![friends 2.jpg](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1519299540/y2srqdvhwtwgxgmtrz0i.jpg) [image source](https://unsplash.com/search/photos/be-my-friends) Steemit is the new way of blogging and social networking. The same way we try to make friends on Facebook when we first got started is the same way we ought to try to make friends here on steemit. Newbies often think they can just get registered, make a post, add nice pictures and cool GIF, then throw the post and expect it to make some cool cash through upvotes, but it's not really so. of course, you could get your work curated sometimes randomly, but the key is in building relationships, not just relationships, but a healthy relationship with other steemians. When I started Facebook, way back in 2009, I would make a post and get no likes because I had just 5 friends then, and out of those 5 friends, none of them were my friends beyond Facebook. They just happen to accept my friend request. So despite the fact that I had friends (people who accepted my friend request) on Facebook, the likes on my post didn’t increase, because I was not interacting with them. the likes started increasing when I began to engage with other people, chatting people genuinely just to make friends, not for likes. the more I engaged, the more this friend tell me about another friend that I should meet and gradually the links was growing. The more I engaged, the more my likes were increasing, to the point that if I post something that is not really meaningful, they will like it because I posted it. As a newbie, you need to realize that steemit is a blogging and **social networking site**. It's not a site where you dump post and expect miracle upvotes like I was expecting on facebook, there is a need to engage in discussions and interact. As a newbie, avoid messaging whales via steemit.chat or discord (not totally though, some are nice and would reply) because most of them already have the idea that newbies only inbox them for upvotes. even on discord, some of these big guys you see will hardly reply your messages when you send them messages, but try to comment on their post instead, you will see a swift response to reply. the same person who refused to reply your private messages will reply to your comment. So **avoid spamming a whale**, **make friends with a whale by making meaningful comments on their post**, if you consistently make good and quality comments, they will notice you one day and even upvote some of your comment and eventually follow (jackpot). You can easily tell when someone is interested in you. once you make a comment, the kind of reply and the consistency of the reply to your comments will let you know whether you’ve been noticed or not. After getting noticed, sending a message to that whale will be very easy because your username will not be strange when you inbox them via telegram, steemit.chat or discord. The same thing happens outside steemit, if you constantly get text messages from someone you don’t really know you, it will be hard to comfortably reply that message. sometimes you will just ignore right? because that person is a stranger to you. the same thing happens on steemit. But if you get a discord or steemit.chat message from the username @ned or @dan or @ejemai or @stellabelle, how would you feel? good right? and you would even respond with speed because you know who they are because they are influential and have some good **STEEM POWER.** So, if you are starting up on steemit, you can either get some huge steem power or come up with good and quality contents. Be consistently improving how you write and drop good comments on people’s post often. Don’t misuse the privilege of getting the contacts or attention of a whale, don’t spam them with links to your post, its very annoying, they might not tell you, but it is. some of them might be kind to help, some might get pissed. Don’t look for ways to send them links, look for ways to bring value to them and making them your friend. make sure not to spam a whale, befriend a whale instead: spamming a whale will only give you upvotes once in a whale and that might not last, but befriending a whale will give you a follow, frequent upvotes and possibly a place on their steem voter. Now that I have said **befriend a whale** don’t start sending messages like “”**HI , I AM A NEWBIE AND I WANT TO BEFRIEND YOU**””, that would be weird, just look for a good entry point to a whales heart and personally I think the best entry point is through good comments and quality post. Your post needs to be good too because if you get their attention and your post is not good enough, you might shatter their expectation where they follow you. ## So, newbies don’t spam a whale, befriend a whale instead. # STEEM ON ![gif 2.gif](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1519296505/cbogn8358qqpegoa8mov.gif)

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