixing Tag Spam and Emoji Soup Fixing Tag Spam
- Fixing Emoji Soup
First We Provide VALUE, Then We ASK for the Upvote Asking for the Upvote-- Right or Wrong? Their Formative Years Offline
- Their Formative Years On-Chain (Especially Steemit Prior to Hive)
Expectations of Us
The Bottom Line
Just My Two Sats

Introduction

When we start at Hive, we all start at the same place: 0.000 HP. After that, the rest is up to us. However, there are 2 kinds of us:

"us" as in "Each of us"; and
"us" as in "us, together, you and me"

No matter how hard the first kind of us works, we will only go so far before we reach our limits. Then we spin our wheels going nowhere, or we hit a wall, or we're stuck in a rut or holding pattern.

So we need to focus on the second kind of us, "us, together, you and me." We may go far enough our separate ways, but what if we made our journey on Hive together? It's possible that we can go further along than either of us could have imagined.

Engagement, Enagagement, Engagement

Engagement will make that possible for us. Engagement is so important, it is the foundation for all the success we have and all the failure we deserve if we fail to engage.

However, there's a catch:

👉 *No one here is entitled to an upvote (or a reblog, or a follow, or anything else.)* 👈
^{(Going forward, upvote will mean any of that list of actions.)}

No one here is obliged to do anything for anyone. That's just a fact.

Few if any people here will upvote out of guilt, either. There could be a few who will do that, but it's a bad idea to operate under that assumption. It's also a losing tactic for long-term growth not just for "us" but for Hive.

On one hand, we aren't entitled to anything we get on Hive. Whatever we get is because we had earned it (which is the way we want it).

On the other hand, guilt-tripping people into giving us upvotes or follows or reblogs reeks of desparation and is bound to backfire long-term. So we shouldn't be doing that.

We can't expect anyone to do anything. But we can't beg.

Who Was Begging?

It could have been any of us as we were starting. Heck, I may have been one of those begging during my earliest days here. But we learned quickly not to do that, so we stopped.

Usually the begging was being done by people whose content didn't add value:

a post was simply a collection of tags ("tag spam") or emojis ("emoji soup");
a brief post or comment which didn't have much to say ("You like red?" "Me too!");
outright begging or panhandling.

Even as they were begging for upvotes, they seemed pushy in their begging. That combination will guarantee zero upvotes.

For those who persist in this sort of behavior, their stay tends to be short and they leave Hive; then they wonder why no one upvoted their content.

It goes back to a fundamental idea we hear about all the time: Engagement. Engage with fellow Hivers, and give them a reason to upvote our content.

Fixing Tag Spam and Emoji Soup

Even master shitposters have proven how valuable engagement is. If you've been here long enough, you may know of one or two; if so, then you know how much they engage with their fellow Hivers.

Fixing Tag Spam

In the case of tag spam, it can be forgiven if the post contains content we care about:

a link to an airdrop;
a funny meme;
a short video;
"item of the day"-type content.

Something of value was added to the post, so it gave the reader an opportunity to engage with you. Whether that engagement was enough to lead to an upvote is another matter; but it was a start.

Fixing Emoji Soup

In the case of emoji soup, it may be similar, just more difficult to interpret or decipher. Beyond this, I'm not sure how emoji soup can be fixed to provide an opportunity for engagement. Do this often enough with the wrong people, however, and you guarantee that you won't get any upvotes-- or, even worse, you will have earned a downvote from someone with significant stake; that's not what you want.

Either way, something of value needs to be added. Even shitposting can earn upvotes when value is added, and the fact that master shitposters exist is proof of this.

So what are we left to do?

First We Provide VALUE, Then We ASK for the Upvote

We take time to do research as needed. We write draft and re-draft. We source when necessary. We make cover images or thumbnails. We may even collaborate with others. The only thing left to do is simply ask for the upvote.

Isn't asking the same as begging? It is not, and here is how it is different:

We provided value to the reader first.

If the reader believes we provided value in some way--

previously unknown details or facts;
hard data to backup a position;
context or clarification;
a Eureka! moment;
a list of options previously not considered;
even a funny meme to break up a lousy day;

-- then the reader will not bat an eyelash at being asked to freely give an upvote. This isn't to say we will always get an upvote, especially if someone reads our content for the first time. Only after we demonstrate a record of adding value with our content will people give take a chance on us and give us an upvote.

It's like taking time to sell a product or service only to drop the ball by failing to ask for the sale.

The worst thing that happens if we ask for the upvote after we added value is we don't get the upvote this time. The more often we provide content with value, the more chances we have to ask for upvotes.

Asking for the Upvote-- Right or Wrong?

For some people, even asking for the upvote in considered bad form. Why would this be the case? It could be due to what they learned during their formative years.

Their Formative Years Offline

In this case, it could be generational. Even if they've come to tolerate "asking for the upvote," this isn't the same as encouraging that behavior or attitude. It's just not what polite people did. Or it was misinterpreted as begging.

Long ago I grew up in a culture where (upon reflection) engagement was encouraged:

We first engaged a customer by saying hello.
Next, we engaged with that customer by answering questions about a product or service.
Finally, we "asked for the upvote" after we engaged as described above.

If we engaged well enough with the customer, the customer returned to make future purchases. Even if a customer returned a product, we still engaged for the purpose of trying to solve a problem: either exchange the product with one equal or better, or simply refund the purchase price plus the tax. While it wasn't fun to take back a big-ticket item, losing the customer was even worse. So engagement was an all-the-time thing.

Whatever else happened, it was expected of us to "ask for the sale" because it was how we closed sales and gave ourselves a final opportunity to add an impulse buy to a purchase. As a result, the greatest sales came not from high-priced merchandise but from whatever was near the cash register. In this way, a grocery store was the same as a high-end jewelry store.

Their Formative Years On-Chain (Especially Steemit Prior to Hive)

Depending on when a Hiver became active on-chain (especially if the Hiver is one who made the exodus from Steemit), it could be a similar situation. I only know Hive from 2021, and that must have been different from Hive in the first days just after Hive-D4. Either way, Hive culture differed from Steemit culture. Attitudes were different, and some were ingrained earlier than others.

When I joined Hive via Ecency (and later discovered LeoFinance), I found Hivers and Leos who "asked for the upvote" in the "signature" sections of their posts. Some of these Hivers and Leos had posts with literally hundreds of upvotes, yet they continued to ask for the upvote in the "signature" sections of their posts. That was my cue to follow their example and to continue the philosophy I had learned long ago in retail.

Expectations of Us

When we engage with each other, we have to realize that none of us is obligated to do anything for anyone. As @shadowspub noted in his post titled "Creating Content on the Blockchain Part 2 -- Taking Your First Steps,"

Don’t expect follow for follow. Don’t ask for follows. It’s considered bad manners.

This shows how culture and our formative years shape our views of the same actions.

@shadowspub and I agree on the first point, but we differ on the second point. Before I could add my two sats, @nathanmars refined the expectations with his comment, quoted here:

Don’t expect follow for follow. Don’t ask for follows

I would also add

Don’t expect upvote to upvote. Don’t ask for upvote.

Organic growth is healthy and sustainable.

For @nathanmars (as with @shadowspub), I agree with his first point and differ with him on his second point. I also agree with his final point that "[o]rganic growth is healthy and sustainable."

Given the positions we all had (along with other fellow Hivers who engaged in the conversation weeks before I discovered the original post), I added this in one of my comments to the conversation:

Value for value. Only when value is given for value can anything else be earned.

^{(Emphasis in original)}

I added more in additional comments, and those additional comments form the basis for this post.

My intention was to find a point on which all of us could agree as we move forward on our journey through Hive. I can't change anyone else's mind; the best I can do is present my point of view. Only the people reading this post whose opinions differ from mine can change their minds.

The Bottom Line

Engagement is how we grow as Hivers, and engagement goes both ways. When we give value through our content and add value through our engagement, only then is it OK (in my opinion) to ask for the upvote. Even then, asking doesn't mean expecting. If we earned the upvote through the value we added, the upvote will be given to us freely. If we didn't earn the upvote, we didn't earn it this time.

As we engage with each other, we also offer each other something even more precious than the upvote: time. Whether we earn upvotes or not, we offered each other our time as we engaged with each other. Once time is spent, time is gone and we'll never get it back. This is another reason why upvotes are given freely to people who have earned them.

Just My Two Sats

When we join Hive, we all start at 0.000 HP. After that, we earn at various rates. The earnings come from the upvotes we receive, and we only earn upvotes when we engage with our fellow Hivers.

But no one owes anyone else any upvotes. Upvotes are freely given when we add value to a post or in a comment. By continuously engaging with our fellow Hivers, we give everyone else-- and ourselves-- more opportunities to ask for the upvote.

The culture in which we spent our formative years determines our attitudes regarding the asking for the upvote. This isn't to say one is right and one is wrong, but it's important enough to realize that these different perspectives exist and we need to acknowledge them. What we don't want to be is pushy or aggressive even as we post something with minimal to zero value. The best way to ensure an earned upvote is to engage with our fellow Hivers no matter where we find ourselves.

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"...to make up for..."
LeoFinance	https://leofinance.io/@magnacarta
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