Hello, Steemians!

I have decided to participate in @timcliff's STEEM "Shilling" contest. Why? Well, aside from the obvious reason that it's an awesome contest to participate in, I think steemit really has great potential. I have only been on steemit for a little over a month, and I am already impressed with steemit and the supportive community that keeps it running. So, naturally, I wanted to "shill" others with this.

Here was my proposal I made in the comment section of the contest:

I plan on joining several cryptocurrency/bitcoin groups on Facebook, to be able to connect with several thousands of people who are already investing in cryptocurrencies. People who are aware of the cryptocurrency world, but might not be aware of steemit. I plan on putting my graphic design skills to good use, to either make a catchy photo ad or GIF, share it throughout those groups, along with some basic info about steemit, hopefully intriguing them into taking a look at it for themselves! I plan on doing it in a way that's informative and engaging, rather than in a way that is trolling. They won't even know they are being shilled!

So for the last 3 days I have been hard at work shilling. And I am still not done. I am going to update this post again before the contest deadline with more results.

So far, I have joined 20 bitcoin/cryptocurrency groups on Facebook. These are the two GIFS I made to advertise steemit:

and

Here are the groups I have shilled so far:

• Cryptocurrency Investing: 129,385 members
• cryptocurrency news and discussion: 2,255 members
• Cryptocurrency For Beginners: 30,003 members
• Everything Cryptocurrency- Bitcoin, Ethereum, & Altcoins Collective: 373 members
• Crypto Coin Trader: 102,269 members
• Bitcoin: 147,488 members
• Bitcoin Official Group: 154,271 members
• FREE BITCOIN/DODGECOIN/LITECOIN EARNING: 76,224 members
• CryptoCurrency: 7,541 members

So, so far, my shilling has the potential to have reached 649,811 people who are already interested in cryptocurrency so they might be potential investors. That's more than half a million people who have now been exposed to steemit. Granted, yes, a lot of them are probably in overlapping groups. But still, that's a lot.

I have also been shilling in comment sections of posts with my GIFS, and in private messages. I did learn something interesting through my shilling though: on Facebook, you cannot comment anything about steemit in the comment section of a Bitcoin post. I'm not talking about a bitcoin group, I mean the actual, official Bitcoin page. If you try to comment on any of their posts anything about steemit, it gets marked as spam immediately. Interesting, huh? Since I didn't want to be put in Facebook jail (insert eye roll here), I stopped trying this after a few failed attempts.

Let me just start out by saying: shilling isn't easy.

What I did, advertising steem through social media may seem simple to a lot of you. However, let me just tell you, it is a big pain. Because so many people troll crypto groups, you have to hope you get approved to join them after answering questions. And then you have to make your post, also hoping that doesn't send out scam alerts to people, and hope it gets approved and/or doesn't get deleted. It's not as simple as it seems, because yes, I am advertising; however, I'm not trolling. Trolling is easy. Genuinly trying to share something with people and tell them how it works, and teach them how it's valuable, isn't quite so easy.

But I really do believe STEEM and steemit, and this wonderful community of people is very valuable and has a lot of potential. So while, yes, I did do this for the contest, I did also do it because I believe in what I am trying to sell to people for this contest.

You're always going to have people who aren't open to learning, who are going to write you off as trolls. And part of that is rightfully so-- there is a LOT of trolling in the crypto community with "get-rich-quick" schemes, so some people are rightfully hesitant to jump on the steemit bandwagon. Why? Steemit sounds too good to be true.

But also, I think there are a lot of trolls out there, period, right now. So when you introduce something positive, there's always someone who is going to try to turn that into a bad thing.

However, because I was shilling on social media, where everyone wants to be a part of everything, I noticed something awesome. On a majority of my posts, when I shilled, others joined in on my shilling! People who are also on steemit, and love it, wanted to share their experiences and usernames too! So I would like to give a shoutout to the people who helped me with my shilling, by putting in a good word for steemit on my posts so far, and sharing their usernames without any idea of why I was up to my shilling. Thanks to @nspart, @elsiekjay, @zaggysteem, @masscollective, @bkkshadow, @carrinm, @zionbrion, @milanfilip, @haseebelahi, and @sarutobisasuke! (Sorry if I am forgetting anyone, I don't think I am).

Anyway, the fact that people wanted to share their steemit profiles on my posts was kinda of like free advertising for steemit because everyone in the cryptocurrency groups could see how many people are interested in steemit.

A lot of crypto groups need to have posts approved before they are published, and a lot of people looked at what I was doing as trolling, so in some of the groups my posts didn't get approved. And in some of the groups, the people couldn't care less about steemit and the posts didn't get any reactions at all. But even for those groups, my posts are published there, so anyone in those groups can still see my posts about steemit.

Here is a gist of what I wrote on every post, though I altered it a little bit in between groups based on what they seem to value more (no censorship, free bitcoin earning, valuable crypto, etc.):

Hello everyone! I am pretty new to the cryptocurrency world. I mean, I would occasionally hear about Bitcoin on the news, but I didn't really understand it and never paid it much attention. If I am being honest, I still don't really fully understand it, but I am intrigued by it and I think it could very easily be the currency of the future (does that sound corny?)
Last month, I was introduced to steemit by a few friends. What caught my attention about it since I was new to crypto was that you can actually earn cryptocurrency through blogging! You don't need to start out investing money into it, only time, for those who are still hesitant to jump into the crypto world.
HOWEVER, for those of you who are already into the crypto world, you can start out investing into STEEM with crypto or fiat currencies you already have! Bitcoin, litecoin, etc.
This isn't a gimmick, this is a real blockchain based platform where you can get rewarded by adding value to it. It isn't a get-rich-quick scheme either, you do actually have to invest time into it, build your following, and earn your rewards.
Well, so how do you ensure that only the people that earn it get rewarded? Everyone has a number, which is essentially their "rank" in the community. Everyone starts at a reputation of 25, and that number climbs as you add value to the platform, which will be determined by upvotes (or, it will decrease if you only post things that aren't yours, aren't original, or if you are trolling or scamming). Each post has a pricetag.
Each upvote can earn you STEEM tokens, which are drawn from the rewards pool. Upvotes add money to the pricetag of your post.
With each follower you get, you get the power to get votes on your posts, which earn you cryptocurrency!
You don't need to invest money into it, so you can't really get ripped off if the value of it declines. However, the value doesn't fluctuate nearly as much as, say, Bitcoin does right now.
Usually the value of 1 steem dollar is equal to between $3 - $5 USD. When your posts cash out a week after they are published, that crypto is all yours. You can exchange it into your bank, invest it back into your account as STEEM Power, or exchange it to another cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, or Ethereum.
Have any of you ever heard of steemit? Are any of you members of steemit?
What is your favorite cryptocurrency wallet?
I am excited to learn and grow and chat with you all about crypto! If you have any questions I would love to discuss steemit with you 🙂
I'm not trying to sell it, I am just a member who really believes this can add value to the crypto community.

In some of my posts I shortened that a bit, mostly in the groups that are just about bitcoin. And I added this GIF at the bottom of my posts

And as proof, here are screenshots of some of my posts:

In Cryptocurrency:

In Cryptocurrency Investing: Don't worry, there's only one laughing reaction. Sigh. There's always someone!

In cryptocurrency news and discussion:

In Bitcoin

As I said above, I did this in a bunch of groups, but I said the same basic thing in all of them. If @timcliff wants, I can include more screenshots, of all of the posts I did, when I update this post again before the deadline of the contest.

I also went around doing this in comment sections, leaving this same basic comment:

I mostly did this on posts where people ask how to earn free crypto, such as Bitcoin.

So, as a result of these posts, so far there are 3 new eager almost-steemians in the registration process! I am hoping this number will climb before the deadline of this competition for me to update this post with!

But overall, I do think so far I have gotten the steemit message out to a lot of people. I have started a lot of discussion about it, and have educated a lot of people about it.

Another added bonus- I used Giphy to make the GIFS, and so steemit is now publicly uploaded into Giphy more than once!

I am excited to see what more comes of this, and to update you with more results!

EDITED TO UPDATE:

Ok, so as of 2/27 I have now shilled more groups and communicated with more people about STEEM.

These are the groups I have since shilled:

• Bitcoin Investment: 74,298 members
• Cryptocurrency 2018: 15,762 members
• Cryptocurrency Collectors Club For Beginners: 88,897 members

So I have shilled 178,957 more people. Together, with ALL of the groups I have shilled (including the ones at the top of my post) I have shilled a total of 828,768 people.

I shilled so much, I actually got called a shill!!! Someone commented on one of my posts and said, "shills on shills on shills" (I've blocked out the person's name so as to not give away anybody's privacy without their permission) I just thought this was humorous, given the challenge.

For the most part though, most of the response has been positive. Through my shilling I have connected with lots of other awesome steemians, I have shared the awesomeness of steemit with LOTS of other potential investors/members, and I may have even had a little fun doing it, even though shilling isn't my favorite pastime!

As I said, there are lots of people who are also trying to sell crypto stuff. So I got a lot of private messages from people from joining these groups. Whenever somebody tried to sell me something, I took that opportunity to shill them with some more STEEM. (an example as seen below)

Here are some more screenshots from the three groups I have since shilled:

I will just say, as a side note-- there are a LOT of people in these investing groups, who are trying to register for steemit, but haven't gotten approved yet.

Well, steemians, those are my results! I do feel like I have successfully shilled for STEEM :) What do you think?

For more feel free to check out my website!

I am also working on launching my own web design business. As a student who is building up my portfolio I can give you a really great deal on a website. If you or anyone you know needs a website feel free to contact me! Will accept payments in STEEM :)

Until next time, Steemians!

~Zoey